Managing your financial resources helps you achieve goals including Cash Flow Control, Wealth Accumulation, Risk Management, Retirement activities, and Estate Transfer considerations. Your financial plan begins by creating a map of your current situation based on your goals. Any goal can be added, changed, deleted and prioritized. For example, basic ongoing expenses like food and utilities are assigned highest priority while other desirable but not required expenses are given a lesser rating. By calculating not only your goals but their importance enables you to visualize what aspects of your financial goals benefit from change today.

You'll be able to view the effects of changing each aspect of your plan by goal. What if I retire 2 years early? What if I add more travel? What effect will these changes have on my basic retirement expenses? How much funding can I still provide for my other goals (i.e., college, home improvement, etc)?

Below is a sample of My Financial Goals from the MoneyGuidePro financial planning software. It shows the many goals you can use in your financial plan. A goal can be created with any dollar amount or timing, reflecting the periods before or during retirement.