Replacing A Slimmer Waistline for a A Slimmer Bottom Line May Be A Wiser Goal to Pursue This Year
By Anthony
Rhodes
Out with the old, in with the new. Such
is the mandate during the changing of the year, and many of us prescribe to it
by beginning January determined to absolve ourselves of the perceived
shortcomings, which adversely affected our potential during the previous year.
Now for most of us, these deficiencies are cosmetic, i.e. we’d like to either
gain muscle or lose weight, and in doing so should become more attractive, more
productive, and best of all…better stewards to our financial affairs. I am of
course being facetious, but my point is that we all too often focus our attention
on physical improvements when devising our resolutions for the New Year,
when in fact, if we seriously wanted to address the issues, which had the most
impact on our lives, we’d likely look at the ways in which we managed or
mismanaged our personal income over the past year, and the development of means
to become more proficient in this area should realistically head the list of
any hopeful resolutions.
So this week, we’ll take a look at some worthwhile
recommendations, which should help reshape your monetary figures for the
New Year. With the purpose of course, of making this year, one in which our
usual narcissistic resolutions of toning up, buffing up or slimming down, takes
a back seat to the equally impressive beauty of increasing our savings, reducing
our debt and overall becoming more ‘fiscally’ fit.
Resistance Training
Now that we’ve gotten over our post holiday
shopping and are well into the throes of the New Year, I can think of no better
time than the present to begin using a budget to help shed off that unwanted
fiscal fat created during last months’ binge of spontaneous purchases. Due to
lack of planning during the Holiday season, many of us found ourselves rushing
to add last minute gifts for those whom we had forgotten, and spending far more
than we had anticipated while doing so. This is one of the reasons why having a
budget is so important. Simply put, when you have one, you spend only what you
had planned for, and without one, you wind up spending considerably more. To
resist the temptation to overspend, a budget is perhaps the best financial tool
that you and your family can employ, and as a result, should find its way to
the very top of your list of healthy monetary resolutions.
Adding Supplements
Now this post is by no means meant to downplay the
obesity crisis which has gripped our nation, or to imply that someone ought to
replace our handling of it as the primary goal to pursue at the advent of the
New Year. Such implications would marginalize an issue which is dangerously moving
towards critical mass, and for those suffering from this epidemic, I offer my
sincerest support as you deal with this ever increasing issue. It is, however,
intended to point out that in our quest to outline within our list of customary
annual improvements, we do not abandon those other important issues which can have an equally significant impact
on our lives. And that by failing to do so, we may accomplish the goal of
getting our physical body in shape, but that our fiscal body’s health, may be a
completely other matter, indeed.
(Anthony Rhodes is a
Registered Investment Advisor and owner of wealth management firm The Planning
Perspective www.theplanningperspective.com )
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