Most people don’t spend anywhere near enough time planning their financial lives and consequently their financial lives leave much to be desired. Frighteningly, only 28% of Americans have a written financial plan*. A written plan is much more likely to be adhered to. The sooner you do this, the better. The sooner you get a plan in place, the faster you can actually achieve it. Getting and keeping your financial house in order is an ongoing processes, but setting solid foundation and having a clear plan will make everything much easier and give you some cast iron certainty as you travel the uncertain roads of life.
Assess your current financial situation
Doing this may be difficult, but not doing it is far more difficult. The truth may hurt, but truth it remains.
Determine your end goals
Some people simply have more modest desires than others.
Create a savings plan
Create a retirement investment plan
Track your progress
Track your income and expenditure
This reveals the truth. There’s no hiding from reality when you have to stare it in the face. It shows exactly what’s coming in and where it’s going. It shows your financial strengths and weaknesses.
There are many ways to do this. The easiest is to use one of the many pieces of software
Personally, I use some heavily-customized spreadsheets to track everything. This means manual entry and
For the fellow fanatical obsessive control freaks out there, I highly recommend this method.
*Charles Schwab 2019 Modern Wealth Survey
