Great Finances Make a Great Life; Start Planning Finances Online Now

RATE FINANCES FROM ONE TO TEN

For great finances and a great life, start with a rating and create your own finances online.

Find out where you are and rate your finances from one to ten. There is an old saying if you don’t know where you’re going, you will never get there. This is where you start by rating a financial situation as it stands. Start with answering many financial questions first, such as:

How much do I have left over at the end of the month?
How much goes into savings every month?
Do I have a complete budget that includes everything?
Am I studying basic low-cost, low-risk investing so I can invest in the future?
Am I living an affordable life regarding rent, car, clothes, food, and school costs?
Am I living below my income level?
What are my largest debts?
What are my most expensive or high-interest debts?

There are many financial questions to answer for great finances to happen. Give each question a 1 for poor finances and a 2 for success. The lower the score, the more work there is to do.

CREATE YOUR OWN FINANCES ONLINE WITH A SELF-DIRECTED FINANCES COURSE

When you know where you are financially, you will know where to go and what it takes to get there.
The number of people who don’t know why finances are a mess is astounding, mainly because no attention is paid to the financial process.

Creating a process of identifying the most important to the least important financial issues in a budget will start organizing for structure. This can be done by creating your own finances online in a personal finance course created by you.

Here are the most important to the least important financial issues a person may have:
Create a gas or bus budget to get to work.
Identify an affordable rent budget to keep shelter.
Make an affordable food budget for nutrition.
Pay reasonable utilities for warmth or cooling, electricity, and water
Making student loan payments – is an absolute must. Unpaid interest is not deferrable and is added to a student balance monthly. Understand a deferred student loan balance will grow. Even if the loan is deferred, the interest must be paid to prevent a growing balance.
When the student loan deferral period is over, and the loan payments are not made, the loan will go into default. When the loan defaults, the graduate’s personal check will be garnished. A garnished check will leave the graduate with a tiny, almost impossible amount to live off.
Keep up with the latest student loan forgiveness options.

Rating your finances to start is a must, so you know where to go

-Lois

NAME GOALS AND A PATH TO GET THERE

Don’t just walk blindly, nothing will ever change, and most finances will worsen. Create a complete budget, list several of your own financial questions, and don’t be afraid to answer them in many ways.  Take the best set of financial questions and answers, then use them to create your best path with a budget.

Create a timeline for goals. Which goals are the most important, and when can they be accomplished?

Make a clear pathway for accomplishing goals. Goal setting is the most important pathway to your self-created finance course. Many people will create a budget, but they will not create a pathway to accomplish goal setting in its path.

CREATE A BUDGET THAT INCLUDES ALL DEBT PAYMENTS AND REGULAR BILLS

This sounds like common sense, but not all budgeters do this. Some feel it is not important to include all debts when budgeting. But it is. Ignoring some debt to cover other debts is not an option. Just one bill can turn a life backward. Ignored bills grow and later become unmanageable.

The finance course created by you will include all monthly bills and debts. Later, as bills get under control, you can include other things such as a supplemental retirement account, a child’s college fund, and affordable life insurance. This will all be included in a finance worksheet that will be explained later.

All of your debt must be taken care of in a timely manner

-Lois

UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE OF EMERGENCY MONEY

Creating finances online does not mean there will be no finances offline.  Set up a few types of emergency finances offline to keep your budget on track. That would include a jar with coins and dollars for dire emergencies. Then set up simple, regular passbook savings account only for emergencies. Put the savings paid to the account in your budget.

GET DEBT UNDER CONTROL ASAP

Establish financial questions that will enable a decrease in debt. The best way to get debt under control is to stop spending unnecessarily. Shop deep discounts and coupons for everything. The next best way is to pay off the small debts to eliminate those payments first. Next, pay off high-interest loans. These will get debt under control quickly.

NO ONE WANTS TO WORK FOREVER, FOCUS ON RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS

Create retirement account questions in the financial questions section so retirement becomes a reality.
Retirement seems like it will never happen when a student is in their 20s and 30s. Starting a retirement account by age 40 is a must; if not, start as soon as possible. Starting early makes it easy.

Many different types of retirement depend on employment type or small business ownership. Some employees will have social security, some will have a pension, and others will have a supplemental retirement provided 100% by the employer. If there is a 401k plan, it is essential to invest in it if the employer provides a match or not.

Employees or small business people should have either social security plus a 401k (or another supplement) to retire. And pension recipients should have a pension plus a supplemental retirement. If this does not happen, retirement may become difficult.

Even if the employer does not provide a match, employees will save money with a 401k through tax deductions and deferrals. But mainly will have retirement savings. A small businessperson should include retirement savings since social security will not be enough. Never operate an all-cash business with no taxes paid; it will hurt the business owner tremendously in the long run and is illegal.

CREATE A SPREADSHEET AND TRACK YOUR PROGRESS

The most important aspect of your self-created finances course is to create a spreadsheet to track your progress. As you progress, tracking progress will enable goals to progress. Track finances online with a google docs spreadsheet or a simple Word document. Start now!