Bryan C. Fleming

Building personal wealth is not hard if you understand math. All you have to do is take in more money than you spend. Yet, life isn’t as simple as a math equation and there are various personal factors that can uproot even the best-laid plans. Cash, for instance, may be plentiful when we are single and working, and become scarcer when we are married with several children as dependents. Life also can have a way of throwing unexpected curves like layoffs, disease, divorce, and more. For those occasions, we have to turn to savings or loans to help us through the rough patches. So, how can we make the road a little smoother if we’re not blessed with stunning good luck? Good financial planning can help you stay ahead of the game.

Financial Planning

The time to plan for your future is now. You may be in college, just graduated, or just divorced - it doesn’t matter! There are certain milestones everyone wants to achieve and can plan ahead of time to finance. Things like a wedding, the birth of a child, or retirement are all events that can be planned ahead. Begin to learn how financial products work and how you can make your money grow. The earlier you start, the more it will grow through the power of interest. Find a financial counselor and get a financial check-up yearly.

You should review your insurance needs with them to see if you are covered enough in case of an accident, a health emergency, or the death of a spouse. Insurance is one area that many people fail to investigate until it is too late. Look ahead, and find out what insurance you should be carrying and make sure it covers you in case something unfortunate happens. This is the best way to help you smooth out the path ahead, when the future is murky and you don’t know how good your luck might be.

There’s no doubt that while having a certain amount of debt is normal and a way of life for most of us who live in North America, some of us have gone over the line where we can pay back what we owe in monthly payments. Before any further discussion of this unfortunate situation can take place, it’s necessary to note the facing a debt burden is something that can happen to anyone. It’s not just the people who don’t know how to manage their money that can get into trouble, but those unfortunate ones among us that are faced with the loss of a job, a family illness, or a host of other unexpected circumstances that find themselves falling behind.

Types of Debt

It matters what kind of debt you have, and as you might have guessed, there are several different kinds although most of the debt that the average person finds themselves facing is what’s called unsecured debt. This includes the one that most of us struggle with in one way or the other—credit card debt. As well there are those unpaid student loans that have a way of gathering interest like a stone rolling down a hill gathers moss, and tax debts as well as medical or legal bills that have gone unpaid.

It happens more and more that people find themselves unable to see over the mountain of debt that they’ve created for themselves. Most of them are good people who would love nothing better than to find a way out and there’s help out there. Debt relief agencies like Delray Credit Counseling are experts at studying people’s individual debt circumstances and then helping them find a way out.  
What to Do About It

 The best option is to speak to a professional that can help. A certified debt counselor is the right choice. Professionals like those at http://www.delraycc.com are the people that can listen to your situation and help you find a plan to get you back on track. To start, all you need to do is apply to a local debt consolidation program—they are either usually private or non profit agencies that will supply a free quote on the time and interest that will be required. It’s really quite simple and once a plan is in place, you stand to save a substantial amount of interest on the payments and shorten the time it will take to pay the money back. The debt consolidation company that you select works with your creditors to design a repayment method that will both satisfy them and start you back on the road to financial freedom.

There’s a good reason that this is the best option and it’s simple. By consolidating you debt, you avoid having to claim bankruptcy. While bankruptcy does erase many of your debts, it does not take away some of the ones that can swell to large proportions like child support payments and student loans. As well, once you’ve filed either the Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 versions of bankruptcy, you credit rating is affected for up to ten years and you will find it considerably more difficult to get a personal loan, a mortgage or even a job.   

Many people make the sad mistake thinking that they need to have a great deal of money in order to invest.  That’s far from the truth.  You do not need to have a lot of money to invest you just need to know where to invest it at.  You can make small investments that will have big pay offs in the end.

There are many options for first time investors to get started with $1000 or even as little as $50.  One of the easiest investments that you can get into is a 401(k) Plan.  You do not need any money at all to start with and you can add a minimum of 1% of your pay to the plan with each paycheck.  A great perk of these kinds of plans is that your employer will also put money in at the end of their fiscal year so that means you will get free money each year that is earning money for you.  

This means if you earn a yearly income of $30,000 with bi weekly paychecks, you can have as little as $11.50 taken out for your retirement fund from each paycheck.  This is taken out pretax so you will only see about $9 missing from your check.  Most people recommend that you contribute at least 10% of your pay to your retirement in order to save enough to live a comfortable life style when you retire.  

You can save for college with a 529 plan and you can start it up with as little as $25.  You would then need to have at least a $15 automatic deduction from another account like a savings or checking that will go directly into the 529 plan.  This is a great way to invest in your child’s future and there are great plans that you can get into such as Upromise where you save on things that you buy each day.  

These plans are tax exempt when they are used for qualified education costs of the beneficiary on the account.  With plans like Upromise, you can sign up with different credit cards from yourself as well as family and friends.  Each time they take certain purchases with those credit cards, a percent of the purchase is places into an account for your child for college.  You can then take those savings and use them in a 529 account.  

Another great investment choice would be U.S. Savings Bonds.  All you need to buy one is $25 dollars and you add to it in $25 increments.  Generally you can buy Savings Bonds right through your payroll as an automatic deduction.  The good thing about this is that the interest on the Savings Bonds are exempt from both state and local taxes and most often federal taxes as well.  

Investing doesn’t have to take a great deal of money.  Just do a bit of research before you invest your money so you can go with the best option for your goals.