Financial Life To-do

You might be in the mood to spring clean your finances as we approach the halfway point of the year. So I have a to-do list to offer you to get started! You can always add items to your own list, or ignore items here based on what is most relevant to your own lived experience.

Here we go!

• Figure out how much you actually spend per month. Write it down — the good, the bad, the ugly. Do you spend too much? Do you not make enough? Does your spending align with your priorities?

• Figure out your bare essentials budget: food, water, shelter, medicine.

• Create a regular monthly budget (based on the first two items on the list).

  • Is your actual spending in line with the amounts you have budgeted?

• Define what it means to financially to live your absolute best life. It’s dream time! Map it out, get some real numbers to put into a summary. Figure out how much you’d need to make to be able to afford this life. Your best life might be closer than you think!

• Establish your savings rate.

  • What percentage of your income can you save?

  • What percentage are you saving?

  • What percentage do you want to be saving?

• Learn about retirement accounts. (If you’re in the USA, here are some technical definitions that you can start digging more into based on your own life.)

• Create your estate plan. (We already talked about this here.)

  • Will

  • Asset Inventory

  • Advance Directives

Once you’ve gone through the list, determine what actions you need to take so that everything on the list is done! This list may take a while to complete, so don’t feel pressured to get it all done in one day. Every few months, come back to it to tweak it as much as you need to.