Looking for personal finance advices to improve your financial positions and to avoid money problems ? If you miss a single payment, it could take seven years to have that black mark removed from your credit report. In the meantime, you could be paying more in interest than you have to for every loan, including your mortgage. According to the credit bureau Equifax, a single missed payment can result in as much as a 90-110 point decrease on a FICO credit score of 780. Even if you’re responsible about paying bills, an identity thief could ruin your good credit behind your back. Advises Toomey, “Check your credit report often to correct any mistakes and to look for fraud.” Check your credit score and read your credit report for free within minutes.
To Understand Your Finances, You Have to Track Your Net Worth: Similar to a budget, it’s important you calculate your net worth, no matter how ugly it might be. The difference with this and budgeting? I actually look at my net worth monthly. It also can keep you on track and help you visualize where you are financially. There are some cool apps and online tools to simplify this process like Mint and my favorite, Personal Capital. Find extra details at Money Management Blog.
One of my favorite subjects: budgeting. It’s not a four-letter word. How can you know where your money is going if you don’t budget? How can you set spending and saving goals if you don’t know where your money is going? You need a budget whether you make thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Credit card debt is the number one obstacle to getting ahead financially. Those little pieces of plastic are so easy to use, and it’s so easy to forget that it’s real money we’re dealing with when we whip them out to pay for a purchase, large or small. Despite our good resolves to pay the balance off quickly, the reality is that we often don’t, and end up paying far more for things than we would have paid if we had used cash.
Have Financial Goals: If you want to accomplish financial goals, you need to figure out what goals are important to you first. Having a clear goal can keep you motivated and help you come up with a plan to reach that goal even faster. Now, don’t think that you need to set outrageous goals. If this is your first time thinking about personal financial goals, start off small and work your way up from there. I’d suggest coming up with a few different goals in each of these categories: What you want to achieve in the next 3-months, In the next year, In the next five years. This way you’ll have some short-term goals to look forward too, and some long-term goals to work towards as well. Your short-term goals may even be small stepping stones towards your bigger goals. So, remember to set long-term and short-term goals, and keep track of them too! Write them down somewhere and set a day each month to track your progress. Visit: http://aspiretomoney.com/.