It is halfway through this year. How goes your financial plan for this year? Maybe it is time for a check-up? A quick revision?
When I wrote this in 2009, my plan of having a job by then had not come to fruition. I was still working hard at making this happen.
This week’s posts will discuss what areas and ideas you maybe should be thinking about for your personal finance plan and what you might need to tweak, change, add or forget about in your Yearly Personal Finance plan.
Do You Have a Plan?
You are now saying, “Wait a minute, I don’t even have a financial plan for this year?”, that’s a problem, but not insurmountable that is for sure.
So many people a yearly financial plan has to be complicated, over-thought or grandiose, but that is really not the case (if you don’t want it to be). Â A personal financial plan can be as simple as you want it to be and is simply based on the goals you want to hit this year (financially), no more, no less.
Simple Plan
A simple plan for a year might be:
- Cut your credit card debt by 30% (if you have credit card debt, if you don’t then you have achieved this goal, give yourself a pat on the back). If 30% is way too much for you, then either:
- You have one hell of a credit card debt and you need to see someone about this.
- You need to adjust your lifestyle because this is do-able if your credit card debt is less than $10,000
- Pay off 15% of your University loans (adjust as you see fit).
- Open an RRSP account and put in at least $1000 for the half-year. Make sure it is with an investment firm and not with an Insurance Company or a Mutual Fund firm.
- Create an emergency account that you will deposit $100 a month into (open a TFSA if possible for this as well).
- See how much you pay in bank fees monthly and lower them or cut them to Zero, if possible (see PC Financial or talk to your bank about lowering the fees). My regular readers know how I hate bank service fees.
- Buy 1 less coffee or latte a day and put that money in your top desk drawer (and then put it monthly in your emergency or RRSP account 🙂 ).
Simple as that, no fuss, no muss, and less worry, if you hit those goals, with a simple financial check-up.
The Series
- Time for Mid-Year Financial Check Up never a bad time to see where you stand financially.
- What to look for in your Personal Finance Plan and how to deal with success and with failures.
- Mid-Year Personal Finance Check Up (Now What) always a good question to ask.
