31 days to fix your finances

mh1923

I've been adding lots of finance blogs to my RSS feed lately. Most of them are US, so I end up skipping a lot of posts about taxes or retirement plans that are not applicable to UK residents. But sometimes I stumble across some real gems like this series:

The Simple Dollar: 31 Days to fix your finances

He started on January 1st, and each day is adding an exercise to help you understand your financial goals and how to get there. Personally, I am spending two or three days on each step, so I won't be done on the 31st, but I am finding it very useful so far, and thought that others might find it helpful as well.

Just a sample:

Recently, LifeHacker conducted a poll asking readers what their top resolution is for 2007. The second most popular resolution was “Save money and get my finances in order.”

Let’s face it: there are millions of people out there who woke up on New Year’s Day resolving to get their finances in better shape. The vast majority of them will go at it the wrong way: they’ll go about things much like a binge dieter, cutting tons of fat out of their spending for the first few weeks, but eventually they’ll give up and by mid-February, their credit cards will be ballooning again.

Why does this happen? The reason is that revamping your personal finances requires a good foundation, most of which has very little to do directly with dollars and cents. Instead, it requires some careful thinking about not only your specific finances, but also about your life goals and your feelings about money.

Are you willing to spend one hour a day this month to getting on the right financial page and making your resolution a success? If you are, let’s get started. Each day this month around mid-day (in the United States), I’ll post some specific action points for you to follow and think about today. Some of them you can do on your daily commute just by thinking; other ones might require some time at home with a calculator or a spreadsheet (or other things). Each one requires about an hour of your time.

Kazonline

I've had a little look and it looks good, thanks mh. I've bookmarked it and plan to show my DS (16) - I think had I thought along these lines previously I wouldn't be where I am now.... and if I had I'd have enjoyed more of life (ie spent it on things that made us happy)
Kaz x