December- gifts, holidays, dinners… It sure was a handful. We are into January now, back to routine life and routine spending.
Those of you, who planned your spending wouldn’t probably notice the hole in the wallet. However, for the others, there is still hope.
I read a post at Life Training, which had some useful questions, to shape up your finance fitness. Start exercising ….
#1. Do you pay yourself first? highlights that before you pay any of your bills, you need to set aside a certain amount of money for savings, retirement or investing.
#2. Do you save at least 10% of your income? Um….
#3. Have you set aside a separate emergency fund to cover at least 3-months worth of expenses? True enough, life is double-sided and we need to be prepared to handle the worst of times.
#4. Do you know the exact amount of your debts, as well as the interest rates? At least you know where you stand.
#5. Do you accelerate the payments of your debts? These are the loans, lease etc
#6. Do you have financial goals? This comes under the Ctrl-Alt-Del your life NOW, or you’ll hate yourself later category.
#7. Do you have a record keeping system? Guilty!
#8. Do you live within a budget? Welcome to reality
#9. Do you know your net worth? I am still trying to figure that one out!
#10. Do you put your eggs in different baskets? Which basically means relying only on one form of investment could be a recipe for disaster.
Reading over some of these questions, it did feel like common sense to me. However, when it comes to spending, common sense doesn’t seem to knock on the door! Does that happen only to me? Hm..
