2019 Financial New Year's Resolutions

With every change of the calendar year comes New Year Resolutions, which typically include promises to get in better shape, to eat healthy and get your financial affairs in order. While you have the motivation to make a positive change in your financial affairs, like many resolutions they can fade away as time progresses.  We’d like to offer the steps below to help you create a change in mindset to make a difference and reach your financial goals in 2019.

• Analyze your financial goals and where you stand on accomplishing them: The New Year is a great time to write down your financial goals and check to see if you are on track to accomplish them.

• Create a net worth summary of your assets and liabilities: This is a good exercise to monitor where you are at with paying down debt and making sure you are hitting your saving goals. It may be a good time to consider paying down high-interest credit card debt using a line of credit to lower the interest rate.

• Create a financial strategy with process-oriented goals: I am a strong believer that if you follow the proper process and focus on repeating productive steps then you will slowly work towards your goal. It is more productive to have goals such as “My goal is to save as much as possible on a regular basis to reach my future goals while still enjoying the present through a prioritized spending plan.”  and “My goal is to create an investment strategy that allows me to avoid taking too much risk and enables me to be invested for the long run” as it creates a change in mindset that is realistic and can be maintained.

• Check your credit score: Use a service like Equifax or TransUnion to check your credit score.  A good credit score is extremely important if you plan on doing any borrowing in the future and can help you determine how much debt you may be carrying.

• Analyze how your investments have done and how you have felt over the last few months with the market correction: It is never too late to update your asset allocation and analyze how the most recent market correction has affected you emotionally. Equity markets are volatile in nature.  If you have felt uneasy with the recent market decline it may be time to rebalance your asset allocation so you can be invested for the long run.

• Sign up to a service like Mint to monitor your cash flow and cut deadweight spending: Most of the big 5 banks have a cash flow monitoring section of their online banking, but I personally prefer a service like Mint that can amalgamate accounts and credit cards across various banks. Once you can get a good look at where your spending goes every month, you can analyze whether your spending matches your goals and ideals and whether you need to make any changes. This is a good way to also find extra savings if you find that you are lacking.

• Automate your savings & debt payments: With the New Year comes increases in contribution room for registered accounts, like RRSPs and TFSAs. Half of the battle with creating an investment strategy is making consistent contributions to your RRSP and TFSA accounts. By automating your contributions it reduces your reliance on not spending the cash in your bank account and reduces RRSP contribution burdens in February before the March 1st deadline.

• Remove the stigma of talking about money:  We’re discouraged from talking about money at every turn, but if you want to fix your financial situation, talking about it is necessary. Start small by talking with close friends and family, the more comfortable you feel about talking about money, the more confident your will feel about your financial situation.

• Increase your financial literacy: The good thing is that you have signed up for this newsletter and hopefully I can help you with this regard. If you have any questions relating to your own personal situation I would be happy to help.

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