Staying on track in 2020

  • Health Tip #1: Eat a healthy diet;
  • Health Tip #2: Exercise;
  • Health Tip #3: Avoid risky habits;
  • Health Tip #4: Manage stress;
  • Health Tip #5: Sun safely;
  • Health Tip #6: Check for breast cancer.

Tips for boosting your financial health

Here are a few tips for how to get your finances on track in 2020.

  • Determine your goals. Laying out your goals and writing them down is the first step to staying on the right financial track. What’s most important to you? Whether it’s saving for your child’s college or funding your own retirement, those will require a different plan of attack. You have to articulate your goals in order to prioritse them.
  • Create a budget and one that’s realistic and involves research. Look at what you spent in all categories in 2018. Use that as your basis for your 2019 budget. And include everything: wedding gifts, gas money, groceries, oil changes. Whatever is left over should go toward paying off debt, a savings account or some type of investment.
  • Consolidate loans.Consider taking advantage of low interest rates by refinancing your mortgage or consolidating your loans. You’ll feel better about contributing that money.
  • Transfer high-interest balances.The New Year is a great time to take advantage of lower interest rate credit cards. By transferring your balances to cards with zero percent for 12 months, you can save thousands in interest charges alone. And, if you can pay them off in full, even if you have a little less wiggle room, even better.
  • Keep calm, and save for retirement. It’s simple. You must save for retirement; there’s just no way around it. You have to take ownership of your future. Nobody’s going to do it if you don’t. Make sure you’re maximising your contributions and setting money aside for a rainy day.

The New Year can be a great excuse to step back, plan, and get your finances on track. If you follow these simple tips, you’ll begin to see the fruit of your labour this year. And it will be worth it.

The best you:

Step 1

Identify your self-limiting beliefs. This may not be easy because they are so much a part of you and because it feels risky to question any characteristic that helps you feel safe. Make a list of all your self-limiting beliefs and challenge each one.

Step 2

Ask yourself how each statement is limiting you and why you believe it; what evidence there is and, most importantly, why you feel you need to believe the statement. After all, regardless of how you acquired any particular belief, it is you who are maintaining it.

Step 3

Make a plan to step outside your comfort zone, recognizing that it may take loads of practice over an extended period of time to become passably competent at your new skill.

Step 4

Work with a buddy who also wants to change a self-limiting belief. Support each other with regular updates and celebrations of success, even small progress steps. It may not be easy because they are so much a part of you and because it feels risky to question any characteristic that helps you feel safe, so it might feel safer to work closely with a coach to be able to identify those very well hidden blocks.