For those of us that proclaimed that 2015 would be the Year of Family Finances, what progress have you made on these goals? If you had a slow start, there is no time like the present to get your family’s finances back on the road to recovery.
Prepare Your Family for Financial Success
Schedule a time for you and your spouse to answer the following questions; you both will need 2-3 hours of quiet time, a journal, and a comfortable spot in your home.
Family Budget Questions:
- Do you we a clear picture of how much income we bring in each month? Do we have a clear picture of how much income you spend on bills? Have we used the 50:30:20 rule of thumb for creating our starter budget? 50% of our income goes to needs, 30% goes to wants, and 20% goes to savings and investing?
Family Debt Elimination Questions:
- Do we know how much debt we actually owe? Have we applied the “domino effect” to eliminating our credit card debt— lining up our credit cards from lowest balance to the highest balance and systematically paying as much as you can on the first bills and the minimum payments on the others until the first debt is completely paid off?
Family Emergency Fund Questions:
- Can we honestly say that we have calculated how much we would need to save 6, 9, or 12 months worth of our net income? If we don’t have at least 6 months of living expenses socked away, what will be our plan of action? How will we increase our income? How will we decrease our expenditure?
Family Retirement Questions:
- Have we started saving for retirement? Have we checked the beneficiaries on all of our financial accounts? If not, when will we do it?
Family Estate Planning Questions:
- Have you written a will? (Even though we are young, getting started early when there is time helps us avoid panicking, confusion, and fighting when you have already passed.) If not, when will you start?
BMWK- what other questions should families be asking about their finances?