Fontaine Matt - How to Turn $100 Into $1,000,000: Earn! Save! Invest!

One way to help you with financial goals is to have separate accounts for different goals. You could have a .

Maybe you have a goal of saving enough money to go to that show next week. Or you want to buy a new phone, a longboard, or supplies to start a business. Maybe you simply want to get started saving toward $1 million. Those probably all fall under the category of short-term goals.

So how do you reach your short-term goal? Figure out the cost of the goal, then divide by the amount of time you have to reach it.

Say you want some Super-Cool Thingy. The Super-Cool Thingy is $100 and you want to have it by next summer, which is 10 months away. That means you need to save $10 a month to reach your short-term goal of having enough money to buy the Super-Cool Thingy. Can you do it? If not, modify the goal a little. Either you need to get more money, spend less, or do some combination of the two. Another option would be to give yourself a little more time to save.

Maybe you want to buy a car, travel, save for college, or move out of the house by the time youre 20. These are probably more medium-term goals. Again, figure out how much money you need to reach the goal and divide by the time you have to reach it. Lets say a trip to Europe costs $5,000 and you want to do it in three years. Divide $5,000 by 36 months and you get about $138.89 a month. Can you set a short-term goal to save $138.89 a month, toward a medium-term goal of saving $5,000 in three years? If not, then modify the goal. Maybe plan a cheaper trip, go later, or figure out a way to bring in more money.

These goals could be 10, 20, 30, 40 years, and beyond. That may seem like a long way out, but millions of people before you have had that same thought, then suddenly realized they should have started thinking about long-term goals when they were 11 years old! Want to retire early, travel the world, buy a house, have kids or just lots of dogs? Sounds like youre going to need a million dollars to reach some of those goals, so these are probably long-term and ultra-long-term goals.

Lets say you want to have $1 million in 40 years. Divide $1,000,000 by 40 and youll get $25,000 per year. We know what youre thinking. Im just 11 years old. Im never going to be able to save that much! The good news is you dont have to actually save $25,000 per year for 40 years to get to $1 million. Theres a trick well share later where your money starts making money for you. Dont skip ahead!

Its critical that your goals are clear and spell out exactly what you want. Write them down, type them up, or text them to yourself, and definitely jot them down in in this book. Hang them on the fridge, or post them someplace to look at every day. Youre more likely to achieve them if theyre written down and right in front of your face. And dont be afraid to revise your goals. Theyll change over time.

Keep your goals written somewhere that youll see every day.