As Financial Literacy month comes to a close, DNA Financial Services wants you to remain aware throughout the year when it comes to your personal finances. One of the reasons we emphasize a person’s financial behaviors and how they are formed is because this helps with determining what your financial priorities are. Take a moment and think about the most important things to you when it comes to your finances. Hold that thought while we discuss this further.
What you choose to prioritize often comes from what you are financially and mentally prepared to handle. We recently worked with a tenant who pays his rent faithfully on the 1st of every month, even during a month where his car was stolen from in front of the property. Other tenants with lesser issues have paid their rent weeks later because their priorities were about other issues they felt were more important than where they lived. It has been said in the past that the home and the car (i.e.; housing and transportation) always come first when paying bills in your monthly spending plan. However, is that the emphasis for everyone?
There are surveys all over the internet that break down financial goals and priorities. Let’s establish that what we are discussing are the funds that remain after your core bills have been paid. What do you do with that “disposable income”? Two schools of thought were consistently dominant in each story or survey we found. The first is paying down or paying off current personal debt. With the rise of taking on personal debt again becoming a norm in American culture, working to resolve personal debt is becoming more important than ever.
The second is saving money for the future. Retirement always seems far away, until it isn’t. Those that saved for it make retirement look amazing. For those who did not save, the struggle is real. The key is to have a balance between doing both of these lines of thinking while still managing your monthly personal finances. Swinging rigidly in one direction or the other may cause imbalance in your finances and not allow you to be agile or flexible when financial surprises or emergencies rise up as they tend to do at the worst possible moment.
Our challenge to you is for you to pick a financial priority in addition to your core household bills. You can choose between paying down debt, saving or a combination of both. Set a goal of how much debt you would like to pay down or how much money you would like to save in the next six months and make it a priority to meet your goal. Becoming aware of what you choose to make a financial priority and planning it out are positive steps towards empowering your financial journey.
Founded in 2015, DNA Financial Services LLC has pledged to Educate, Empower and Equip the financial DNA of its’ clients now and for generations to come. The company offers a number of financial services designed to bridge the gap in wealth building education while aiding and advocating for the financial literacy of people from all walks of life.
DEBT IS NOT IN YOUR DNA! TM