PERSONAL FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT

Personal Financial Management is an understanding of your financial situation in order to know how to plan for your future. This will help you watch what you earn versus spend and save what you are able to save. Several things happening like Business close down, job loss, pandemic, accident can really threaten your finances if you have not planned well for these eventualities.

BEST WAY TO MANAGE YOUR FINANCES

The following are the best ways to manage your finances during personal finance manage

1. You need to understand your current financial situation
2. Set up your priorities and financial goals.
3. Create a stick to your budget
4. Establish an emergency fund
5. Save for retirement
6. Pay off debt

Personal finance management key focus areas

• Savings
• Budget
• Investment
• Financial Protection

SAVINGS:

Savings is a portion of income left after expenditure. Irrespective of how much you earn, you need to keep money aside as a saving for any future eventuality. It is a reality that we are no longer guaranteed of our jobs and that is why it is important to ensure that we save.

Savings helps us to be prepared for any eventuality like income loss, pandemic, accident, job loss etc. with this in mind, when you plan well through savings, these issues will not threaten you

BUDGET

A budget is an estimation of revenue and expenses over a specified future period of time and is usually compiled and re-evaluated on a periodic basis. A budget is the financial road map for your spending on a monthly, quarterly or yearly basis. When you do not have a budget, you will not know where each penny went, there is no defined parameter to to account how the income has been expensed.

Having a budget will help you know how much money is coming in and going out. It is also important to consider emergency funds in the budget

Follow your budget to the letter. Monitor your budget for some time and know where you spend more and how to reduce the excess spending. Minimize your non recurrent monthly bills and monitor the difference in payments. To achieve this Personal financial management discipline is important. Examples of areas that can minimize bills is electricity bill by;

1. Trying to switch off lights that are not in use.
2. Avoiding leaving gadgets on the power socket when on and need not to be used.
3. maybe you have a heater and sometimes forget it on. Try to ensure it is switched off.

INVESTMENT

Investment is an asset or item acquired with the goal of generating income or appreciation over a period of time. While looking for investment, consider how long you want your funds to be held, also consider the risks involved in long term investments/short term investments

Check on where you are investing by considering if you need expertise, personal involvement and how secure the investment is.  Remember when the deal is too good think twice.

FINANCIAL PROTECTION

Financial protection is the ability to respond in damages for any liability. There are different ways to protect your finances during crisis especially during the pandemic,

Taking an insurance medical cover for you and your family is very important. It saves a lot of cost incase of disease in the family. You can also insure your assets, life, with a reputable insurance firm

Insuring your income against job loss makes you to continue earning some cash from the insurance.

MISTAKES TO AVOID

The following are some of the mistakes you need to avoid;

1. Spending too much; this has consequences. if you spend too much vis a vis your income, in most cases this is the beginning of your failure. start small and grow slowly
2. Mixing personal and business finances; it is important to separate personal cash and business cash. This will help you to know if your business is making any profit or not.
3. Confusing profit with cash; this can lead to overinvesting in the wrong thing and in case of loss you will loose both your profit and cash. Profit is what is left from the cash that you invested in.
4. Failure to seek advise; kindly do not shy away from asking for professional advice when you are not so sure of what to do with your funds. Note if you seek for advice from friends, colleague and relatives, please note not everybody is genuine, some may misguide you. Stay wise and handle your cash wisely for a happy future.

CONCLUSION

When you start managing your finances, you’ll have a better perspective of where and how you’re spending your money. This can help you keep within your budget, and even increase your savings. With proper personal finance management, you’ll also learn to control your money so you can achieve your financial goals.