What were your 2016 Financial Lessons?

Cotta

Hi,

With 2017 now well underway, I was wondering what financial lessons everyone has learnt from 2016 and even before?

Two below for me:

1. Heavily monitor outgoings and reduce all unnecessary expenditure. This may seem very basic but I haven't done it for the last few years and as a result my finances have been negatively impacted.

2. An emergency fund is essential, last year I should have built up one but instead put additional funds towards overpaying my mortgage, a very poor decision.

Genuinely interested in lessons learnt by others.

Mogley

I've been amazed by the amount of information I have gathered on these forums since joining last year.


My main lessons learned are:
1) It's easy to set up current accounts for switch bonuses and those current accounts also give the best interest rates on your cash. I thought interest on cash was below 1%!
2) Balance and diversification of savings/investments/pensions for protection and long term compounding/growth.
3) If it sounds too good to be true then it most certainly is!! Sooo many posts on here about the next best investment fund etc.. etc..

jimmyjones_2

1) The power of dividends - my company Share Incentive Plan (SIP) has a significant proportion of its value from dividends (I don't notice that in my other investments which are accumulating funds)

2) The volatility of holding shares in a single company - The value of my SIP dropped 30% in a few days

3) Don’t buy cheap bin bags

Pincher

Should have bought S&P500 ETF.

Waiting for dips that never happened.

Repeating the same mistake by waiting for the crash in 2018.

So, haven't really learnt anything.

Jo_Blogs

Cotta wrote: »

1. Heavily monitor outgoings and reduce all unnecessary expenditure. This may seem very basic but I haven't done it for the last few years and as a result my finances have been negatively impacted.

I would say the same. I left mine for about a year and only just got around to sorting things out. A spring clean does wonders

jimmyjones wrote: »

3) Don’t buy cheap bin bags

Ain't that the truth :rotfl:

veryintrigued

Bet on the outsider

TheShape

Leaving your money in a cash ISA is, in general, a poor option.

timmy963

1. Do internet banking and apply for accounts online.

I've always put off doing internet banking because I didn't trust it very much. But it is so easy to make accounts up online and transfer money about for incentives. I must have opened up about 16 accounts in the past year.

I come out with about £1.5K interest a year now

2. Do your groceries online.

Can see all offers, less likely to impulse buy and I save £5 a week on the taxi fare.

jimjames

Check the date interest rates change. I missed the drop on one of my Nationwide accounts and ended up with 1% not 5% for a month or so.

TheShape wrote: »

Leaving your money in a cash ISA is, in general, a poor option.

Good comment, even my 1% was better than an instant cash ISA would have been!

darkidoe

Being invested in the market is actually a good strategy to be more actively involved with planning your life. Because you need that stability to be prepared for the different outcomes. You need to account for the expenses, future plans, unplanned expenses. The alternative is to live by the day, by the month and paycheck to paycheck and you don't get stability from that. Sitting down to do personal finance planning helps you reflect about different aspects of your life and ask the tough questions of what you envision your life to be and can be.

ColdIron

jimjames wrote: »

Check the date interest rates change.

Google Calendar, I've never missed one (and it can email two early reminders)