5 Must Have Financial Lists

To get your finances right, you need 5 financial lists. These lists will help you glide through 2018 without money problems, at least with less money problems.

1. Goal List: Before all else, this comes first. When writing out your 2018 goals, don’t miss out on you r financial goals. What are your financial milestones? What do you want to achieve financially in 2018, personally or as a business? As always, these goals should be specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and time-bound.
2. A List of Needs: Based on your goals, figure out what you need to achieve these goals and stay alive. What do you need? Itemize them. Include your wants too. Categorize the items on this list into “must-haves” and “nice-to-haves”. Everything you want and need is valid but not everything may be necessary. However, you may never know till you write them down.
3. Pros and Cons List: Look through your list of needs and weigh them, what are the pros and what are the cons. Generally, when faced with any financial decision, this list can aid logical and clearer decision making.
4. Budget: How much do you have? How much is assigned to what item? analyze your finances. Based on your pros and cons list, you will be able to decide what items are priority and not. Assign an amount to each item. Be accountable for each amount. Don’t borrow from one category to attend to another. Instead, create an emergency fund to ignore.
5. Reconciliation List: At the end of every month, write down what you spent on and how much you spent. Look through your budget and compare with this list. It will save you from the confusion of not knowing where your money went. It will also help you check your expenditure and analyze what you need to cut down on or improve on.

These lists have helped me make better financial decisions. I am sure they will help you too.

Love,

Blessing Abeng

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