In my last (next to last) post I introduced the idea of your number.
Here, I am going to show you how to do this for yourself. I’ve seen a couple of ways to do this but this one works best for me.
Don’t put this off. How will you know you have reached your goal if you don’t know where you are going?
OK. Let’s do this.
You are going to need your expenses for each month/year. Remember to include everything such as rent or mortgage, car payments, insurance, power, phone, food, internet, etc. Don’t forget taxes, savings and investments.
Don’t gloss this over please. Include Everything. The only way to succeed at this is to be honest with yourself. Use your budget, if you have one, as a place to start.
Include things you want for your life but don’t have now, things like gym membership, dining out, vacation, new car, new house… – things that you want but don’t need to survive.
Get a pen and paper and do this now.
Write down each expense and calculate the amount PER DAY you would pay. For monthly expenses, divide by 30. For yearly, divide by 365.
Do it now.
I’ll wait.
….
….
….
OK.
Now add up the daily numbers to get YOUR NUMBER. This is the amount you would need to replace your current income and start on your new lifestyle. You can change this later if needed.
If you are too uncomfortable including what you want and not just what you need, you can start by just replacing your current income BUT, I recommend that you start expanding your idea of what your income can be. Get used to it. Stretch yourself.
My number currently is $257 per day.
I’m not there yet but now I have a target to shoot for and can develop a plan to reach it.
That’s it for now.
If you haven’t got your number yet, DO IT NOW!
Barb
