We put money away for different reasons depending on our personal goals, and you always want to be putting away a small percentage of your salary to contribute to your pot of savings. As well as saving, another motivating factor is segmenting your earnings to contribute towards specific goals: courses, trips, charities, etc.

I guess it’s about weighing up your needs versus wants, because in five years’ time we may benefit more from a new skill rather than a new car; it’s just an example, but there’s a bit of prioritising involved in the process. I would start with identifying your interests and passions to give yourself a bit of direction. At the same time, you also want to consider others, give a thought to less fortunate people, to the environment, and see where all those priorities lie in the mix.

Passion Projects

Whether it’s for work or play, invest in things that will last; maybe there’s a skill set that will help build your career, or even shift it in a completely different direction, to help create a sense of movement and development.

Environmental Causes

Think about the sustainability factor, this is a key place for investment, making those small changes to help protect the future of our environment – invest in clothes that last, less fast fashion and more sustainable long-term thinking when you go shopping. You may need to spend a little more in products or systems that will benefit you (and the wider world) in the long-run, but I would like to think that this is a worthwhile investment – maybe solar panel your roof, or invest in some energy-saving solutions. Yeah, you may have to splash a bit of cash in the short term, but over time this will hopefully pay back in a bigger way.

Be Charitable

Charity is one thing that many of us spend on, but more so when it is made a point of – when a natural disaster takes place, or the result of some key event. Every donation helps of course, but maybe we should each identify a charity to support and make this a conscious investment of our time and money on a regular basis to really help a cause over the long-term. Maybe you choose to support a local community, or research centre – think about what matters and how you can help.

Travel Consciously

Travel can be life-changing in many ways; those tickets are an investment in an experience, and they are also being flagged more and more for their environmental impact and our ever-growing carbon footprints. So, for your personal trips, think meaningful travel experiences, maybe even sustainable travel options if possible, so that we don’t go through life experiencing fleeting moments, and we think more of the long-term with the ways we decide to invest our well-earned money.