If you ever want your money to work for you then you need to tell it what to do. If you do not know what you want your money to do, you will find your money going to waste month after month. Knowing what you want needs to be the first step in the process of creating wealth. When choosing your financial plan, always start with the ending in mind. What kind of financial shape do you need to be in 20 years from now? What kind of lifestyle do you want to be enjoying? Do you want your mortgage paid off? Do you want to be putting money away for your kids college education? How much do you want in retirement savings? What age do you want to retire at? For example, I have set a goal to be debt free by April 2009. This is going to be tough considering the fact that I am $72,900 in debt right now. I have actually set up a blog to track my progress towards debt freedom. When you are planning a road trip, the first decision is always where you want to go. The answers to the above questions will be on our financial road map to tell us the final destination for our money. The second step in planning is to clarify your short term goals. What do you want to achieve in the next 2-5 years? Do you plan to have a baby? Buy a home? Buy a different vehicle? Go on a nice vacation? Pay off your credit cards? The answers to these questions are the paths you will follow on your journey to your end destination. After that you should determine what needs to be done on a daily and monthly basis to be able to achieve all of your goals. It is better to break each individual goal down into steps so you can feel a sense of accomplishment after each step is completed. Here is an example on how to break a large financial goal down into smaller steps: Goal- Save 20% for a down payment plus money for closing costs on a new home 1. Save 3% for closing costs on my new home 2. Save 5% towards my down payment 3. Save 10% towards my down payment 4. Save 15% towards my down payment 5. Save 20% towards my down payment This gives you five milestones to celebrate and helps keep you on track so you don't get overwhelmed by the big picture. During each step just concentrate on getting through that one step as quickly as possible. This will give you focus and drive and by having the steps small and obtainable it will keep your motivation level high. I find that having a definite goal with a set date gives me the motivation to keep going. I have been paying down debts by earning extra money online. You are welcome to visit my blog to find out how I am doing on my own financial goal.