My Personal Finance Blog

It all starts with a simple step – make a budget! The most important thing about improving your family finances is to get a clear picture of exactly where you stand. Once you know that, you have a clear understanding of the positive and negative aspects of your financial position you can identify clear steps to take in order to move forward, and improve your finances.

A budget is the backbone of any financial endeavour – whether you are running a business or a household. You must be clear about what financial responsibilities you have, as well as be clear about what your income sources are. The key here is to be completely open and honest with yourself – if you’re not, the whole exercise is futile.

It’s also important to identify financial goals for yourself and a clear timeline in which you want to achieve them. Examples may include going on a holiday, buying a car, paying off existing debt, or buying a house. No matter what the goal, make sure you have a set date you want to achieve it.

To speed up the achievement of your goals, take steps to increase savings, income streams (if possible) and reduce your level of debt. Your personal debt is money you give to someone else each time you have income, so obviously if you reduce those debts, you’ll improve the amount of investable (not disposable) income.

Pay off your credit cards, then cut them up to make sure you don’t run them up again. Pay extra – as much as possible – on your debts to repay them earlier. This will usually save you money because the longer you have these debts like a car or personal loan, the longer you are charged interest. The more you pay on the debt, the less interest is charged and you can pay it off quicker because you are reducing the principal amount of the loan.

If you’re like most people you will have multiple interest incurring debts. You can attack your debt using a number of strategies. Personally, I like to repay smaller amounts first, because the psychological impact of removing a debt from your list of liabilities is fantastic. Plus, the amount you used to pay on the smaller debt can then be snowballed onto other debts – reducing them quicker. Other people may like to repay any extra they have on the debt which is incurring the highest amount of interest. The bottom line is that you should do whatever suits you and your goals.

With Christmas behind us, 2011 looks as though it could be a tough year money wise. January is therefore the perfect time to review your finances and start a plan to keep out of debt.

Christmas is traditionally the time for overspending and indulgence, but with January already upon us, credit card bills will soon start appearing on the doormat.

And with 2011 predicted to be a difficult year for family finances with increasing costs of living and many incomes reducing in the wake of the government cuts, now is the ideal time to review your finances and make sure that you avoid debt problems.

Understand your current financial position

For many people, reviewing their finances can be a daunting task. But giving yourself a financial makeover does not have to be difficult. There are some easy steps to follow:

The first thing to do is understand exactly what your financial situation is.

This sounds like common sense, however, I am constantly amazed at how many people go from month to month with very little idea of how much money they have coming in and the living costs they have to pay for.

If you do not do this already, you should identify your monthly income and essential expenditure budgets by listing all of your monthly income and living expenses. The Beat My Debt expenditure guide will be a great help with this.

By deducting your essential expenditure from your income, you will be able to see how much you have left over – your disposable income – either to save or pay any unsecured debts.

No outstanding debt – plan to save

List separately any unsecured debts that you have outstanding and which need to be paid.

If you have no outstanding unsecured debts you are in an enviable position. If you are not already, you should then take the opportunity to start saving so that you have money available if and when you face financial challenges down the line.

If you do not find saving easy, then the best way to achieve it is to plan to save.

By this I mean you should first decide how much of your disposable income you want to save each month. Then arrange to save this amount at the beginning of the month.

I recommend saving your budgeted amount as soon as your money comes in as if you wait until the end of the month, all too often the money you had planned to save will already be spent.

Affordable outstanding debt – get a savings safety net

If you have sufficient disposable income every month to maintain any monthly debt repayments, the standard advice is then to try to pay off more to reduce your debts as fast as possible.

However, if you have any spare cash, unlike many other financial advisors my advice is to first save this money to build up a savings safety net.

Set a target safety net amount. This could be £500 or even £1000.

This safety net can then be used if you face any financial difficulties such as an unexpected car repaid bill or your washing machine or fridge freezer breaks down without having to increase the balance on a credit card.

Once you reach your savings safety net target amount, then is the time to direct your spare cash to paying off additional amounts of your debt so that the debts are paid off more quickly.

Outstanding debt which you cannot afford to pay

If having reviewed your income and expenditure, you find that you do not have enough money each month to maintain your required debt payments, you need to take action or risk getting into a significant debt problem.

Not having enough money to pay everything each month means that you must be maintaining your expenditures by increasing your borrowing. Perhaps your overdraft or a credit card balance is slowly increasing.

If you allow this situation to continue for too long, eventually you will get to a point where you are at the limit of your credit facilities and face not being able to make your payments.

It is best to take action before getting to this point by using a debt management solution such as a debt management plan (DMP) or individual voluntary arrangement (IVA) which will help reduce your debt payments to an affordable amount.

Take action

Whatever your financial situation, January is the ideal month to review your financial circumstances.

If you feel you are struggling financially, taking the opportunity to carry out a financial makeover is now more important than ever with the financial difficulties set to face everyone in 2011.

If you follow the simple steps outlined above, you will be far better equipped to deal with the New Year.

You will ensure that you either keep out of debt or start a plan to get back in control of debts which you already have.

One of the results of the recession has been to reinforce the tendency to opt for term insurance as the first life policy. With the disappearance of credit and the pressure on employment, people have decide to switch to prudence. That means paying down the debts and cutting back on discretionary spending. Is this financial puritanism sensible? There are a number of factors to consider. First, a definition. A term policy is life coverage for a fixed number of years. Think of it as like a bet. If you are still alive at the end of the term, the insurance keeps all the premiums, and you and your dependents get nothing. Now, let’s focus on the psychology of the young. Most never bother thinking about insurance or, if they do, it’s a very low priority. Why bother worrying about something that’s unlikely to happen for decades? Statistically, this is a reasonable view. Just as many young people back their health and refuse to buy an individual health plan, the majority see no advantage in life insurance. Life expectancy has been rising steadily over the last 50 years. This calm confidence lasts until they enter a stable relationship. Until children appear. But, by then, the cost of living has gone up and, potentially, what was two incomes has become one. Then, buying term insurance is the cheap option.

The real question is whether buying a whole life policy early is always the right answer. The argument goes that you take on the higher premiums when, as a young single, you have the most disposable income. Inflation and pay increases slowly make the higher premiums more affordable. If you do become a two-income family, this really takes the pressure off. Hopefully, by the time children come along, you have already produced a financial situation in which the premiums are now affordable. Hmmm. Back to definitions: this policy insures your life, but also has an investment element that builds up a cash value over time. If you keep up the premiums, this provides security during retirement and for your dependents. Except, people do not make rational financial decisions. The young prefer to enjoy their youth rather than stay home and save for their retirement. Worse, the reality of most of the investment elements is that they represent poor performance. If you bought term insurance and invested the balance of the premium saved in regular investments, you would almost certainly do better. The hard reality is the insurance companies charge commissions for setting up your account and then impose management fees for investing your money. This slices the top off the investment returns.

So the conclusion is slightly bad news. The decision on what to buy is not directly related to the life insurance quotes you receive through a site like this. The best value is buying term insurance and having the self-discipline to invest a growing proportion of your income. If you do not have that self-discipline, the whole life, universal and variable policies represent compulsory savings. In effect, you are paying the life company to do the work of investing for you. The perfect choice starts with the life insurance quotes and diverts through the office of an independent actuary who will give you an educated guess on the quality of the investment returns from the whole life policy as against managing your own investments over the next thirty years or so. Now you can decide whether you want to trust yourself or accept a low but guaranteed yield from the insurance company.