Ep. 117 | Mastering Financial Goals in 2025
Download MP3Welcome back to the Teaching Tax Flow podcast, everybody. Episode 117 here into the new year of 2025. We're gonna take some time and we're gonna dive into what some goals are that you as an individual or a business owner can look at here in the new year. But before we do that, as always, let's take a brief moment and thank our episode sponsor.
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John Tripolsky:Alrighty. Let's dive into this one here. We're gonna look at, as we mentioned in the preview or the intro, some goals here getting into the new year. So everybody always starts off the new year. Oh, I'm gonna join a gym.
John Tripolsky:I'm gonna, I don't know, do the dishes more. I'm gonna walk the dog more. I'm gonna go to the playground more. Any of those things, but we're gonna look at some of those as it relates to the financial goals. So, Chris, I'm actually really glad, before we jump into this, that we did pivot off of a different topic into this one because this is super relevant.
John Tripolsky:Right? We're coming up on what do they call, like, quitters' day is, like, the 2nd Friday of the new year. So let's, let's quit the quitting, I guess, and I don't know. I can't come up with any cheesy dad jokes, but
Chris Picciurro:that's alright, John. First of all, happy New Year to everyone in the teaching tax flow community. We truly appreciate you. We had a lot of listeners in the last year. We've had amazing guests.
Chris Picciurro:We've had, we went on to YouTube. So now you can either listen to the audio version or watch. This is gonna get salesy for a minute, but we really, really need one thing from you. To rate, review, and subscribe to this podcast. 5 stars.
Chris Picciurro:Why? Because that allows us that puts the fuel in us to be able to continue to provide complimentary content. It allows us to expand our footprint, to have more people in the teaching tax flow community. The more people in the teaching tax flow community we have, the better resources we have to talk about these issues and because these the best topics are derived from our teaching tax flow community, be that of defeating taxes on our private LinkedIn group. That's defeatingtaxes.com if you're feeling left out.
Chris Picciurro:And, so, yeah, that that's my ask, and I'm excited about the new year. I I always do some goal setting on my own. But before we get started, John, what what were you doing when the ball dropped?
John Tripolsky:Oh, I hate to admit it. I was sick as a dog, so I think I was in bed by, like, 10 o'clock. But you know what? You're like you said it was gonna get sales either. You would be a terrible used car salesman because you actually meant that from the heart.
John Tripolsky:It's not like the car salesman's snake oil. So oops. I got a little tear up here for a minute, buddy. Look at them. I'm wiping my tears up and all.
John Tripolsky:Watching.
Chris Picciurro:Well, we have, for the last 3 years, our family are so my we visit Michigan for Christmas, and we visit Texas, visiting my wife's family and my family and both our families, I guess you would say, for for Thanksgiving. So we've made a tradition with our family, just us 5, my wife and my 3 kids, to do something. And the last few years we've gone to Orlando, didn't step foot at Disney. We went to Disney Springs, that's it. We had an amazing time and we got to go to this annual New Year's party at the, it's called the Marriott, World Center Hotel.
Chris Picciurro:Hey, you should be a sponsor, Marriott. And we got to see the ball drop, fireworks show. We'll kick you know, there's a awesome heated swimming pool, and it was just a blast. So great year to great way to ring in the new year. And as a new year came in, I started thinking about my personal goals, thinking about the goals that I obtained in 2024, the ones I did not yet obtain, but I'm I'm satisfied and I'm gonna live in the gain as we like to say, on the on the goals obtained.
Chris Picciurro:And then thinking about personally, I've got faith goals, fitness goals, personal goals, and business goals, but since this is a podcast about finance and tax, we're gonna stick with business or personal and and personal financial and business goals. So I'm hoping that if you I'm hoping that you've started the goal, goal process. But if you haven't, because if you don't have a goal, you can't measure something, this could be that spark, for you to to figure out what your goals are for the next year. And, we're gonna focus on how to do that and what you should consider from a finance setting financial goals, not just what that process is, but also who you should include. And then we're gonna talk a little bit about goals if you have a business.
Chris Picciurro:So, John, have you done any goal setting here for I know you wanna get your, pickleball duper score up.
