A brighter financial future starts with understanding where you stand today. Use our tools and resources to evaluate your personal finances, set achievable goals, and plan for the life you deserve. Start now with our Personal Financial Health Check to build a path toward financial security.
Planners: Your Personal Financial Health Check
Making Ends Meet
One of the main reasons persons run into financial difficulty is that they do not, as a rule adhere to prudent personal financial management practices. One of the first principles of successful personal financial management is that your expenses must be constrained by your income. This means that if you are to act financially responsibly to yourself you must ensure that you are not spending more that you earn on a persistent basis.
One way to make sure that you contain your expenditure urges is to employ personal financial budgeting techniques on a consistent basis. Financial budgeting at the personal level however is one component of the larger concept of Personal Financial Management and Planning.
Personal Financial Management and Planning
Personal Financial Management (PFM) is the cornerstone of sound financial decisions. PFM can be defined as finding the best ways of using your available financial resources to improve and protect your personal wealth towards achieving your financial goals.
PFM involves making the best use of your available financial resources. Therefore collecting and assessing relevant financial information is of utmost importance. Before determining your financial goals with respect to retirement, education, assets, etcetera, you need to identify
- your assets (what you own e.g. a house, vehicle) and
- your liabilities (what you owe e.g. loans)
so that you will be guided and focused when making your decisions.
Importance of Personal Financial Management and Planning
PFM essentially forces you to plan the use of your resources. To do this successfully, you must answer some critical questions such as:
- How much debt do you have to pay?
- How much can you start saving now?
- When do you want to own your home?
- What are your health risks?
- When do you want to retire?
- What type of lifestyle you would like to have when you retire?
- How much to put aside for your children’s children?
Questions may vary among individuals with different financial goals. However if you should decide to move forward without a plan, you may not achieve the desired results.
Download the Personal Financial Health Check and other documents listed below to assist you in planning.
