Too many times people have blind faith with their finances. They think that they are saving and making smart financial choices. However, so often people don’t check themselves or their actions to see what’s really going on. But would a Fortune 500 company do the same thing? No, businesses have benchmarks that can be compared to other companies in the same industry.

And it’s a practice that would serve individuals well to follow. Most individuals don’t have these benchmarks. Sure, you can look at how much you have in the bank or your investment accounts or if your investments did better than the S&P 500 for the last quarter or year. But you don’t know how to bring it all together; you don’t have a road map to tell you where you are or a whole view of your finances like a well-run company would.

But how does this apply to your life, specifically? When you make uninformed financial decisions, whether it’s because you’re in a hurry or you don’t really understand the ramifications, you can wind up creating a sort of financial domino effect that affects you in ways you don’t foresee and eventually leads to you having less cash flow than you need.

What is so important to remember is that every decision that you make in your financial life. Whether that decision is going out to dinner, deciding to buy an insurance policy, buying or leasing a car, paying down a mortgage faster, hiring more employees, expanding your operation, buying another business, or buying more equipment, they will all have an effect on your Wealth Building Formula®, your current and future cash flow, and the way you will live now and in the future. Let’s say you make a decision that increases your cash flow, and you decide to save the excess cash flow; again, you can get to your wealth goals quicker, have more wealth when you get there, or reduce the risk in your investment portfolio. Of those three choices, what I find that most people find the most attractive among them is “getting to your wealth goals quicker” or what I refer to as “saving years of life.”

For more information about making the best decisions for your financial wealth, visit tswealth.com.