John Tripolsky:Oh, of course. And you know what's funny too, Chris? I mean, this is, you know, whether it's financial or, you know, house stuff or anything in life, Actually, I've found myself probably in about the past, maybe 4 or 5 years, not doing them in the new year because I think I'm more inclined to get busy with other stuff and then kind of fall into the, oh, I'm gonna tweak them or put them off. So I always tend to do them around, like, I don't know, October ish something. So that that I feel because I'm a little competitive in some sense.
John Tripolsky:That way I feel like I have a leg up on everybody else. You know? Yeah.
Chris Picciurro:You're kinda going in well, I mean, this is just a good way to to get the you know, start fresh. And, you know, we've got goals for teaching tax flow in this podcast. So, we're we're gonna continue to strive forward, and so let's talk let's talk about what someone should do, in setting some financial goals for 2025, personal financial goals, and then we will jump into business. So if you have already started setting goals, great. Congratulations.
Chris Picciurro:I still think this could be very valuable to you. But the but the first thing you're gonna wanna do is kind of figure out, just figure out what your where your life what season of your life are you in? What's your priority? Like, for me, I'm in the thick of things. You know, I've got my child turning 16 this week.
Chris Picciurro:I've got a 5th 14 year old and an 11 year old. So we're heavy into, you know, planning for financially for for school, and they have activities. So a lot of our travel is is around those activities. So that season of love life that my wife aren't in IRN, which we're truly enjoying, many of our resources are going towards those memories and those activities. And it's kinda sad, John, because my son my oldest son's a sophomore in high school, and I was like, man, how many Christmas breaks or holiday breaks or what have you do we have left here?
Chris Picciurro:You know? Who knows where life's gonna take us? So making so you're already thinking about 25. My yeah. My wife and I were looking at next year, New Year's, what what trip are we gonna do a year, you know, next year to after Christmas and that before, you know, through New Year's and and budgeting for that.
Chris Picciurro:So identifying your priorities, like, are you saving for a house? Are you trying to consolidate that? Is it education? Are you looking at retirement? Figuring out are you just getting started in your career?
Chris Picciurro:You know, are you determining how much money you should be putting aside towards retirement? Or are you worried about retirement? Are you looking at buying rental properties? So figuring out what your life goals are first and then making sure your financial goals align with those. Right?
Chris Picciurro:Because if you're someone John, I mean, yeah, I'm saving for retirement and and however, I love what I'm doing. I don't know that I'm ever gonna, like, fully retire, unless for some reason I just mentally can't or physically can't do what I'm doing. So I'm the retirement's important to me, but I'm not one of the you know, like our parents, John, in in many of our many people that maybe were worked maybe in the big three or big corporations, they have that, like, boom. I got my 30 years in, and I'm and I'm having my retirement party, and then I'm not checking an email again. You know?
Chris Picciurro:I just I'm not wired like that. So for me to focus on retirement as my number one financial goal doesn't align with my personal goal.
John Tripolsky:Right. Right. It's one of those things too. I, you know, I always reference kinda wild abstract articles that I've read. You know, how Facebook became known as the, the high school reunion killer.
John Tripolsky:Now people are saying that the, I don't know what it was. It wasn't the economy, but something became the retirement party killer because there's few far and few retirement parties they said over the past 5 years because nobody's really retiring. They're just doing something else. Can you imagine that going to a going to a retirement party in the next week? You're like, this clown went out and got another job.
Chris Picciurro:Right.
John Tripolsky:They're like, it just duped me into coming to a party for nothing. I don't even like the guy. So
Chris Picciurro:I know. And I feel like a lot of times retirement I mean, a lot of people that are retired are are very active too. You know? So, where they're doing some type of work that's very meaningful to them. It could be just getting out of the house.
Chris Picciurro:Maybe, you know, I love the holidays, so, like, I would I could see doing mad or they like traveling or they like to volunteer. You know? So so, yeah, I would say figure out your life goals and and then align your financial goals to that. The next step is gonna be doing some type of budget. Now this is a tough one.
Chris Picciurro:It's it's basically the equivalent of stepping on a scale. Right? We don't like to do it. We we but but we have to look at tracking our income and expenses. And that's something my wife and I have done.
