Good Morning DINKS. We are now well into the month of March so I want to check in and see how you are doing with you New Year’s Resolutions? If you New Year’s Resolution was to lose weight, are you still working out? If your New Year’s Resolution was to save more money, are you still living on a budget?
TD Bank recently published an article to help us achieve personal financial success in 2012. Their helpful tips to get our personal finances on track are very similar to the everyday tips that I often provide to my clients, so I definitely also wanted to share with you.
Use these 7 helpful strategies to achieve financial success in 2012:
1. Use Online Tools. There are many online tools which are offered by banks as well as independent financial websites that can help clients plan our budget, manage our money, track our savings, and watch our investments grow. We suggest using Adaptu.
2. Analyze Your Cash Flow. Once we have planned our budget we will know exactly how much money is coming in each month and where we are spending it. After analyzing our cash flow if we discover that we have extra unspent money at the end of each month we can increase our savings or investments.
3. Save For a Purpose. This is very important when trying to achieve financial success. There is no point in saving if we don’t have a purpose or a savings goal. Saving money just for the sake of saving money never works because money is easier to spend than it is earned or saved. Saving in an emergency account, an annual vacation, a lump sum mortgage prepayment, or our retirement are all great reasons to save.
4. Pay Yourself First. This is a proven successful financial strategy and it involves setting up regular automatic savings plans and investment purchases. Before we pay our bills and spend our money we should pay our self first by investing for our future. Set up automatic payments to your savings and investment account as a form of forced savings.
5. Invest for the Long Term. Markets will always move on a daily basis and market volatility is inevitable. We should focus on the long term and not invest with our emotions. We have to be comfortable knowing that the value of our investments will fluctuate on a short term basis and we should always keep our long term goals in mind.
6. Pay Off Your Debts. There is no better financial strategy in the world than to pay off our debts. Not only is being debt free a good idea for our finances because it provides freedom and the possibility for extra savings, but being debt free is also an emotional liberation.
7. Ask For Help. If we don’t know how to budget, where to invest our money, or how to free up some extra savings each month then we should ask for help. We can read personal finance blogs or we can visit our local bank branch. We can also ask our family and friends for advice.
If you have a financial tip or strategy that has helped you start saving, get out of debt, or more efficiently manage your money please share with us. We love to hear tips.
Photo by mansionwb
I like #7 the best. Since starting my own personal finance blog, I’ve learned so much just by reading and commenting on other finance blogs. The more I read, the more the good tips get hammered home. Everyone has their own tactics to better manage their money. So be reading other people’s tips or by asking for help, you can become that much better at managing your finances.
Thanks for recommending Adaptu!
Good stuff!!!!!