Long-Term Goals

"Never let a short term desire get in the way of a long term goal."

Curtis Martin

Long-term goals are those goals which span over a couple of years or even decades!

They range from buying in the next 5 years to retiring in the next 30 years! These are the most important goals of your life and frankly most challenging.

It requires immense patience and hard work to figure them out and plan for them. While you can afford some leeway about slippages in meeting your short-term goals, doing the same with long-term goals can be disastrous.

The aim here is to first realize how important long-term goals are. Next is to diligently make a target for them and meet those targets.

A sample table showing some long-term goals is as follows:

• Sample long-term goals (illustrative, inflation-adjusted):
• Child's higher education, needed in 15 years: today's cost Rs. 20,00,000, adjusted for 8% inflation - approximately Rs. 63,00,000
• Buying a home, needed in 7 years: today's cost Rs. 80,00,000, adjusted for 6% inflation - approximately Rs. 1,20,00,000
• Child's wedding, needed in 20 years: today's cost Rs. 15,00,000, adjusted for 7% inflation - approximately Rs. 58,00,000
• Retirement corpus, needed in 30 years: depends on post-retirement expenses (see the Retirement Planning topic for a worked example)

A worksheet can be made which includes all your long-term goals and plan your savings for them! A sample worksheet is available for download with some examples to assist you in formulating your short-term plans!

DOWNLOAD SAMPLE WORKSHEET