How Is Your Personal Finance Health?
Sometimes all of our personal finance’s health need a check-up. While most of us wait to the end of the year for this it really should be on on going exercise. It’s good to play some “what if” games to get a good feel of how your finances would hold up and you should play these WITH your significant other. One of the first reasons the home finance system fails is when both spouses aren’t on the same page.
Here’s a few questions to get you started:
- What if one of you loses a job? How long will the bills be able to get paid? How long until you’d even be able to start the job hunt? Is your resume up to date or are your references planned out? These are things you want done while the money is still coming in!
- What if your APR on your (mortgage, car payment, credit cards) went up by 1%? 5%? Are these situations you can handle or would your personal finance health have an asthma attack? Perhaps it’s time to have a little more spare money in the cash flow or move to fix interest to take the variation out.
- What if someone gets really ill? Do you have savings to ride through this or really great health insurance?
- What if you win that lotto you wouldn’t quit playing? (See they don’t all have to be bad questions!) How would you spend the money? How would you invest the cash? Having plans for windfall money when you don’t have it helps cut down the impulse spending and the guilt giving.
I recommend you create a plan and have some sort of standard time to work on the plan or compare how your doing compared to your personal finance plan. I prefer weekly as this prevents bad habits from taking hold or causing too much damage. Make it fun! My wife and I use our car time to talk about it. But you can go to your favorite coffee joint, or hang out on a park bench. Whatever you like to do – if you make in enjoyable and repeatable you might actually do it.
I just don’t want your personal finance health to end up in the personal finance E.R.
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