This article is focused on the most crucial corner of the four corners of your financial puzzle. It is the fourth corner, the lower right corner, the corner that will help you complete your overall puzzle. In this corner we find the 5 Steps of the Wealth Building Plan. Without these steps you are destined to live paycheck to paycheck and ultimately social security check to social security check. Let's look at each of these steps.

Step #1: Identify your goals - you must decide what your goals, both long and short, are going to be for your life and the life of your family. These goals must be in writing and you must review them regularly. That sounds like a lot of "musts" but there is no other way to look at it. Your goals are foundational. They are the cornerstone of your financial house, the support beam for every financial decision, the compass for your financial journey. Get the picture! They are crucial.

Step #2: Prepare a Budget & Financial Analysis - you have to know where you are to figure out how to get to where you want to be. There must be a defined starting point. Ask yourself, where are we spending our income now? Where do we want to spend it? How much do we already have in savings? How much more do we need? These questions can't just hang out there. We need answers to these questions to know what we need to do now and in the future to meet our goals.

Step #3: Calculate the size of your retirement nest egg - if you know what you want to do in retirement then the next step is to calculate how much you will need in order to do those things. Once you know how much you need overall, you can calculate how much you need to save each month. One decision builds upon the next and fulfills the overall plan.

Step #4: Develop a Portfolio - savings can't sit idle in a bank or CD. Savings must grow. Your money must work for you and the way you make your money work for you is to make sure it is compounding. Developing a portfolio that will render the results you need to both grow and protect your nest egg is an essential element of the wealth building plan.

Step #5: Work the Plan! - the final step is the most difficult step. At first there is the expected enthusiasm that comes with planning for the future and seeing all the tools come into play. But then comes the day to day, month to month decisions and disappointments, quarterly reviews and annual adjustments. The goals begin to appear way too far into the future, and the temptations of the present seem overwhelming. It takes courage, commitment and concentration not to lose sight of your goals. It takes discipline, determination and dedication to continue to faithfully work the plan. When most people would quit, procrastinate and lose interest, you must hang in there. In fact, the only way to beat the odds against financial success is to hang in there when others would not. If it was easy we would all be wealthy - it isn't. So the benefits of wealth are reserved for those who "Work the Plan."

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