BIG LITTLE WINS

Small financial victories that are worth celebrating—and how to achieve them

- CHERYL LOCK

HAVE YOU EVER paid off a student loan or a mortgage or reached a big savings goal and patiently waited for confetti to shoot out of your computer? Why doesn’t that happen? It should! That would be the fanfare you deserve. In fact, we'd argue that tiny pieces of colorful paper should be fluttering around you at all times (don’t worry, it’s recycled and compostable in this hypothetical). Because chances are, you're consistently achieving less major—but no less important—financial wins.

Think of a small win as any minor positive action that helps propel you toward a larger goal. In other words, as the baby steps that add up to a mile, says Delyanne Barros, a financial expert and the founder of the Money Coach, an investing education platform. These baby steps might be a monthly retirement deposit, a contribution to your kid’s 529 account, or a little more money in a vacay fund. Quotidian moves really do make a difference over time. “People usually overestimate how much they can accomplish in a year and underestimate how much they can accomplish in 10 years,” Barros says. “Big changes happen in small increments that compound over time.” (Heh. Quite literally, when you're talking about an interest-earning account.)

We asked experts for advice on logging those lowercase w’s. Here’s to making a bigger deal out of the small stuff. Confetti is optional but, of course, highly recommended.

THE WIN
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