Financial Satisfaction Survey User's Guide

The Financial Satisfaction Survey makes you aware of 20 different factors that contribute to your overall financial satisfaction. When you are feeling dissatisfied with one or a number of these factors, you will feel a nagging dissatisfaction with your overall financial life. No matter how mild or severe it may be, this nagging feeling can have a negative impact on your work, your friendships and even your family life.

The good news is that you can improve your overall financial satisfaction by developing a plan to improve those factors you are less satisfied with. The key is to identify how satisfied you are with each of the 20 factors. Then determine what is contributing to your satisfaction with factors that you rate highly.  Armed with this information, you can develop plans to improve your satisfaction with the factors you rated low.

As this tool points out, satisfaction is both rational and emotional. For example, you can rationally understand that the 3 months of living expenses you are holding in your savings account will carry you through most emergency situations. However, if you lie awake at night worried that you will be financially ruined if you became disabled for 6 months, then you are not emotionally satisfied. So, as you complete this tool, try to be aware of how you feel about each question and respond accordingly.

Here are some tips to help you think about your responses to the Financial Satisfaction Survey:

Start by thinking about your overall experience as you were completing this tool:

• Did you become aware of any factors in your financial life you hadn't thought of before?
• Were you surprised by any of your responses?

Now look at the factors you rated as 4 or 5:

• What is contributing to your satisfaction with each of these factors?
• What can you learn about your satisfaction that will help you develop more satisfaction with the factors your rated lower?

Now look at the factors you rated 1 and 2:

• What is contributing to your dissatisfaction with these factors?
• Is there a common theme?
• Thinking about what is contributing to your satisfaction with those factors you rated highly, can you think of specific actions you can take to improve your satisfaction with those factors you rated low?

The most common contributor to stress that causes lower productivity at work and strains on your important relationships is financial dissatisfaction. By carefully thinking through the Financial Satisfaction Survey, you can start to identify the source of your dissatisfaction and start to develop a plan for improvement.