WE have covered importance of ownership and clarity towards our goals, as well how having the right mindset can be crucial to our pursuit of living the best life possible.
As we refresh our calendar each year, it is important that we take a view at some important indicators of our personal finance. This is to ensure the good work we have put in place before continuing to be extended to the New Year, and at the same time, keeping us on track for our life goals.
Here’s a not-so-common-checklist for your reference.
Credit health
It is crucial that we update our credit health at least once a year.
A credit report tells us our borrowing and repayment history, as well as any legal judgement against our names, etc. Our credit reports are referenced by companies, eg, lending institutions in deliberating our application for loans.
It’s important to review your credit report regularly to ensure that the information it contains is accurate, as incorrect information can negatively impact your credit score. Reviewing it regularly also helps in keeping risk of identity theft in-check.
We can get our credit report from credit reporting agency like CTOS, and Experian.
Assets Protection
It is also important to update the values of your assets, for instance, house, and compare it against insured value in your current fire insurance policies and home content insurance.
Sometimes, we insure our assets since years ago and we just continue to renew it yearly and it is possible that our current insurance does not reflect inflation (which means it cost a lot more to rebuild our house today than few years ago).
On top of this, it is also vital to review if your policies are extended to cover damaged due to other key perils (risks) like flood, bursting of water tanks, landslide and etc.
Savings
If you can trace back to the total savings you have made over the last 12 months, is this amount matching with the total value you have expected to save 12 months ago?
It is very crucial that we ensure our set savings are implemented accordingly as this is the action that keep us on-track to prepare the money we need to spend in the future.
If we plan to save RM 12,000 a year and when we trace back, only RM 8,000 is saved, this means we have to play catch-up, otherwise, we will be behind our savings target.
Spending
If you can trace back to the spending over the past 12 months, is there any category that surprise you?
The best way to avoid surprises, is to prepare a spending plan on how we want to spend our money. A spending plan is also known as a Budget, it is a permission we pre-set for ourselves on what and how we want to spend our money.
Not only will preparing a spending plan help us increase our savings, it also is a very great at keeping us at peace after spending, instead of guilt or remorse.
Last but not least, it is very important to set key milestones and goals that you want to achieve, and own your New Year resolutions, and goals.
I wish everyone a very good start to 2023 and have a great year of abundance in health, happiness, and wealth. — Jan 1, 2023
Kevin Neoh is a CFP professional and a certified member from Financial Planning Association Malaysia (FPAM). He is also a financial life coach.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
