Whether you’ve got home problems or you wish you had a bit more disposable income, the hardest thing about being a parent is getting the balance right between ensuring that your immediate financial needs are catered for, while also planning for the future. The world is an incredibly tense place right now and a lot of volatility in the market because of the political climate. There is a lot of risk and uncertainty, which is why we need to make certain decisions to protect our financial future. So what does this really consist of? Let’s show you some practical approaches.
Clear Goals
It sounds so simple, but many people don’t have a financial goal that spans the years and decades. People need to save for retirement, but they also don’t think beyond the next year or so because they are living a hand-to-mouth existence. You’ve got to ask yourself a few simple questions, for example, what goals do you have for your dependents? What do you want your lifestyle to look like? When would you like to retire? There are so many things you need to ask yourself that can help you figure out the cash flow you need to create your lifestyle and what it takes to sustain this.
Many people look at investing as a way to provide a better future but the important thing to remember is that investing involves putting money away and waiting for the opportune moment to take it out, which could be a decade further down the line. While there are platforms like BitIndex AI that make the role of investing easier, the fact is that you have to set the goals in place before you start investing. People think about investing as a way to make quick money but this is not true; you are far better off focusing on your goals.
Prioritizing Paying Debts
Paying off debt is so important because any interest you pay on your debt could easily wipe out any interest you get from investments or savings. Debt is the millstone around your neck when it comes to saving for your future. You may very well find yourself struggling to pay debt, but you need to be far more proactive when it comes to dealing with immediate debt.
There are a wide variety of resources out there that can help. For example, the debt snowball method is something that is commonly used which involves focusing on paying the bare minimum of most of your debts and focusing on paying the lowest amount of debt first. You may also benefit from getting 0% interest credit cards to reduce how much you are paying.
Analyzing Your Family Budget
Budgets can be incredibly frustrating, but they can also give you a renewed sense of enthusiasm that you are going in the right direction. While there are a lot of budget resources out there, such as budget calculators, one of the simple rules to remember is to make sure you are spending less than you are earning. While there are savings tools like the 50/30/20 method that can help you to refocus your savings goals, tracking your budget is the best way for you to truly get to grips with budgeting.
It can be a headache to try and keep track of every individual spend, and automating your payments can help, the best thing to do is to regularly review the plan. Spreadsheets can be invaluable here because they can help you keep track of your budget in an easy-to-use way, but you’ve also got to remember that budgeting is not just about getting by now, but also about the future.
Getting the Balance Right Between Treats and Over Expenditure
The old adage about money is that “you can’t take it with you,” which implies that you should feel like you can go wild with it. The reality is that your finances should be carefully monitored, but you also need to build some wiggle room to truly enjoy life. There is no point in purchasing a house that’s above and beyond your means, if you are working your socks off purely to pay your mortgage and break even. Life is for living, and this is a very important lesson that we need to build into our financial plans.
When you were a child, you didn’t worry about upturns and downturns in the market, and you don’t want your children to worry about these things either. You may want to start putting money aside for the future, such as into a high-interest savings account or opening a child’s savings account, but you also need to understand the best ways to live a life that is not just focused on money, and this is a vital lesson for us all. We can feel so focused on money that we can greatly neglect what quality of life can be achieved, purely by having a better family unit.
Yes, there are people that will argue that you need stuff and money in order to provide a solid foundation, but this is where making little tweaks to your lifestyle and ensuring that you feel better and more hopeful for your family’s future is crucial. Something like treats should be baked into our way of life, which is nice and can make us feel better after a bad day, but it’s about understanding what form these treats should take. For example, you can find plenty of cheap day trips that will ensure everyone has a fantastic time on a small budget.
Everybody is focused on their finances, but there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Taking control of our financial future is about having the right plan based on our goals, but also ensuring that we don’t focus purely on finances. We all have money worries, and they can cause us to feel overwhelmed, however, if we have a plan to take control of our financial future, this is going to give us more peace of mind- but we also have to remember that sometimes we need to reappraise the idea of having a “lot” of money. The people that are richer who keep on getting richer- what quality of life do they really have? It’s all about window dressing rather than the good stuff. Focus on what you can do for your family, not achieving riches, because you don’t need millions in the bank.