Chris Picciurro:I mean, I I I become, I succumb to this, oh, gosh. I've got a couple subscriptions that I signed up for. I'm pretty good at if I sign up I'm signing up for, like, a week, you know, a week later or a month later. But but sometimes I just cancel the subscription that I had that I really wasn't using anymore, and I figured out there's something else I could do. So figuring out what your income is and making sure your expenses, align up with that.
Chris Picciurro:Now we have so much technology. A lot of us, you know, if you use it if you do online banking or if you use one specific credit card for all of your activities, you can kick out a report showing you what you want what what your, your spending is. But a lot of times, you know, there there's a general rule of thumb. You about 50% of your your income should go to your needs, 30 per to your wants, and about 20% to savings and debt repayment. Again, that's just a rule of thumb.
Chris Picciurro:Your seasonal life will dictate what that means for you. But creating a budget, trust me. It's tough. I'm a CPA. I've been a CPA for 20 years.
Chris Picciurro:I hate looking at how much money we all we spent last year on what we spent it on. So, but you've gotta create a budget. I mean, that's that's the framework for for creating these goals.
John Tripolsky:Mhmm. Absolutely. And a lot of it too, it's you know, once you create a budget for something, whether it's, you know, your life for a specific project. Right? I've always found it where you might look at it and say, oh, wow.
John Tripolsky:You know, I'm I'm not spending as much as I thought I was in one area, which is surprising, and it just it it gives you a little bit more comfort in some sense. Or it scares you to death, and you're like, holy cow. I need to cancel, you know, x y z, my Peloton membership, and I forgot I even had the darn thing. And, you know, it's you'd be surprised. And that could be anything.
John Tripolsky:You might look at it and say, wow. You know, Between 3 or 4 people in the household, we're all leasing vehicles, and we're spending $27100 a month. Like, this is crazy. Why don't we
Chris Picciurro:Right.
John Tripolsky:You know, do something else that's surprising?
Chris Picciurro:Like, groceries are expensive, but eating out like, one thing I think about trying to cut out is, you know, when you go out to eat, it's not as fun. But if you don't order a either an alcoholic drink or a soft drink, you save a lot of money. You know, just drinking water is not very fun. However, it it does definitely you know, our kids have now out of that age where they get a free pop with their little with their with their kid meal. I mean, we're out of the kid meal stage except my little youngest at some restaurants.
Chris Picciurro:So but, yeah, create a budget. And then and then once you create that budget, you know, if you if you're, whatever you allocate towards that savings or debt repayment, that's where you look at, okay, well, if I wanna contribute to retirement, where am I at marginal tax rate wise? I'm gonna go back to teaching tax flow, red, green, purple, gold. Do you are you in a higher marginal tax bracket? Higher marginal tax bracket means you're a red diagnosis.
Chris Picciurro:Okay. You might wanna go with pretax with your retirement accounts. Are you in a lower marginal tax bracket right now? That's green. Should you consider doing Roth accounts?
Chris Picciurro:And then within those accounts, are you rebalancing? Are you is your risk appropriate with where you're at? I've I can't tell you how many people I run into that, you know, they started a job 10 years ago. They've contributed to their 401 k. At that point, they were 30 years old and and, you know, they had a high amount of risk tolerance.
Chris Picciurro:And let's just say they're 50 now. Let's say it's 20 years, and they have a lower risk tolerance, but they never adjusted that with their contribution. So make sure you're balancing your risk and return, and that's where I would I would say that work with a with a licensed financial adviser. Now if you need a referral to 1, please reach out. Let us know.
Chris Picciurro:We work with a ton of financial advisers. We're gonna make sure that you get a find someone with a great fit. But but so you're doing the job of you're contributing that retirement account. Why don't you have someone help you out with managing that account? And and figure out how much you how what what percent of your income are you willing to to put into that retirement account based on your your marginal tax rate.
Chris Picciurro:And that plays a role, John. We had a real interesting content. We had we did we did a podcast, I think, on should you pay your house off if you had the cash? And debt management's another thing. So, ultimately, yes, if you have high interest debt, I would seriously consider paying that off.
