Useful Tips for Financial Wellness in 2023
Financial wellness is a touchy subject that can be difficult to comprehend. With many opposing views about the best ways to handle personal finances, one can never be sure which information is correct. With the increased demand for individuals seeking financial wellness, everyone can agree on a few essential tips. In today’s economy, every person should have a basic understanding of financial literacy. Financial knowledge can be the difference between whether a person lives comfortably or not. Let us explore a few tips for financial wellness in 2023. First, What Is Financial Wellness? Before understanding how to achieve financial wellness, one must first understand what financial wellness means. Financial wellness is a term that is thrown around quite often. However, for those new to the world of personal finance, it is just another term people use. Simply put, financial wellness is a person’s overall financial health. Financial wellness covers an individual’s capacity to control recurring expenses, deal with emergencies, and plan a better financial future. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo. What Is Good Financial Wellness? A person with good financial wellness has the money to live a life that they consider comfortable. They can pay their bills on time, enjoy hobbies, save for goals, and put away money for retirement. To shorten that, a person with good financial wellness can meet short-term and long-term financial goals. Tips for Financial Wellness in 2023 Learn How to Budget A budget is a spending plan that gives a purpose to every dollar made. It helps ensure that a person’s income is enough to cover their needs. Without a budget, individuals may find themselves overextending and without enough money to last until their next payday. A budget can be as flexible or as strict as a person desires. A personal budget will depend on what will work best in each circumstance. Some people need to follow strict rules to stick to a budget, while others may thrive on the freedom of doing what they want as long as the bills are paid. Various resources are available to help individuals learn how to budget, as well as different budgeting methods. In this age of technology, multiple applications offer easy ways to keep track of budgets. While these may work for some, others may find it more beneficial to write things down or to use cash instead of cards. Here are some examples of popular budgeting methods: Zero-based budgeting: Zero-based budgeting is a method of budgeting that puts every dollar made to use until there are zero dollars remaining. If a person makes $1,500 biweekly, everything they save, give, and spend is given a purpose within that $1,500 until the balance is zero. Flexible budgeting: Flexible budgets include room for adjustments. The budget sets less specific goals for each category and allows money to be moved based on current needs. Cash envelopes: For those who prefer to use cash for transactions, the cash envelope budgeting system uses cash for each spending category. The idea of cash envelopes is to split money into spending categories and only allow that money to be spent for that one category. Increase Earning Potential While making a budget can be incredibly beneficial, there is only so much budgeting one can do within their income limits. Sometimes, the answer is simply to make more money. For some, this might mean returning to school to become a better candidate in their field or getting another source of income. For others, it can mean working toward a promotion in their current company or switching companies to make more money in their field. Increasing earning potential can give a person better opportunities to save, pay down debt, and reach other financial goals. Build a Healthy Emergency Savings Account To reach financial wellness, a person must have healthy savings accounts. Savings are the key to being prepared for financial emergencies. As much as we would like to live in a perfect world, emergencies happen. Cars break down, injuries happen, and jobs get lost. A 2022 article by CNBC mentioned that 56% of Americans can’t cover a $1,000 emergency expense. While 44% of people would pay from their savings, others would charge the expense to their credit card and pay over time, pay the bill and cut other costs, borrow from family or friends, or take out a personal loan. Building a savings account is a significant financial planning and wellness component. Do Not Fall Prey to Lifestyle Inflation Lifestyle inflation occurs when an individual’s income increases, and so does their spending. For example, a person receives a raise at work and decides to move into a bigger apartment or get a new car. Instead of adding newer or larger expenses, this increased income can instead focus on other financial priorities. Instead of creating more debt, individuals can use the extra funds to eliminate debt or save toward more significant purchases. If a person’s lifestyle continues to change with their income, they are essentially increasing their cost of living, making the rise in income less significant. Plan for Retirement It is essential to plan for retirement as early as possible. This is because the earlier a person prepares for retirement, the more chance their money has to grow. Even small contributions have the potential to grow. Investing early gives the money more time to grow with the market and improves the chance for financial wellness even when a person is no longer working. There are numerous avenues to plan for retirement. First are employer-sponsored 401(k) or 403(b) accounts. These are company-sponsored retirement plans where employees can contribute their pretax income to a retirement account. The employer generally matches employee contributions, and employees receive a tax break on their retirement savings. Another option for retirement is an individual retirement account (IRA). IRAs allow individuals to contribute up to a certain amount allowed by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). There are several different individual retirement account options. Individuals can choose which account to invest in based on the