What are your goals with money?
Save 3-6 months of expenses? Have $1,000,000 in the bank? Pay off your home?
But really, that isn't the goal. The goal is something else. How do I know? I know because money is a tool. It is a means to an end.
If you don't believe me, pick another tool, a drill. Do people have a goal of buying a drill? Probably, I guess. But is the drill the end goal? No. The real goal is the clean, perfect hole that the drill can make or the screws it can screw in with ease. The end goal is not the drill itself. The quality of life improvement is the actual goal. The goal of the drill is really what the drill can do for you.
So it is with money. The surface level goal might be to save 3-6 months, but the end goal is security from a sudden drop in income or a large unexpected expense. The underlying goal of $1,000,000 saved might be to have the freedom that sum would give you to pursue another career or take a break from work to travel the world for a year.
One of the hardest and most impactful part of a financial plan is setting the right goals. By digging deeper, sometimes clients find that the real goal could be met immediately with a different solution or the amount needed isn't as high as was anchored in their mind. Sometimes the goal costs the same or more than the original thoughts. Either way, mapping a course to meet those goals is what a good financial plan is all about.
Money is just a tool. What it can do for us - freedom, security, comfort - is what we really want.
-Phil