Windmill Microlending and Prosper Canada identify the helpful questions you can ask yourself to help you set your financial goals and track your progress toward reaching them.
June 16, 2022
Estimated reading time: 2.5 minutes
In summary:
Windmill Microlending partner Prosper Canada specializes in empowering Canadians with knowledge to help them build their financial wellness.
In particular, our organizations work together to strengthen and improve the financial knowledge of Windmill’s skilled immigrant and refugee clients. This helps them to learn about the Canadian financial system and make smarter decisions about their money as they begin to establish themselves in their new country.
According to Prosper Canada’s Soaring with savings toolkit, one of the most important parts of overall financial health is saving and planning for your future goals. That can certainly be challenging in a newcomer’s early days in Canada. Those working survival jobs can attest to the difficulty of simply making ends meet. However, taking steps to reflect on what you’re saving money for and creating savings goals can help you come closer to realizing whatever those goals might be.
Windmill partner Prosper Canada helps us strengthen the financial knowledge of our newcomer clients. Their online learning toolkits cover topics from the importance of saving to dealing with debt.
This is particularly true for new Canadians trying to launch their careers and save money for the costs of accreditation, education or professional development. In Canada, these costs can easily total in the thousands of dollars meaning any amount of financial savings you can engage in will help you get closer to your goal.
Windmill’s affordable loans help you come closer to reaching your career goals in Canada. Our clients use them to pay for the costs of licensing and qualifying exams, training or professional development. Find out about the different uses of a Windmill microloan and how it can help you unlock your career potential.
Key questions to ask yourself
Prosper Canada has identified a number of helpful questions you can ask yourself to help you set your financial goals and track your progress toward reaching them. These include:
What are your reasons for wanting to save more money?
Some examples might be education, owning a home, retirement, paying for children’s education or saving for an emergency fund.
Think further into the future, what hopes and dreams do you have?
It may help to think about the wishes you have for your life, work, education and family. You may consider the kind of job you want; the kind of home you’ll want to be living in or where you want to be in a couple of years. Prosper even encourages you to draw a picture to help you visualize these goals.
Why is this savings goal important to you?
Connecting the goal to your values can help set you up for success.
How much do you want to save toward your goal(s)?
Consider how long you can save toward that goal and when you want to use the money.
What are some challenges that may get in the way of your savings goal?
Reflect on the things you can do to prepare for and overcome those challenges.
How often will you check your savings?
Here, you should consider how you’re going to track your progress toward your financial goal and consider what savings habits you’ll want to institute. For example, setting up automatic transfers to put a small part of each paycheque into a savings account. Others use a round-up debit card that rounds the amount up on every purchase and automatically transfers the spare change into their savings. As well, you could ask a friend or support person to help you stay on track towards your financial goals.
Windmill Microlending · Bonus Tip from Wendy at Prosper Canada
Prosper Canada offers several fillable worksheets, as well as other helpful resources, on the importance of saving, creating your savings goals and goal setting steps through its online learning hub.
For more resources for financial wellness and success strategies as well as information on education pathways, job search and networking, you can download Windmill’s Skilled Immigrant Career Success Guide today.
