🎯How to Set Your Financial Goals for the New Year

The Last Installment of Our Three-Part Year-End Series

If you did last week’s review, you already have everything you need to set financial goals. The mistake most people make is trying to invent goals from scratch instead of letting their numbers tell them what’s reasonable.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to create financial goals for 2026 that works for YOU. At the end of this issue, we prepared a simple template you can use for your goal-setting exercise.

In today’s edition, we’ll go over:

• How to create your 2026 financial goals 

• 3 things about financial goal-setting that might surprise you

TLDR;

The Bottom Line

Financial goals work when they match reality. Pick one focus, base it on your numbers, turn it into a monthly action, build a simple system, and ignore everything else for now.

The content

Part 1: Decide what this year is actually about

Every year has a main theme, whether you choose one or not. 

Look at your income, spending, and net worth from last week and ask yourself one question:

For some people, that’s building an emergency fund. For others, it’s getting rid of debt that keeps undoing their progress. Sometimes it’s simply creating consistent savings. 

Pick one focus. If you try to fix everything at once, you won’t achieve anything. 

Part 2: Let last year’s numbers set the limits

Your goals have to fit inside the life you’re already living.

Your income statement tells you how much money came in this year. Your spending review shows how much of that money you used to live your life. Your net worth shows what was left after everything else.

This is important because your goals have to match your situation. This is where a lot of frustration comes from. People set goals their numbers don’t support, then blame themselves when they can’t keep up.

Part 3: Turn the goal into one clear number

A financial goal that can’t be written as a number can’t be measured. Instead of “save more” or “invest consistently,” decide what success looks like.

By the end of the year, do you want:

• ₱150,000 in an emergency fund?

• ₱200,000 less in debt?

• ₱300,000 invested?

• ₱50,000 more in net worth than last year?

Pick one number. Then break it down into something monthly.

If the monthly number feels impossible, the goal is too big. Shrink it until it feels easy to achieve. Boring goals are the ones that get completed.

Part 4: Make it survive in real life

The best financial goals don’t rely on discipline but on structure.

Ask yourself:

Saving or investing right after payday. Paying yourself before anything else happens. Putting a hard cap on one spending category instead of all of them.

The less friction there is to achieving your goal, the more likely you will get it. This is the Path of Least Resistance. Money flows where it’s easiest to flow.

Part 5: Decide what you’re not focusing on

You don’t get bonus points for trying to improve everything at once. In fact, that usually guarantees nothing improves.

So be explicit. Decide what this year is not about. Maybe this isn’t the year you chase higher returns. Maybe lifestyle upgrades can wait. Maybe aggressive income growth isn’t the focus right now.

Saying no on purpose is what keeps your yes intact.

Why should you care?

Three Things About Financial Goal-Setting That Might Surprise You

1. The goal doesn’t matter as much as the system behind it.
Most financial goals fail not because they were wrong, but because there was no repeatable process supporting them. If your system is solid, the goal almost takes care of itself.

2. Smaller goals often lead to bigger changes.
A goal that fits easily into your life compounds without you thinking about it. A goal that feels effortful usually burns out. 

3. Stability is a valid goal.
Not every year needs to be about growth. Sometimes the smartest financial move is to stop things from breaking. 

Final Thoughts

If you’ve done the reflection, the review, and now this goal-setting properly, you’re setting the year informed and on the right foot. 

With that, click and download your free New Year Financial Goal Setting Worksheet

Good luck this 2026! We’re rooting for you :)

Stuff Worth Sharing

The Link Lowdown

• Missed the year-end review? Check last week’s issue.