The New Year is not only a great time for establishing or re-establishing healthy fitness habits, but it’s also a great time to check in on your financial health no matter your age or how much money you make. What actions could you take in 2022 that take you closer to your financial goals and align your money with your priorities? Here are 7 ideas to help you focus your financial picture this year.
1. Put Together a Financial Plan: Start with a Budget
Making a financial plan begins with analyzing your income, expenses and investments. There are a lot of free tools out there now that can help you crunch the numbers and give you a visual picture of where you’re at next to where you want to be.
2. Pay Your Future Self
Paying your future self is essentially preparing for your retirement and building your legacy. There are a lot of ways to go about this. One example is putting money into a 401K with a company match. This is only one option of many.
3. Begin Investing
This ties into “paying your future self.” Create a monthly plan of a set amount of dollars every month that can go into an investment portfolio with a long-term mindset.
4. Make a Will
If you don’t have a will, 2022 is a great year to make it happen, especially if you have a lot of assets. It’s one of the best gifts you can give those you leave behind.
5. Update Beneficiaries
Regularly updating your beneficiary designations is so important because it trumps your will or trust plan. By designating a beneficiary on all of your accounts, you will ensure that your chosen beneficiary will inherit your retirement benefit. This will ensure that confusion can be eliminated, it will save loads of time, and prevent a delay in the transfer of funds when you pass away.
6. Update your Assets Inventory or Create One
Creating a personal asset inventory is documenting the contents of your home and is helpful whether you own a little or own a lot.
A personal asset inventory is basically a list of your possessions which have monetary or personal value. The level of detail you enter for each item in your asset inventory will vary depending on the item’s value, how common or rare it is, and how it came into your possession.
These lists are valuable for moving, burglaries, catastrophic disasters, insurance claims and estate planning.
7. Analyze your Insurance
The beginning of the year is a good time to evaluate your health insurance as well as take a good look at your homeowners insurance and car insurance. If you’ve had the policies for any long length of time, you may be paying too much.
You also may want to buy some insurance. Do you and your family have life insurance Have the beneficiaries been set up appropriately?
Some of these can be done in one hour. Others of these might need some designated time to sit down and plan, talk with experts and advisors and then begin baby steps. Whether you choose the one time action or begin a new financial habit, your 2023 self will be thankful you did it!
* Opinions expressed are subject to change without notice and are not intended as investment advice. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Investing involves risk, including loss of principal. Consult your financial professional before making any investment decision. Advisory services offered through Commonwealth Financial Network, Member SIPC, a registered Investment Adviser. Fixed insurance products and services offered by Strategic Retirement Plans are separate and unrelated to Commonwealth.
