Do you spend time thinking about personal finance planning? How much does your lifestyle cost you now? And, how much do you think it will cost once you get everything you need? Most importantly how much will cost when you get everything you want?

It’s easy to say 1 million dollars a year is perfect and you can get everything you’ll ever want. But, let’s ask ourselves a practical question… how close are you to making 1 million dollars? If you are there, great! Then you’re probably ready for some advanced investment reading. For those who need help getting to a goal, read on.

Personal Financial Planning

Personal financing can be a snooze. It can make your head hurt, make you frustrated, make you cry or make you extremely happy if you know what you’re doing. Realty101blog.com will try to get everyone started and help you get on the right track to responsible financing planning. First, decide what you really want out of personal financing.

1. Current Life

What is your current situation? Do you feel like:

you don’t make enough money?

have excessive debt or debt you wish you could pay off?

feel like you don’t know how to pay off debt with the money you have?

Do you feel like there is no room to invest after bills and debt payment? Many people believe they are not making enough money, but that does not mean you can’t spend money wisely.

We could all use more money, but that doesn’t have to stop you from paying debt or investing. Keep track of what you spend for just one month and see if there are places you can improve. Budgeting is not limited by how much you make. For example, take a look at what you can do with the 50/30/20 rule for budgeting. Look at the power of the snowball and avalanche debt management strategies.

1. Goal Life

If you want to have some fun you can make a “magic budget” filled with “magic money” and see what it takes to get you that “magic life”. But, you will need to make a real budget as well. Part of budgeting and money management is a psychological.

If you constantly feel like you are not making progress, you might give up on your goals. Therefore, make a budget that won’t break your heart every time you look at it because it’s unrealistic. Decide what your realistic goals are. What can you do with your current income to start making your goal life possible?

Do you wish you could make an extra $300 or $500 a month? Do you have debt in the amount of $300 or $500 a month? Is it harder to get a raise or start paying the debt off? We generally do not think of giving ourselves raises by paying off debt, but in reality you have an extra $300 – $500 either way. Paying off debt does stop you from still trying to get a raise or a new job. If you happen to do both you are now $600 to $100 ahead.

Once you have a goal in mind, see what it takes to get there. Make sure your plan has several milestones. Reaching a milestone will appeal to that psychological factor and encourage you to keep going. Budgets are essential. Even if you cannot reach a goal life in 1 year start making steps to get there in 5 years.

1. Retirement Life

You’ll learn very quickly saving alone will not make you rich. But, through investments you can build wealth and have a comfortable life. So, when you make that goal budget – make sure you include your retirement plan. It’s more important than ever these days to rely on yourself to provide your retirement income. For a while now there have been questions about Social Security running out of money. The answer is yes and no. Let’s look at some facts.

In 1983 the retirement age was moved from 65 to 67 for anyone born after 1960. As recently as November of 2016, there has been talk of raising the retirement age to 70.  The reason being, people are living longer and Social Security benefits are not designed to take care of people for 20 to 30 years of life after retirement.  Add to that, people can elect to start taking Social Security as early as 62 and there is a really problem.

Social Security itself is not becoming insolvent – yet. The Social Security system brings in approximately 75% of its benefits from payroll taxes – Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA). This means, as long as people continue to work there will be enough money to fund 75% of Social Security payments. The problem is the other 25% of payments come from the Social Security Trust.

The Social Security Trust was created when taxes collected exceed the benefits paid out to those already retired. Generally, when you see articles of Social Security funds being insolvent it is because of this trust fund. Presently, economic predict the trust will be insolvent by 2033 or 2034, but some are predicting this can happen as soon as 2025. When this occurs the Social Security system will only pay 75% of benefits.

As a general rule of thumb you need 75 – 80% of your current salary to maintain your lifestyle after you retire. If you retire at 67 and live until 87, that’s still 20 years of life to live after retirement. Therefore, if you are counting on Social Security Income to provide for this retirement life, you might need to have another plan. It will help, but when you are creating your goal life, plan for your retirement life.

Starting Out with Personal Finance

There are often circumstances beyond your control that prevent you from spending and saving. So don’t look at this example and think of all the reasons why you can’t save. Look at it and think about how you can do a little bit better than you are currently doing. Maybe the next year, you can do a little bit better than the last.

Budgeting

Budgets don’t mean you can’t have fun or that you must cut out some of your favorite things every day. But, once you create your budget, look at some of the things you spend your money on. Then make a decision on if you need to keep doing these things or if you can start to build wealth by cutting them out. To figure out an appropriate budgeting method, read this article here.

Paying Down Debt and Accomplishing Goals

Once you have a budget system in place you might want to consider paying down debt if you have any. There are several methods of paying down debt. These methods are usually known as debt management strategies.  The Snowball and Avalanche method are two of the most popular but not the only one. To learn about learn more about debt management strategies and a couple of others, read here. Once your debt is paid down, try to tackle a goal or start to think about ways to invest your money.

Investing

Investing is not a get rich quick scheme. Anything that promises high return quickly is gambling! It’s important to know the difference between the two. Investing takes time and work and there is a learning curve. It’s up to you to make the decisions and make the money.

Remember savings alone does not make you rich and does not create residual income. If you put $50k in the bank over a lifetime you will have pretty close to $50K when everything is said and done. Investing should take your money and compound its growth exponentially.

Investing is tricky. There are so many – interactive investments such; as forex and stocks and some hands off such as; CD’s and certificates. Either way, it can be overwhelming. Hopefully realty101blog.com can guide you into some good decisions and make you feel more comfortable about investing.

The Purpose of This Article

The purpose of the personal finance section is to give you resources and tips to help you build strong and solid money management skills. These pages and associated blog post will cover topics such as creating a budget, saving for retirement and investing wisely. Hopefully the topics you read about here will give you ideas or some direction that will serve you for years to come.