FORWARD PLANNING
Forward planning always begins with assessing your past. We all have aspects of life we know we manage well and some that we could manage better.
Unless we regularly take stock of our current situation, review what we have done to get to this point and determine how we can improve our future outcomes, we stagnate and miss out on beneficial opportunities. Super is an area where this is especially true.
MONEY MANAGEMENT
There is more to life than money, and becoming a multi-millionaire may not be our life purpose, but if you do not manage your financial affairs wisely, life can be more difficult than it needs to be.
Learning how to manage/mismanage money usually starts when you obtain a job that provides a steady income. It is financially wise to use earnings to buy an asset that appreciates rather than depreciates, yet most people tend to look for a car first, which is an asset but one that is worth less in the first week of ownership than what you paid for it.
Most people take a decade or more to develop a financially sound perspective on their cash flow, savings and acquisition of assets, and many opportunities to improve their circumstances during this time inadvertently fall by the wayside simply due to unawareness
FINANCIAL AWARENESS
Phrases such as financial education or financial wisdom are popular phrases often heard in different situations within Australia. People develop different levels of financial awareness depending on what they are responsible for.
Various levels of government play a role in the management of the Australian economy and initiate a range of priorities that do not benefit all but do benefit some. The segment of corporate Australia, be it large or small businesses, and the impact of decisions made around the national economy requires consideration, and so does the family unit or the individual trying to struggle upward through parenting efforts and then future generations.
If we all are to move forward and upwards in life, financial awareness is as much a necessity as care for your community, with the balance between both finely judged by someone or a body who has both financial wisdom and skills.
REFLECT AND REVIEW
Financially, what you do not do will always come back to haunt you. How many times in life will you be able to start again? The answer to that question depends on your age and the time available within your life horizon.
Effective management of your financial situation demands you base decisions that impact your future on knowledge acquired from reviewing your past.
Decisions made and implemented without adequate information are almost always wrong. An opinion backed up with the acquisition of evidence equates to fact-based knowledge. Making informed decisions increases the probability of achieving life goals.
SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS
Earn some money through employment, spend some or even all you earn, maybe save some before you spend that too, and accumulate an abundance of debt. The summary of life for too many well-intentioned individuals.
If this is the treadmill you are on, the first step in taking control of money is always to analyse the situation as it is. It is easy to make financial mistakes without even knowing you are making them, many of which are damaging in some way or other.
Growth (whether personal or financial) requires you to acknowledge what you do not know, analyse the positives and negatives of the current situation and create an improved pathway forward.
DECISION MAKING
Having developed and even documented a new or heavily modified perspective around the management of your income, savings, assets and liabilities, changes in behaviour will need to be adopted involving the rules you want to operate to and the goals you want to set for yourself and others who might be somewhat dependent on you.
Your future financial outcomes depend upon you knowing what you are doing, a process that requires considered steps in deciding what to do from here and engaging the services of a trusted professional who can answer your questions and help you make fully informed decisions can be beneficial.
CAREER DEVELOPMENT
Most people earn income plus super from employment, yet many do not actively develop their careers sensibly. It is critical to the development of your future financial situation that you succeed within your chosen line of employment.
Nowadays, every employee in their thirties will have accumulated $100,000 plus in super, a personal asset that likely would have already been spent if paid out as wages.
Very few people endeavour to adopt the right wealth creation strategies with their super, displaying a lack of financial awareness that arguably pervades the overall management of their money.
GET STARTED
Do not let any further opportunities to create more wealth for yourself pass you by. Set the intention to become more aware and develop financial management skills in 2024.
To attend a free financial awareness webinar email yoursuper@superwise.com.au
Or visit www.superwiser.com.au and complete a free super review.