We all set goals, but rarely are they personal finance goals. Let's start that in 2023. In this episode, we go through a framework to set personal finance goals in 2023 and how to keep yourself realistic and accountable. Let's make 2023 a year for change for our personal finance.
We all set goals, but rarely are they personal finance goals. Let's start that in 2023. In this episode, we go through a framework to set personal finance goals in 2023 and how to keep yourself realistic and accountable. Let's make 2023 a year for change for our personal finance.
Welcome to Life finance inbetween podcast brought to you by wealth management services in Hershey pa first podcast to January 1, podcast 2023. And what I wanted to do to start it off, start off the new year started off right with the first podcast is I wanted to go through what a 2023 personal finance checklist will look like. The reason I want to do this is because I feel like with regards to setting goals for New Years, we all have New Year's resolutions. And we pretty much try to follow them every year, and a lot of us don't, but it is what it is, um, I'm guilty of that. But with regards to finance, I feel like we never set finance goals and the New Year, and there's no better time. That's why we set all the other goals that we have, whether it's eat healthier, run more or read books, whatever it is, we never set finance goals, so ever. So what I wanted to do was come on here, set a checklist for 2023. It could be something like a finance goal resolution that we have going into the new year and try to stick to it as much as possible. But in order to set goals, we need to know where we're at. So to start off this checklist, what we're going to do is we're going to wrap up 2022. And what I mean by that is that whenever you're listening to this, I'm recording this first week of January. Take note right now, of what our investing and savings accounts checking accounts look like, how much do we have invested, whether it's 401k, whether it's individual, Ira, Roth IRA, all of our investing accounts, take a look at them, get the values, our savings account, what do we have an emergency fund? Do we have an emergency fund? What's that? And then finally, with regards to that, as well checking account, what do we have in checking? What are we comfortable with what we want to get to? So see where we're at wrapping up 2022, early, early, early part of 2023. Next tax season is coming up. We all know that, well, let's assess our tax situation. So when those W twos and 1099 start rolling in, we'll have an idea of whatever what our earned income is from our jobs will then have our dividends that we have from our investments or capital gains that we have from our investment. And then all the while since 2022 is a bad year in the market. Have we done any tax loss harvesting? And all that means is have we sold anything at a loss in 2022 investment wise, that we can use to offset our taxes, either in 2023 or 2024, or whenever we decide to use that tax loss. So that's the first step right there outline and let's wrap up 2020 To get an idea for all those things. And then once we have an idea for listening to written down at somewhere, we won't forget it. Because this is important. We need to have that information. Let's start planning to for 2023. Now how do we do that? We take whatever the values have for 2022. And our savings account and our investing account in our checking account. And we write down what we want that to look like December 31 2023, the next 12 months, what do we want that to look like? If it's, it's at x now we want to get it to why that 10,000 I want to get to 15,000. Now, in our savings perfect if our investing accounts are 20,000 wanting him to 25,000 Perfect whatever numbers it is for you just write down exactly what you want it to be December 31 2023. Now, on top of that, let's have a plan to get there. Routine contributions. Everybody loves routine routine makes things easy. So instead of saying I whenever I have a chance I'll invest some into my account, or whenever I have a chance I'll save some into my emergency fund. Now, see what our incomes going to be for the year, have a rough idea of what our expenses are going to be for each week, each month and decide, okay, each month or bi weekly, or every two months, I'm going to put away x into my savings account, I'm going to put away x into my investing account. And stick to that have a reminder on your phone. If you use a calendar, write it down in your calendar. Today's the day that I invest more, today's the day that I save more. And as long as you're in the situation where you can then do it. Now if you find yourself that already right off the bat, we get to a point where we're not at a situation where we can when we want to say we decided that way. First, we're going to put more into our emergency fund, February 1 rolls around and we don't have what we need to put into the emergency fund or what we wanted to. Now we got to take a look at the month, the month that January was and see where we can maybe save more what we can change and lifestyle wise to kind of get ourselves to that goal. But it's setting those two goals what we want those account values to be at the end of the