If you are looking for some powerful way to be able to improve your life, one area that is always worth looking into is your finances. By working on your finances, you are generally going to bring about improvements in many areas of your life at once, so it is really one of the best parts to focus on. Depending on where you are and what your starting point is, along with whatever goals you may have, there are a huge number of things you might want to do in order to raise your financial game. Let’s take a look at some of the most powerful and important right now.
Think Defensively
If your finances really is a game or a sport, it’s one where you have to be defensive primarily. That means that you should put most of your effort into keeping your finances in check and making sure that you are not paying out for whatever reason, and that is something that most of us could do with learning more about. As long as you are thinking defensively about your money, you are more likely to do whatever you need to in order to defend it, and that is going to help a lot.
Set Some Rules
As with any good game, you need to have some rules in place which you are going to follow to the letter. The beauty here is that it’s entirely up to you how you set these rules and what they are going to be, along with how long you are going to follow them for. But the vital thing is that there are indeed some rules in place. As long as that is the case, you should find that you can achieve a lot more with your finances in general.
Some rules are to be set around how much you can spend on yourself and the things you enjoy, while other rules might be about what kind of amount you should be trying to save. It’s best to do this based on percentages rather than amounts, as that way you can follow the rule no matter how much your income might fluctuate.
The most important thing is that you are setting your own rules and sticking to them steadfastly. If you do that, you are going to achieve a lot more and ultimately, you will be more likely to win the game.
Move Your Savings
When it comes to the practical elements that you should be aiming to make use of, here is one thing that you should in particular be focusing on each financial year: moving your savings to where they are going to make you the most money. This might mean that you merely need to use a new savings account, or it could mean swapping out some of it for other kinds of investment. Whatever you do, just make sure that you review it each year so that you can be sure of making your money go as far as possible.
Invest In Property
Of all the investments that you might be keen to get involved in, property has long been a favourtie of people everywhere. The reason for this is simple: it is relatively easy to get into, and it brings about fairly certain long-term profits. Of course, you still need to take great care here, and you should make sure that you are as prepared as possible before you go into the process and try to buy some property. One of the most important things is location: are you going to buy a condo in bellisa or an apartment in New York? There are wildly different circumstances to consider here.
The main thing is that you are investing what you can afford to, in the most sensible way possible. This is a long-term investment, so you will need to be patient, but as long as you can do that you should find that you ultimately get a lot out of it. In the meantime, you could even look into buy-to-let properties, so that you can gain in rental income before you sell. Investing in property is one of the surest ways to raise your financial game.
Emergency Funds
When you are at the stage of beginning to put money aside in a savings account, you need to remember that your first goal should be to have emergency funds. By having a pot of money that you can dip into when things get tough, you are going to have this feeling of security, and that is something that can be really important for most people. To work out how much you might want for an emergency fund, consider trying to put together enough to pay for three months’ worth of vital expenses.
When you are working that out, remember that in a true emergency you would make some changes: you might get rid of all unnecessary expenditures, and just focus on your bills and food, for instance. So how much you need to save for three months is probably less than you might now assume. But once you have that goal, save towards it with everything you’ve got. You will find that it really makes a huge difference to your ability to save, and it is likely going to help you to be in a much better position before too long.
Calculate Your Variable Expenses
One of the major ways that people get caught out by their finances is from the variable expenses. There are many expenses that change from month to month, or which crop up only from time to time, and as such you are going to find that they can be a nasty surprise when they do appear. As such, it’s a good idea to calculate these now, before they are a problem, and divide them into twelve to include in your monthly budget that way. The clearer you get on these expenses, the less likely it is that you will have to dip into your savings pot.
