The first step in meeting your financial goals is to discover your financial values.  It is possible that you may not know how you feel about and treat money.  I tried to come up with a set of exercises to help you find your financial values.  I found two exercises that are from Financial Values, Attitudes and Goals by Debra Pankow in the sections titled Financial Values Inventory and Money Attitude Worksheet.

Financial Values Inventory

Circle the item from each pair which most appeals you:

• Housing (Dream Home/Vacation Home)
• Retirement Savings/Investments

• Education: Self/Others
• Vacation/Travel

• Retirement Savings/Investments
• Hobbies/Sports

• Social Activities/Eating Out
• Car

• Education: Self/Others
• Housing (Dream Home/Vacation Home)

• Personal Appearance/Grooming/Clothes
• Car

• Retirement Savings/Investments
• Hobbies/Sports

• Hobbies/Sports
• Car

• Housing (Dream Home/Vacation Home)
• Vacation/Travel

• Vacation/Travel
• Church/Charitable Giving

• Hobbies/Sports
• Church/Charitable Giving

• Vacation/Travel
• Personal Appearance/Grooming/Clothes

• Church/Charitable Giving
• Social Activities/Eating Out

• Housing (Dream Home/Vacation Home)
• Retirement Savings/Investments

• Hobbies/Sports
• Housing (Dream Home/Vacation Home)

• Church/Charitable Giving
• Social Activities/Eating Out

• Personal Appearance/Grooming/Clothes
• Vacation/Travel

• Retirement Savings/Investments
• Social Activities/Eating Out

• Education: Self/Others
• Car

• Personal Appearance/Grooming
• Education: Self/Others

Now Total the Number of Times You Circled Each Item

Car ________
Charitable Giving ________
Education ________
Hobbies/Sports ________
Housing ________
Personal Care ________
Retirement ________
Social ________
Travel ________

Now rank each of the totals from most to lowest. This indicates your financial values.

Money Attitude Worksheet

I need more money than I can ever use.	Yes	No
It bothers me when I discover I could have gotten the same thing for less somewhere else.	Yes	No
I behave as if money were the ultimate symbol of success.	Yes	No
I show signs of nervousness when I don’t have enough money.	Yes	No
I dream I will one day be fabulously wealthy.	Yes	No
I find parting with money difficult for any reason.	Yes	No
I worry that I will not have enough money to live comfortably when I retire.	Yes	No
Money controls the things I do or don’t do in my life.	Yes	No
When I was a child, money seemed to be the most important thing in my life.	Yes	No
I argue or complain about the cost of things	Yes	No