Guidelines
for your financial services and planning:
1) Your
budget: A budget is both record of expenditure and
a plan of how to spend your money in the future. It is also
the first important habit of a successful financial plan.
2) Your
balance sheet: A balance sheet is the extent of your
wealth. A balance sheet is a list of your assets and liabilities.
3) Your
emergency fund: For unexpected expenses you must
always have some cash in an emergency fund. The rule of thumb
is that you must have three times your monthly income in your
emergency fund.
4) Your
financial goals: You should divide your goals into
short, medium and long term goals. Short term goals are mostly
needs. Your medium term goals are both needs and wants. Long
term goals include your children's education and owning a
home.
5) Your
retirement plan: This also falls under financial
goals but is so important that you must keep it separately.
The most important factor of a retirement plan is that you
start immediately.
6) Your
investments: Your investment portfolio must be properly
diversified across and within asset classes. There
are a lot of financial services that can help you with this.
7) Your
life assurance: You only need life insurance when
you have debt like a mortgage bond or when you have people
that are dependant on you. Disability assurance you need from
the day you start working.
8) Your
short term insurance: You must reassess your short
term insurance on an annual basis. Remember to lower your
premiums you can place a voluntary excess on your insurance.
9) Your
health assurance: Because medical aids revise there
benefits and contributions at least once a year you must have
a look at your assurance once a year.
There are a lot
of financial services out there that can provide you with
services for bullets number 5 to 9. Therefore it is very important
to shop around to get the financial services that give you
the most benefits per cost.
