You might have seen the new commercials from SafeCo Insurance where a pedestal shows up on someone’s doorstep with a card on it. The person then opens the card and takes the pedestal inside. What’s interesting in all this is the question that’s asked on the card:

What Matters To You?

Aside from it being an insurance ad, it’s a question that we should all ask ourselves. It’s hard to get our priorities in order if we don’t know the answer to this question.

I will assume that for many the answer would be family. You may wonder what this has to do with anything financial, but I believe that it does. If family is most important to you, you’ll want to be able to provide the best life possible for them. You’ll also want to be able to spend more time with them and less at work.

This leads to another possible priority for a lot of people, free time. I’ve spoken about this before as time freedom. If you value your time above all else, you’ll want to take steps to prepare yourself financially so that your time can be yours again.

Whatever it is that’s important to you will be personal, but all of us should be able to answer this question. And once we do it will shape our behaviour and our financial patterns. Without an answer, you will let your financial patterns dictate what’s important. I can’t imagine that a high consumption lifestyle filled with all manners of “toys” (electronics, furniture, cars, etc.) is what’s really important to people, yet we see this type of behaviour everyday.

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