Chris Picciurro:It's kinda like just carrying extra weight, and it can but if you've got if your only debts of 3% mortgage, maybe you wanna allocate more towards your retirement.
John Tripolsky:Right. I I've seen a video too a while back here. I come with one of my crazy examples where somebody broke down. You know, they they looked at and said everybody has an ambition or, you know, a goal to be a, you know, an investor in something in hopes of making it I'm just pulling a number out of out of thin air, in hopes of making a 10% return every year, but they carry, say, a $100,000 in credit card debt at, like, 24% interest. And they're comfortable with that, but yet they're trying to make 10% somewhere else.
John Tripolsky:They said, if you looked at everything you have, you'd realize that if you just paid off your debt, you're making 20 something percent guaranteed return. So it's, and that comes down to what you had mentioned too. Right? Laying everything out, creating kind of a budget. You could do it in a spreadsheet, a napkin.
John Tripolsky:There's all kinds of tools out there. I know Rocket, I think, has a a great one out there. Just an app that looks at all your subscriptions and your spending and exports, and there's all kinds of stuff.
Chris Picciurro:Absolutely. That's that's huge. And and then, also, I I would try to get this is really hard. I'd try to get some type of emergency fund built up. You know, 3 months of living expenses at a minimum, 6 months at a max.
Chris Picciurro:So if your monthly living expenses are 5,000 a month, try to get that $15,000 saved up, put that website, in your savings account. And then beyond you know, and then and then if you get to 30,000, great. Over 30,000 now, let's look at either looking at some different investments, in in that sort of stuff. And when you're younger too, I mean, really take a look right now at at your do you have the appropriate appropriate life insurance, especially if you start a family? You know, it's those are the things that you have to think about.
Chris Picciurro:And, again, if you have questions, jump into the teaching tax law community. We are happy to help. But build up that emergency fund. Sometimes people have too much in their emergency fund, in my opinion, And it's especially with interest rates, not the best. That's might be something where you say, okay.
Chris Picciurro:Well, hey. I've got my emergency fund set up. Now I'm gonna start saving towards investing in a rental property or or doing something else. So build up that emergency fund and plan for taxes. Remember, if you don't plan for taxes the IRS picks your tax.
Chris Picciurro:If you do plan then you pick your tax. So think about, okay, are my tax withholdings appropriate? Do I do I am I being tax efficient? Can I contribute to a health savings account? Does my life goal say, hey.
Chris Picciurro:I wanna help my children. I want my children to go to college. If that's your goal, you might wanna put more in your 5 29 plan than your retirement a little less than the retirement plan. There's no one size fits all. But if you don't have some goals that you set, right, then you're really running around like a chicken with your head cut off.
Chris Picciurro:Imagine a sports a hockey team or a let's talk about, more popular sports. A football team. Just kidding John, we know how much you love hockey. Or a soccer team. Running, especially football.
Chris Picciurro:What would happen if football went out there and there are people just running around and they didn't have a play? That's what's happening if you don't have a plan. You're going through the motions but you don't have a plan. So come up with that plan, figure out what your tax marginal tax rate is, and that helps with the tax planning and strategy. Now sometimes you can get analysis by paralysis and, I mean, looking at your bank account and budget every day might drive you crazy.
Chris Picciurro:Right? You wanna enjoy the ride. You know, you if you wanna stop and get a premium coffee somewhere instead of make it at home, great. I found myself from getting into a rut with my oldest that we would stopping at a at a coffee shop, not a variety of different coffee shops here in Franklin after school and I'm like even he's like, man, we're wasting a lot of money. So Wednesday's our day to go get a nice go get a coffee.
Chris Picciurro:The other days we make our coffee at home. And and I can live with that and he could live with that. So regularly review and adjust your can adjust your your goals and your budget, but don't over like, you know, if someone's trying to lose weight, for instance, usually you don't wanna weigh yourself every day. Right? You wanna do it once a week or once a month.
Chris Picciurro:So review and adjust, make your goals realistic, and use personal advice. Like I said, a financial adviser or a tax professional could really, really help you do this. So if you're, you know, if you're married, you guys it's an exercise you wanna do with your spouse. If you're not if you're unmarried, that's okay. Great.
