There are many reasons to have a “Financial Family Meeting” on a regular basis, but the reason we will be focusing on in this article is to take time out on a consistent basis to evaluate how you are doing financially.

Perhaps it is time to take specific action steps to solve a financial challenge that you are having, well a Family Meeting is a great time to brainstorm, whether that “Family” is simply you, or you and a significant other.

We very much believe in the importance of teaching children and teenagers about managing money starting at a young age, but in this type of Family Meeting we speak of here, we are not including the kids, but rather focusing only on problem-solving and letting the adults in the family have time to really “listen” to one another.  So this Family meeting should just be you, and /or you and your significant- other.

It is rare that people take time out to just “think,” and when we do we can move mountains so-to-speak.  So schedule regular time to just “think,” the first form this can take is your “Financial Family Meeting.”

You will be astonished at how much you can get accomplished when you create a plan-of-attack and feel the power of being the “team” that you can be whether you are a “family” of one or two.

Here are some Guidelines for your Financial Family Meeting:

(1) Learn to listen. If you are not used to talking about money, or you are just learning about managing money and your finances, then this can be emotionally-charged for you, so it is especially important to let one another speak without interrupting.  This Financial Family meeting is a great time to “air” out any concerns or fears, so you can both come from a confident position not a fearful one concerning money in your life.

(2) Set a Topic that can be dealt with during your allotted meeting time. Some examples of topics are:

“How To Pay-Off My/Our Credit Card while Still paying Myself First?”
“What Ways Can I/We Decrease Our Spending?”
“How Can I Afford to Move from Renting To Owning a Home?”
“How Can We make Our Money Work For Me/Us By Using Investments?”
“How Can We Create More Profit Centers By Leveraging My/Our Skill Set?”
“In What Ways Can I/We Increase Our Assets?”
“What Steps Can I/We Take To Become Financially Free?”

(3) Write Down Action Steps that you create in response to that topic during your family meeting, and write down a specific (and realistic) timeline to accomplish those action steps.

(4) Make a commitment to your healthy finances so you can thrive.  After scheduling your actions steps and their timeline for completion. The next step to this is for you to plan on your calendar when your next Financial Family Meeting will be.  We recommend scheduling meetings twice a month.

(5) Some Handy Tools to have at your Financial Family Meeting are a calculator, plenty of paper and pens, a calendar and also any information you need to create your action steps such as this handy credit card debt calculator via the internet: http://www.bankrate.com/brm/calc/creditcardpay.asp

By The Secrets For Money Team
© Copyright 2008 by Secrets For Money™

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