Personalfinance tips
Track your net worth
Track your net worth to get the big picture of your entire financial situation. Your net worth is a snapshot of your assets and liabilities at a given time. Your net worth measures what you’re actually worth financially. It’s important to know what your net worth is if you want to build wealth. It’s not enough to only budget. You need both a budget and to track your net worth. Next steps:
- Listen to: Your Relationship With Money (podcast)
- Read: The Money Mindset That Will Get You Out Of Debt (blog post)
- Take: Money Mindset Exercises (free course)
Create a budget
Create a budget based on your monthly income and expenses. A budget is the tool that gets you to stay on track financially every month. A budget shows you exactly where your money is going so you can know whether you’re on track with your income and expenses. It’s your blueprint for achieving your financial goals. Next step:
- Take the Budgeting For Budget Haters course
Get estate documents in place
Make sure you have the right estate documents in place. This varies for everyone so I always recommend seeing an attorney. But don’t be intimidated by me saying that – if you are married, have kids, or have anyone else who is financially connected to you, it’s really important you have the right estate documents in place. I see way too many of my friends with kids not having an estate plan. My two cents is that it’s worth the couple of grand you may have to pay to protect your family.
Get the right insurance coverages
It’s important to have the right insurance coverages in place to protect you and your family financially. This includes property and casualty insurance, medical insurance, life insurance, and disability insurance, just to name a few types. It’s easy to overlook insurance, but if something tragic or unexpected happens to you, it would be even more devastating without the right insurance.
Set financial goals
The best way I know of to change where you are financially is to set goals. Goals give you a target to plan ahead for. If you need to payoff debt, save for a house, or something else – you can use goals to help you get there. Setting financial goals can change your life. Next steps:
- Read: How To Set Goals
- Listen: Impossible Goals (podcast)
- Read: How To Plan Your Best Year Ever
- Take: How To Live An Intentional Life (free course)
Subscribe to personal finance blogs
Start subscribing to personal finance blogs to learn more about money. Not only can you learn the technical side of personal finance, but you also can make sure you’re always thinking about money by getting emails from your favorite bloggers. What you focus on expends. So, if you’re focused on personal finance, your knowledge of it will grow. Next step:
- Subscribe to my weekly newsletter
- Join Grow You
Learn about investing yourself
A good financial tip to live by is to learn the basics of investing yourself. This will help you make more informed decisions and help protect you against potentially bad investments.
Take a personal finance course
To continue learning about personal finance and be better prepared making decisions, take a personal finance course. There are personal finance courses at colleges you can take as well as taking an online course about money. Next steps:
- Take the Real Life Money Plan course to learn how to create the financial life you want for yourself
- Take Budgeting For Budget Haters if you need to learn how to create and implement a budget that works for you Take any of my free courses:
- How To Live An Intentional Life
- Overcoming Self Doubt
- Scarcity Vs. Abundance Mindset
- Time Management Tools
- Money Mindset Exercise
Listen to personal finance podcasts
To increase your knowledge of personal finance, a good personal finance tip is to listen to podcasts. I used to listen to money podcasts during my commute before I started my blog. It was my very first introduction to learning about money. This is an easy way to learn about money with very little effort. Next step:
- Listen: Bad With Money With Gaby Dunn (podcast)
Read personal finance books
If you don’t know where to start with your own financial education, start by reading a personal finance book. This is how I started teaching myself about money, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. It can be just enough to get you moving in the right direction with your money. Next step:
- Read: Personal Finance Books Everyone Should Read (blog post)