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With some planning and some hope, you can make 2021 your best financial year yet. Here are 7 ways you can achieve that.
1. Invest In Yourself
Investing in yourself is like investing financially. The best time to start was yesterday, but the second-best time to start is right now. The best part is that investing in yourself does not have to cost money. Some just cost a little bit of time. There are blogs for finances (like this one!), fitness, coding, baking, cooking, interviewing, and just about any other skill you’d like to learn.
Depending on your goals, taking an online class to learn a new skill will make you more marketable for a potential promotion or new job. You can spend a little bit of money to buy some books to learn some new financial skills like budgeting or investing. Listen to some TED talks for some inspiration. You can find YouTube channels and blog posts to help you get or stay fit as well. Decide what you want to do to invest in yourself, and then go for it.
2. Invest Your Money
There are a lot of people that tend to shy away from investing because of fear or lack of knowledge. Index funds follow a specific index as a whole rather than individual stocks. An index is simply a group of stocks such as the S&P 500 or Dow Jones Industrial Average. Index funds have consistently beaten out managed funds and they are the closest thing to “set it and forget it” as you can get in the stock market.
History has proven that the stock market is always on the rise if you look at it from a long-term perspective. In fact, over the past 20 years, the S&P 500 index has averaged a yearly return of 8%.
That means that if you invested money in an index fund that followed the S&P 500 in the year 2000 and just left it there, the amount of money you would have today would be as if you were getting an 8% return every year on your investment. That 8% yearly return even takes into account the stock market plunge after the September 11th attacks and the Great Recession that started at the end of the 2000s. The market definitely goes down but it’s nothing to fear. As long as you keep your money in the market and think long-term, you will recover what you lost and then some.
3. Set Smart Goals
What do you want to accomplish next year in your finances? Do you want to earn more money? Do you want to learn how to budget? Is there a money mindset issue you want to work on? One of the best things you can do is to set a specific, lofty goal for what you want to accomplish. Setting lofty goals also gets your brain asking questions on how to accomplish that goal. Aim your goals high and you will be able to do more than if you were to set a lower goal.
4. Work on Increasing Your Income
Whether you currently have one stream of income or a few, it’s worth increasing your income all-around to give you more financial security and reach your financial goals faster.
Here are four ways you can do this:
- Get promoted at work.
- Get a raise at work in your current position
- Search for a new job
- Start a business
5. Automate EVERYTHING
Automation is such a huge thing in personal finance. Automate your bill paying, your income, your investments, and your saving. You can automate your bill-paying through your bank or through the online portal of the company you’re paying. Automation makes managing your money smooth and nice. You are more likely to stick with a budget if it’s easy to do.
6. Cut Things Out of Your Life that Don’t Work
One of the best things you can do to give yourself a great 2021 is to cut anything out of your life that isn’t working for you. These can include clutter, relationships, spending, debt, bad food, clothing that doesn’t fit or is too old to keep, finance advice, discouragement, types of budgets, or anything in between. Removing the things from your life that don’t matter cuts the weight trying to hold you down in whatever you are trying to accomplish in life. A lot of things you can cut out have either a direct or indirect connection to your finances.
7. Find and Focus on Your Why
Why do you want to accomplish what you want to accomplish? Why do you want to be in a good spot financially? There will always be reasons to look for more money. This can turn you into something you’re not and it can prevent you from starting toward your goals until you “have enough money.” Determine your why and then go after it. Keep it in the front of your mind and watch your motivation skyrocket.
To an Amazing 2021!!
Culled from: aTypicalFinance
