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11 moves to supercharge your finances
These steps are quick and easy ways to improve your finances in 2010.
Posted by Karen Datko
Big things can come in little packages. That’s true in a lot of areas of life, and it’s certainly true when it comes to money. In fact, some of the most important and effective money moves you can make are quick, easy, and really powerful.
As we start the New Year, I thought it would be a good time to review 11 steps you can take to easily improve your finances in the coming year.
Pay your bills on time. Sounds simple, I know. While financial setbacks sometimes prevent us from keeping up with our bills, many times it's just a matter of organization and discipline. But it's really important. Late payments can wreck your credit score, result in default interest rates, and sour important relationships with your creditors (you never know when you may want to increase your credit
If you have a habit of missing payments, there are several options that can help you stay on top of your bills:
Track your net worth. When it comes to measuring your progress, net worth is THE key yardstick. Each month we make money and we spend money. The results are reflected in our balance sheet. Make more than you spend, and the difference shows up as extra cash in the bank (an asset), or perhaps an extra payment on a credit card (a liability). Spend more than you make, and the difference shows up as a withdrawal from your bank account or perhaps a charge to a credit card or home-equity line of credit. Either way, the balance sheet measures our progress.
If you’ve never prepared a balance sheet, our three-step financial checkup shows you how.
Check your credit. You can get your credit report for free once a year from each of the three major credit bureaus at AnnualCreditReport.com. Because they can each have different information on file about you, it’s important to check your report from all three. Get them all at one time each year, or pull one from each bureau every four months. Either way, check your credit report for errors every year.
The reason it’s so important is that your credit score can have a major impact on your finances. It affects everything from the interest rate you’ll get on a mortgage to the rate you get on credit cards or your next car loan.
In her excellent book, "Your Credit Score," Liz Pulliam Weston analyzes just how much a good credit score is worth. Over the course of a lifetime, it’s easily worth tens of thousands of dollars for most people, and even more for some.
Note that you can’t get your FICO credit
Rebalance your investment portfolio. Over time your investments will deviate from your asset-allocation plan. As one asset class goes up and another goes down, you will end up with too much money invested in one class and not enough in another. We rebalance once a year, but whatever you choose, make sure to keep your investments in line with your plan.
Conduct a credit card audit. Once a year we review our credit cards, and ask whether we’d be better off with different cards. For example, if you are carrying a balance from month to month, ask yourself whether you can get a card with a lower interest rate or a 0% APR on balance transfers. If your focus is on rewards, ask whether there are better cards available. I just converted our AmEx Gold Preferred Rewards card to a Premier Rewards card. The rewards are much, much better, and all it took was a few minutes online to make the change.
One final thought: If your credit score improved throughout the year, you may qualify for cards you couldn’t get a year ago. If you’re not sure, check your score and then compare cards. While credit card issuers look at more than just your credit score, here is a good rule of thumb for translating credit scores into the types of cards you can get: 700-plus (excellent and good-credit credit cards), 650-699 (fair-credit credit cards), below 649 (poor- or bad-credit credit cards).
Evaluate your bank. I’ve banked at Citi for nearly 20 years. Still, each year I ask myself if there are better options out there. And when I need to open a savings account or CD, I don’t limit myself to Citi. Instead, I look for the highest yields available. Look at where you keep your cash and ask yourself whether you can do better.
Review and revise your goals. Goals are critical in just about every area of life. They are particularly important when it comes to money. Our goals this year include paying off all non-mortgage debt, giving a certain amount to charity, and expanding our investments. Whatever your goals, write them down and refer back to them regularly. They can be a great motivator.
Scrub your monthly expenses. It’s amazing how many creative ways there are to save money. You can reduce telephone bills by moving to Ooma or magicJack; you can reduce heating and cooling bills in countless ways, including using programmable thermostats and CFL bulbs. You can rid yourself of cable and still enjoy most TV shows. The list goes on and on. If you want more ideas, check out my free book, "99 Painless Ways to Save Money."
Consider refinancing your mortgage. Although rates have ticked up a bit lately, they are still at historic lows. If you haven’t refinanced, now is the time to consider it. This one move could save you hundreds of dollars a month and thousands of dollars over the life of your mortgage.
Evaluate all of your insurance. Once a year we re-evaluate all of our insurance. We examine our deductibles to see if we can save money by raising them. We ask whether we need all of the insurance we have. And we shop for better rates, which is easy to do online.
Get smart. Improving your finances is a lifelong learning process. Whether you want to become a better investor, start a business, or just better manage your money, there are some great books that can help you along the way. Some time ago I put together a list of seven great personal-finance books. These books are still valuable today, as are many others. The key is to never stop learning. |
