Money Goals and Milestones Matter - But It's OK For Them To Be a Journey

🌟 I told you we had something new for you: every 2 weeks, we’re asking experts to give us a different view about money. Today, journalist and author Marisa Bate, who covers stories that impact the lives of women, gives us her views on something she’s been thinking about lately...💸

For a long time, when it came to money, I had one simple but crucial target: have enough. 

Have enough to pay rent, to pay for travel and food, and if I was lucky, have enough for a cheap flight to Europe once a year. It was about the scrambling, the scraping, the just-getting-by. It was about having enough. 

I can’t say those days feel that far behind me, but things have changed. I earn an amount of money these days, which, whilst isn’t very much, certainly isn’t the frightening level of my twenties. And so that means the way I think about money has changed. Now I want savings and a pension. Now I want to use it wisely. Every now and then, I don’t want to order the cheapest bottle of wine on the menu. 

Yet often, my old ingrained “have enough” mentality takes over, and as long as I’ve got enough money in the bank at the end of the month, I think I'm OK. And I am, in theory. But this means I haven’t really been looking at my money, thinking about it, understanding it, planning around it. Until, that is, I have to. At the end of last year I was hit with a nasty surprise via my tax return. Turns out that not properly looking at your accounts is a really, really bad idea. 

So there I was, back firmly up against the wall, head in despair on the kitchen table. Yet when I was finally forced to look at my accounts in detail, I realised I’d been ignorantly thinking that just knowing I had enough money would be *all* I needed to know. I was so wrong. After some tears and a glass of wine, I took out a pen and paper and started doing some maths. 

Somewhat embarrassingly, after two years of freelancing and running my own business, for the first time, I started working out - thoroughly, not a guesstimate - my monthly earnings. Immediately, this was a game changer. I could compare months, see directly what work translated to earnings, and how much work I needed a month to be ok, and more; what I needed to be comfortable, to save more money. Once I could see all this, the next step was obvious - I could start to set targets. 

Setting a target of how much I want to earn each month isn’t just sensible, it has radicalised the way I work . I’m motivated to send out those extra pitches, now I know I’m working to hit a certain number. I know that if I exceed targets, I can save a little extra that month, which is motivating in itself.

By setting financial targets, I now approach my work with a new, more thorough strategy - one that isn’t random, knowing I'm okay as long as I’ve “made enough” but one that is working towards something bigger; savings, pensions, holidays. And striving for targets each month has made me better at my job. If I’m nearing the end of the month, and I’m not quite there, I have to knock on more doors, reach out to more people, think more creatively about finding that extra cash.

And whilst that running on empty feeling of my 20s has gone, I have now finally stopped looking away, too. When I open up my apps (a great resource for setting targets and keeping an eye on cash levels), I know what I’m going to see. I feel in control, I feel calm. There are no nasty surprises. My targets are modest - I'm not trying to be Bill Gates - but they have made a world of difference. They give focus, direction and strategy - and more often than not, they tend to make me more money, too. 

🌟 Marisa Bate is a journalist and author passionate about stories that impact the lives of women. She was the first member of staff at the Webby-winning The Pool and have built a respected name as a feminist journalist, writing for, amongst others, the Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph, the i Paper, the Independent, Marie Claire, PORTER, Grazia, Stylist, and Vogue.co.uk and now Vestpod!

She is a regular commentator on feminist issues, with appearances across TV and radio including BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight and Woman’s Hour.  

Find Marisa on Twitter @marisajbate