year. And then the routine contributions to get it there and the plan to get it there. Now, after your 2022, we all know it's possible that the year, we clearly see what market return to do to our investing accounts. So have one where the value whatever we want the value to be, but have the second goal in that same breath of being, what do we want to contribute? So say we want our account to go from 15,000 to 25,000 in the year, okay, that's perfect. But we don't know what Mr how the markets going to treat us. So let's just say we have that goal. But on top of that, we also have during the year, I at least want to be able to contribute $5,000 to the account. So we know at the end of the year, say we don't get the 25,000. But it's because of poor market returns, as long as we contributed that 5000. And we're investing it smartly. And we have a plan long term. We know we hit our goal of contributions, the market returns, we'll figure themselves out long term as long as we're doing what we need to invest in wise. But we need to contribute first. So if you set that contribution goal, and we make sure we hit that the end of December 31, or December 2023, even if the value is not where we want it to be, we're no we're moving in the right direction, when we start to tweak a couple of things and let the market treat us well over time. So that's the saving and investing goals. Next, we got to figure out our deaths, we got to figure out our debts for 2023. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to organize them. We're going to organize all our debts. And I know it sucks to look at debts, but we need to. So we need to see if we have any credit card debt. Do we have student loan debt? Do we have auto car debt? Do we have a mortgage that we're paying on? Do we have you named the debt do we have it, we need to list it? Once we do, you need to write down the values of each of those debts. Next to the value of each of those debts, you need to write down how long we have before so we have a mortgage at the brand new we have 29 to 30 years, we have a credit card that's month over month that we have an auto loan, we might have it for another five years, write down how much longer we have that debt for next to that, right the interest rate, we have a credit card, it's at 20%, right 20% Next to that for mortgages at four and a half percent, right four and a half percent next to that. And then finally mark off in which ways shortest to longest what we have. So like I said credit cards will be our shortest debt, then auto loans. And then what we'll do is we'll have the mortgage or student loans, whatever comes next, but write them down in sequential order of what wraps up first, and then make a plan. identify which ones we want to pay down first. So if we have credit card debt, we're clearly going to pay that down before we pay our mortgage down. So let's make a plan to get that credit card debt down. We have covered that we know, hey, it's gonna be a while till I have my student loans paid down, let's make a plan to get my car but car debt paid down. That's not ignoring the other debts, we need to make sure we're paying our mortgage. So we need to make sure we're paying our car loans though, we need to make sure we're paying our student loans still, or our credit cards. But let's have a plan to get there, whatever that might be. And so if we do these things, if we set this up in a way that we're routine, we have the idea of what we're doing next. 2023 will be a much better year personal finance wise. And I think it's super important to set these types of goals going forward, just to have a routine to have goals in mind. And then checkup every once in a while if it's every three months, you want to check up see okay, well at the beginning of the year, I said I want to contribute X amount. I want my values to be at x amount of my debtor this back in January, they were that what are they now in March? Okay, we see it down in March, okay, what if they are in June compared to March compared to January and you can keep yourself accountable. And that's all we need to do in 2023. When you set these goals we need keep ourselves accountable. And if we do so, if we do so, as far as personal finance goes 2023 is gonna be a really good year. And it will be the start of the rest of your life life changing stuff if we're able to stay on top of this type of stuff. So that's what I want to do. I want to make sure that we're keeping on top of things. I want to make sure we're setting personal finance goals for ourselves in this new year and I want to make it a good one. So until next time, Stay happy, stay healthy. This first one to 2023 There'll be many more and I'll see you then. Securities offered through securities America Inc. Member FINRA slash SIPC. advisory services offered through securities America advisors Inc. Wealth Management Services and securities America are separate entities. The opinions and forecasts expressed are those of the author and may not actually come to pass. This information is subject to change at anytime based on market and other conditions and should not be construed as a recommendation of any specific security or investment plan. Past performance does not guarantee future results.