New Years Resolution

Its a new year and now is the time to make some great new years resolutions that will help your financial well being. Now is as good of time as any to start a savings plan, it doesn’t matter what the savings plan is, just that you are saving. I realize that saving is hard, but it is crucial to start saving something, although it will feel small at first, over time and with continued discipline the amount will grow and can be used for many things from an emergency fund to a vacation fund.

In talking to one financial advisor he told me a story of a young family man that didn’t think he could save and after some prodding finally started saving a nominal amount he thought he could afford. He continued to do this until his unexpected demise of a heart attack. Upon the financial planner meeting with the widow he informed her of the money that her husband had been saving for the past years, and found out that with insurance and other benefits that the wife would be able to stay in their house and continue to have a similar standard of living, which needless to say was a weight off the shoulders of a grieving widow. When told about the account, she said I didn’t even realize that this savings was going on.

Savings plans are not something that have to painful or cause you to miss out, but they do require discipline, in the consumer friendly world that we live in anybody can spend outside their means, but it takes a smart and disciplined person to live with in a budget and save.

Now is also a great time to consolidate and put your financial records in order. It is also a great time to get a shredder, due to the personal information that is out there; even the most mundane items can be used in phishing and other scams to retrieve your financial information. Don’t shred everything though, you should and need to retain some records longer than others.

Here is a good spreadsheet to help you organize your records.

As the world is becoming more automated and more and more people are having an online presence it is a good idea to have the executor of your will know where to access passwords to your accounts upon your death. This will help the executor to obtain the records to distribute the estate in a timely fashion.

You work all your life to live comfortably in retirement, take the precautions and actions to ensure that you are able to retire happy, healthy and comfortable.