Chris Picciurro:It might make it a little easier. Right? Create your so create that create the that budget. So define life goals, make sure your financial goals align. Step 2.
Chris Picciurro:Step 3, create a budget that makes sense for you. Step 4 is figure out how you're going to implement implement the things in your budget. And then step 5 to me is you surround yourself we talked about the board of directors, right, with the people that can help you make this happen. So if you're putting away, you know, 22% of your income in a savings, great. At some point, that savings account is gonna be more than 6 months of your living expenses.
Chris Picciurro:Let's sit down and let's create a plan and work with a financial adviser in that case.
John Tripolsky:Mhmm. And a lot of this too carries over, you know, even if you're a a a sole proprietor. You know, if you're a freelancer, you know, really if you own a business of any size. Right? A lot of this like, we're talking about budgeting and setting things aside and working with a professional and kind of all these these avenues for it.
John Tripolsky:It's almost the exact same thing for the business. Sometimes it's one and the same. Sometimes they're very different. Right?
Chris Picciurro:Absolutely. Great segue to business. So what for those of that are self employed or even if you're you're doing the side hustle, business could be a lot of times, unpredictable. Right? Especially where in what type of business you're in and could be seasonal.
Chris Picciurro:But without a plan, you know, your business is not is gonna run you. You're not gonna run it. So for business, we've gotta be a little more intentional. Right? We've gotta be a little more, because we've we've gotta probably be a little more disciplined.
Chris Picciurro:And I can't tell you how many you know, working with business owners for over 20 years, most of them very closely held businesses. Some of them are small. Some of them are bigger. But the the ones that know their numbers do much, much better than the ones that they don't know their numbers. Right?
Chris Picciurro:Because we've got very successful people that I can't tell you how many times I've heard, like, hey. I made, you know, a couple and this might be you. You might be listening to this. You might be on a walk, a treadmill. You might be relaxing, driving.
Chris Picciurro:You're not alone. If you're sitting there saying, man, I made $200,000 last year but I don't know where it all went. I made 50,000 fill in the blank of the top. I made x amount of dollars. And if you're thinking to yourself, I don't know where it all went, that's when it's time to say, okay, Let's sit down and let's figure out some goal setting for 2025.
Chris Picciurro:So for businesses, very similar. Figure out where you're at in your stage of your business. Did you just get started? Are you in the growth may mode? Are you in a transitional mode?
Chris Picciurro:Are you looking for a a successor? And define specific financial targets. So every industry is a little different. So for our industry, we're look we have a a target for new client, you know, revenue buy in different divisions. But it doesn't always it could it could be client satisfaction, client retention.
Chris Picciurro:But use the acronym SMART. Okay? SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time bound. SMART. Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time bound.
Chris Picciurro:If you use the SMART goal setting, then it makes life a lot easier. Try to be as specific as possible. And again, not all of your business goals for 25 have to be financial. They could be something like, hey. We want to like, for teaching task well.
Chris Picciurro:Right? We wanna have x amount of downloads in the next in 2025. We don't get necessarily compensated per download, but then tells us our reach is growing and that we're making an impact, the impact we want on on our taxpayers. Right? And then look at your past performance.
Chris Picciurro:Make sure that your, you know, your goals are achievable. It's great to have goals, But but makes an unachievable goal saying, this is my 1st year in business. I wanna make $5,000,000 in net profit. You might be setting yourself up for for failure. So make sure it's measurable, but also achievable, but challenge yourself.
Chris Picciurro:So look at your prior year financials. And, you know, John, we could be quite get a little bit of an open book to everyone. We do it ourselves here at Teaching Tax Law. Right? We do a SWOT analysis, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
Chris Picciurro:So what went well? What could we improve on? And what are the drivers to make our goals, obtainable? And then come up with a plan, you know, like a every quarter look at things. Every there's certain things that we look at weekly in our business.
Chris Picciurro:There's certain things we look at monthly, quarterly, and annually. And then make sure that your cash flow, is is analyzed too. Right? Because let's say you have a c let's say you have a sales goal. We have a seasonal business and and and Christmas is your biggest month.
