5 Principles of Financial Health
Financial Principles You Need To Follow:
Are you financial healthy? How would you know?
And if you are financially unhealthy can you take some medicine to make it all better? No of course not - but you can recognize bad symptoms and through your own efforts make improvements. Follow these 5 principles to help you improve your financial health.
1st Principle – Debt Management.
- Your debt management begins with you.
- Debt is like smoking – you may feel good temporarily, but long-term they are both killers. This may be hard to digest but debt is usually the result of buying something you do not need, cannot afford but want anyway.
- Debt management starts with focusing your buying based on needs, not wants.
- Just remember that it’s not what you make – but what you keep that will make you financially healthy.
- Spending beyond your means is unhealthy.
- Cut back, don’t buy with emotions but rather forethought.
- Don’t buy based on what you want but rather on what you need.
- If it’s too easy to use your credit cards when you’re shopping, leave them at home, only buy what you can afford with the cash that’s in your wallet.
2nd Principle – Savings - save first, spend second.
- Yes we have all been told over and over and over again to save. But if you are spending more than you are making, you have no money left for saving. So why not save first and spend second.
- Find an amount that you can comfortably save, have that amount automatically taken out of your paycheck and deposited into a savings account or 401k retirement plan. In case you haven’t heard, you will need money when you retire too, so it does not hurt to start saving for that today. Saving is more of a habit, develop that habit to become financially healthy.
3rd Principle - Shop – shop everything.
- Shop your insurances at least once a year. We all become complacent over certain things and insurance may be your thing. You do not necessarily have to change insurance carriers every year, but at least ask your insurance broker for an annual auto and home insurance comparison.
- By doing an annual insurance review you will know if you are in the proper premium ranges. Shop your cell phone package, shop your cable/satellite package, shop any other services that you use on a regular basis – you may be surprised on how much you can save.
4th Principle – Fees.
- Watch the fees you are paying.
- At least once a year, analyze the fees you are paying. It seems like we pay fees for everything.
- If you invest in a 401k account of IRA you may be paying additional investment fees; mutual fund companies, 401k companies, banks and other financial institutions can charge for account services. Cut to the chase on this one and ask your financial advisor to prepare a fee analysis for you.
- If you are you paying late fees, pay on time. Are you paying fees for services you don’t need or use anymore?
5th Principle – Your Credit Scores.
- To have good financial health you need credit scores above 750.
- Credit scores above 750 are good credit scores.
- If you have a credit score below 750, you need come credit repair help to improve that score.
- Your credit rating determines almost everything you buy; for example, your insurance premiums, your mortgage rates, your rental rate even your cell phone rates.
- Credit repair services are available to you if you need some credit repair help…you just need to seek them out and make the call.
If you do not feel that you are financially healthy follow our 5 principles to get yourself to a healthy point. If getting in financial shape is new to you, start slowly.
With any new exercise program, if you start to fast, you risk injuries, the same is true with getting in financial shape. Take one step at a time, don’t go extreme and you will gradually see improvements in your financial health.
The efforts you make today will be magnified over the long run so start today, you will be glad you did.
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