Top Financial Tips for 2019

With the holidays gone, it’s high time to whip up your financial state in order. Here’s a guide on how you can get the ball rolling.

Set Goals

Naturally, humans like to press the reset button whenever things go awry. Tempting as it may be to wish for start afresh in January after blowing money fast during the holidays, it remains just that, a wish.

All the same, January represents a milestone moment since it gives you time to look back and note the achievements that came true in the past year. While at it, you can set new goals for the year going forward. Atop your list of priorities should be engagements like debt repayment, home deposits and stashing up retirement monies.

With a well-structured list of goals, you can effectively kick things off on a positive note. With that backdrop, you’ll be able to monitor things as they progress and dedicate more of your time on saving. By doing so, you’ll have a soft landing whenever things go south financially.

Evaluate Your Budget

In most cases, gym memberships get renewed en masse because of all the festivities involved during December. In the same breath, it is important to start budgeting in order for your bank account to get back in shape. Without the excesses of debt, you’ll find it much easier to navigate through your daily life.

With a budget in place, you’ll find it easier to trim away the miscellaneous expenditure.

Ideally, you need to check out all avenues where you’ve been overspending. Once the key faults are identified, it’s best to check out if there some extra money after every month which you can try to start mini projects.

If you’re lucky enough to get a salary bump at your place of work, make sure that you put aside some of that money in a savings account. Of course, you’ll first have to shake away the temptation of living lavishly.

Pay Back Debts

Around the globe, interest rates are on a high. This means that if you decide to take out a loan in 2019, expect to make massive payments back thanks to the increased interest.

During the budgeting process, make sure you allocate spare funds towards clearing debts.

Timely repayment of debt could prove to be the difference in the long run as you seek to establish yourself financially. For this to happen, you need to have a solid debt repayment strategy. With that, you’ll be able to pay back amounts owed in an orderly and timely fashion.

Part of this involves sorting out your debts according to priority. Number one on the list should be the debts charging the most interest rates, then, follow up closely with those with smaller amounts. Since short term debts like credit cards usually accrue plenty of interest, you should first seek to clear that before you move onto other like home and car payments.

Check Out your Insurance Cover

When many people are making financial resolutions and planning ahead of the future, they tend to forget checking out the costs involved with their short-term insurance covers. To get a hold of things, you have to evaluate the quotes of a couple of providers whilst ensuring that all your home and vehicles are properly insured.

Since you’ll be checking out how your insurance measures up, make sure to ascertain whether you’re under-insured or over-insured.

School Fees

Before you make a lump sum payment of school fees, it’s best to first evaluate the optics. In many schools, the administrators usually give incentives of about 4-7% for early payment. While this is quite handy, you need not rush into clearing the amounts owed.

Partial payment of school fees still guarantees your child the same level of education.

The alternative option is to make monthly payments as you go about your normal operations. This option is quite good since your child will be receiving the same quality education without any inhibitions. Even better is the fact that there’s no extra interest charged just because you’re paying up the figures by the month.

For proper balancing, you need to first ensure that you’re in the clear with regards to other debts like mortgages and personal debts which charge steep interest rates. Then, you can start debating whether to make the lump sum payment of school fees.

New Vehicle Purchase

Unbeknownst to many people, it’s better to buy a car at the start of the year, than at the end of one. Why? Because vehicles tend to depreciate in value according to the year of manufacture.

Therefore, if you buy a car at the end of the year, by January, the car will take a serious price hit. Valuers will mention that the vehicle is a year old despite it being only a couple of month’s old.