Chris Picciurro:I think 50% of your revenue comes in on Christmas. That's different that's different than someone that maybe is in a professional service that has a subscription model. And then tax planning. Right? There are tons of tax deductions and credits, industry specific things that you need to be aware of, changes in legislation.
Chris Picciurro:Hopefully, you're you're subscribing to this podcast because we put a lot of content out there or the teaching tax to the YouTube channel. But make sure that you're working with again, as a business owner, your board of directors of tax professional, that you could either that you that could be there for you, not only to do the tax compliance work or the tax preparation work, but also be there to answer questions and help you moving forward.
John Tripolsky:Absolutely. And there's so much overlap. Right? Like, we're talking between businesses and individuals where a lot of it if you almost start I mean, what I look at this, right, is start on the individual side and then kind of follow that a little bit through as much of the business side as you can. You'll it'll make your life a lot easier, I think, than maybe going the other way around.
John Tripolsky:Right?
Chris Picciurro:Absolutely. Because just like the just like business, you know, build up that 3 to 6 months of operating expenses just like personal, and then your business can start investing in in different things. Or or, you know, one of the things questions we get a lot as CPAs is that, hey. Can I should I take money out of this business? Well, first of all, depending on how how you're structured, the answer would will would be different.
Chris Picciurro:Right? Situation situationally dependent. But once you build that 3 months of operating expenses, I'd say if you have a significant amount if you're a sole proprietor, 3 months is great. If you have employees or overhead, getting up to 6 months is is probably better. And then you might have a goal of, hey.
Chris Picciurro:I really I really wanna buy an office building for myself. I wanna build instead of renting, I wanna buy something. Then that's that's the goal. Right? So start working towards that goal.
Chris Picciurro:So you're right, John. It's very similar to personal. The goal setting for businesses, using smart, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant time bound, making sure that you have a plan. I think you gotta be a little more strategic and I think the cash flow management's more is is more challenging. Right?
Chris Picciurro:Because if if you're someone that's on a salary or you have predictable amount of hours, let's say you get paid hourly, but let's say you know you're you're you work at a at a warehouse or a factory, and you know you guys are have work throughout the year. There's maybe there's a layoff in July, But you have your income's more predictable as an employee maybe than someone that's self employed.
John Tripolsky:Right. Right. Right. Well, I definitely look forward to knocking out some more episodes as we're talking through this. I was, you know, speaking of planning, I I was looking at our schedule here for some upcoming shows.
John Tripolsky:So we won't give away the, give away any tips or or I should say hints, but just subscribe, and you'll figure out what we're what we're talking about. And I think one of the Absolutely. And
Chris Picciurro:you know what? I'm a fan of the to this. Right?
John Tripolsky:What's that?
Chris Picciurro:No. I'm sorry. You're one of the sorry. I interrupted you, but what I'm gonna challenge you, if you've listened to this, find an accountability partner. Write down I'm I I look at my goals every day on my whiteboard.
Chris Picciurro:Find and so if you're not comfortable sharing their goals with someone, write them down so you could look at them. Or go on share them with our team share them with the teaching tax law community. Go on to defeating taxes and post anonymously. Just say, hey. These are my goals.
Chris Picciurro:What do you guys think? This is it's a group effort. You know? You can't get all your goals on your own.
John Tripolsky:And that's a great way to do it too. Yeah. Post anonymously in there and I mean, you might you might have a great conversation with somebody, and then you could, you know, offline it and and take it from there. But, yeah, ton tons of resources on there. You know, obviously, finding an accountability partner is probably the best thing you can do.
John Tripolsky:And, really, somebody that's not kinda tied into your life on a daily basis anyway. So they really have no skin in the game except helping you succeed. Right? They're not gonna try to skew you on one direction because they want a new car or or something specific. So should work out pretty well.
John Tripolsky:And and, yeah, we look forward to more and more of these shows here. Again, we got our topics planned out, and, it's gonna be great. So until next time, we'll see you back here again. I can't say next year because it is next year already. So next week, roughly the same time, completely different topic here on the Teaching Tax Well podcast.
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