Tuesday, May 14, 2013

What is your Financial Four?

When it comes to finances there are many topics to learn and educate yourself about. Anything from Emergency Savings, Calculating Retirement, Tax Time Planning, Creating a will, Understanding Income, and many more. When faced with all these topics to learn, it may be overwhelming. I discovered this fun and educational activity based on a variety of financial topics. Similar to a bracket system like the NCAA Final Four, the National Endowment for Financial Education and Financial Planning Association created financialfour.org.

I invite you all to complete the activity and see what financial topics are most important to you and also compare to others who have completed the activity. Here are my Final Financial Four

1. Pay Yourself First
     -Automate transfers directly into savings
     -Build savings into monthly budget

2. Tax Time Planning
    - Develop a strategy to do even better financially next year
    - Manage your tax refund to pay debt, boost savings, etc.
    - Bunch qualified tax deductions

3. Emergency Kit
    - Ensure that it is portable should an emergency or disaster occur
    - Include important financial documents and small amounts of cash

4. Understand Income
     - Know what is in your paycheck
     - Complete withholding calculator and adjust withholdings

Through this exercise, I now have a list of areas that are prioritized so that I can tackle each one to better my financial wellness. I also discovered that out of the 32 Financial Topics, I am already implementing 22 of them in my life.

I will be utilizing this exercise in personal consultations as well as group facilitated workshops and events. Have fun completing this exercise and feel free to share your Final Financial Four.

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