April brings to mind finances
- Karen Wilson: Family Corner
- April 15, 2022
- 780
Along with warming days and the hope of flowers, April often brings to mind financial issues. Did preparing your taxes get you thinking about your money situation?
What are the expenses looming in your near or not so near future? If you have children, have you started saving or investing to help with their college expenses? Have you started saving for retirement? Do you have plans to pay off your car or mortgage? Do you still have student loan debt? What’s the balance on your credit card?
Are you hoping to buy a home? Is your car going to need a replacement soon?
Have you considered how much more groceries are going to cost when you have teenagers or 20-somethings living in your house?
Have you reviewed your monthly utility bills to see where you could save money? What about services and subscriptions for various types of entertainment?
Just to cover myself, before I add more, I better say I’m not a financial advisor or anything like that. I’m just sharing my own thoughts.
To sort things out, do you know where your money is going? Every cent? Do you have a written way to track it or do you just kind of think you know where you and your family spend money? Make it a detailed record and review it regularly. You can’t make wise decisions without good data.
What bills do you pay monthly? What gets paid quarterly, semi-annually or yearly? Do you put part of the payment up ahead of time or get caught by surprise? Do you have a list of what is due during each month?
Have you written out a budget? Do you compare your actual spending to what you intended to spend? How close are you? If you perpetually go over in an area, what can you do to adjust what you spend in that category?
Do you have a fund for unexpected occurrences? Have you built up an emergency fund? Make a list of expenses that caught you by surprise last year and maybe a year or two before that. Were they really surprises or should you have expected things like car repairs, appliance replacement and dental work?
If you are on top of the regular bill stuff, have you built up some savings or started investing? If you lost your current source of income, could you support yourself and your family for a few months with what you have saved? Do you have alternate sources of income that could help? What could you do to set up passive forms of income?
Taking stock of the situation and sorting it all out can feel overwhelming, so start with small steps. If you don’t currently track your spending, start by writing down everything you spend for a week or a month. Make sure you review the information at the end of the time period. Are you spending in an area more than expected? Seeing the pattern can be the first step in making needed changes.
Get an understanding of your monthly and yearly expenses. How much do you need to set aside each month or pay period so you have what you need when big bills like property taxes come due?
Set goals for the longer-term things. How much could you set aside to help with college expenses? Are you using the retirement savings vehicles available to you? Are you getting the most from them with things like employer matches?
Things may not change quickly, but assessing where you are and deciding where you need to be can get you going in the right direction.