Posts
Everyone likes to spend money. But few of us likes to spend the time and effort needed to get – and keep – our personal finances in order; even though doing so would almost certainly help us have more money to spend. Often, a lot more.
Contrary to what you may think, managing your personal finances isn’t hard. What’s hard is getting yourself to do what needs to be done, a task complicated by the fact that most people haven’t a clue about what that might be.
Through this blog, you’ll learn exactly what to do to get smart about managing your finances. You’ll eliminate the need to hire a financial planner, who’d probably charge you anywhere from $500 to $2,500 to do the work for you. And you’ll discover that getting smart about your personal finances can actually be a lot of fun, to say nothing of the satisfaction of feeling that (finally!) you’re in control.
What is your worth?
Start by figuring your net worth. In banker’s terms, net worth is the sum of your financial assets minus the sum of your personal liabilities. To put it more simply, it’s the number you arrive at when you subtract the dollar value of what you owe from the dollar value of what you own.
Figuring your net worth the first time will take some time. The worksheet provided in this blog will be a big help, but you’ll still have to assemble the information. Be sure to do this in a way that makes it easy to repeat the process a year from now. A box of manila folders and a filing cabinet (or a heavy-duty plastic or cardboard storage box from your local office-supply store) will help you get things organized. Computer programs like Quicken, and Microsoft Money have built-in forms for net-worth calculations, making it easy to perform the arithmetic and to keep your worksheets up to date.
Contrary to what you may think, managing your personal finances isn’t hard. What’s hard is getting yourself to do what needs to be done, a task complicated by the fact that most people haven’t a clue about what that might be.
Through this blog, you’ll learn exactly what to do to get smart about managing your finances. You’ll eliminate the need to hire a financial planner, who’d probably charge you anywhere from $500 to $2,500 to do the work for you. And you’ll discover that getting smart about your personal finances can actually be a lot of fun, to say nothing of the satisfaction of feeling that (finally!) you’re in control.
What is your worth?
Start by figuring your net worth. In banker’s terms, net worth is the sum of your financial assets minus the sum of your personal liabilities. To put it more simply, it’s the number you arrive at when you subtract the dollar value of what you owe from the dollar value of what you own.
Figuring your net worth the first time will take some time. The worksheet provided in this blog will be a big help, but you’ll still have to assemble the information. Be sure to do this in a way that makes it easy to repeat the process a year from now. A box of manila folders and a filing cabinet (or a heavy-duty plastic or cardboard storage box from your local office-supply store) will help you get things organized. Computer programs like Quicken, and Microsoft Money have built-in forms for net-worth calculations, making it easy to perform the arithmetic and to keep your worksheets up to date.
2 comments:
It is pretty interesting to see how your personal finances and worth end up when you truly analyze them.
I like this post. Knowing the net worth is one of the very first step I took. I started at -$25,351!! Sometimes the number hurts, but it let's you know where you need to start off.
Post a Comment