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Thursday, 23 January 2014

Managing your finances for sustainability


Filed under: Personal Finance |
Yes, you can work hard to earn income or get good returns from your investment, but what is important is your being able to manage these finances for sustainability.
Being a challenge that confronts you,  it is most advisable that you  employ the services of a financial planner to assist you with the desired knowledge. Experts are of the view that learning how to manage your personal finances can lead to sustainability.
However, Miriam Caldwell, personal finance specialists has come up with steps that can help you get control of your finances. Once you are following the steps consistently the stress about your finances will diminish.
The first thing you should do is to write specific goals about what you want to do with your life and your money, she said. Finances can affect many different areas of your life. Your goal to travel the world affects how you will plan your finances. Your goal to retire early is dependent on how well you handle your finances now. Home ownership, starting a family, moving or changing careers will all be affected by how you manage your finances. Once you have written down your goals you will need to prioritize them. This makes sure you are paying attention to the ones that are most important to you. You can also list them in the order you want to achieve them, but for a long-term goal like retirement, you should be working towards it while working on your other goals.
Another step is having a plan will help you reach your goals. The plan should have multiple steps. The first part of your plan should be to get control of your budget. You will need to create a spending plan. The second part of your plan should be to get out of debt. After you have accomplished those two things, you should decide what you want to do with your money to reach your goals. The money you free up from your debt payments can be used to reaching your goals. At this point you should decide what priorities are the most important to you right now, as long as you are steadily working towards your long-term retirement goals, you can begin to focus on the most important goals you have set for yourself.
She said your budget is one of the biggest tools that will help you succeed financially. It allows you to create a spending plan so you can focus your money in a way that will help you to reach your goals. Even after you are out of debt you need to have a budget. It is easy to spend more than you make, and if you stop tracking your spending you can go over and run up debt really quickly.
A budget lets you decide how to spend your money. Without the plan you may spend your money on things that are not important to you, but you want in the moment, and then wonder why you are never reaching the financial milestones you want to set. If you are married you and your spouse need to work together on the budget. This will help you to achieve your goals together and prevent fights.
By: HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE

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