Happy Monday, everyone! So you’ve made the decision to start doing something about your own personal finances. But where do you start? The amount of information is overwhelming, and this may be the reason why you decide to just keep the status quo. Things are okay; life is chugging along. Another day, another dollar, right?
Today’s post will be simple and sweet. There’s different ways to look at your financial well-being, but I’m going to use a video game analogy because I spend a lot of time (too much!) on video games. I’ve finished off that darn Tiny Tower (all 154 floors with 280 dream jobs) and am still collecting plants on Plants vs. Zombies. As for “real” games, I’ve started Dead Island and Bio Shock. Although I’ve finished off Gears of War 3 (sniff, sniff), I’m still leveling up my character in the Hoardes mode. So that’s the analogy I will use. Although the level you are on is pretty fluid, you need to grasp the concepts in each level before you can level up.
Financial Well-being: The Game!
Level 1: Cash Flow – Are you earning more (salary, interest income etc.) than you are spending?
Level 2: Debt – Do you have credit card debt?
Level 3: Savings – Are you regularly contributing to your savings? Are you saving enough for your goals and retirement?
Level 4: Investment Performance – Over time, are your investments performing as well as the benchmark index?
Level 5: Taxes – Are you taking advantage of tax saving vehicles and optimizing your tax savings?
Level 6: Insurance – Do you have sufficient insurance so you are not a financial burden “in case shit” happens? I ❤ Chris Rock!
Level 7: Estate planning – Do you have current wills and powers of attorneys in place to help your love ones?
Level 8: Optimizing Returns – Are you learning/employing new strategies that can help maximize your goals?
Answer yes on each level to level up! To all my computer programmers/geeks out there, this could be a great idea for a game. 🙂 We could have individual characters that are either super cute with huge eyes or big, strong.. robots? Optimus Returns! Just throwing it out there.
Most of the topics covered on this blog should fall into one of these levels. I’m obviously not finished this game; technically, I’m at Level 7 but one can argue I’m at Level 1.
So, what level are you on?
PS: Stare at the word level long enough and it doesn’t seem like a real word anymore.
PPS: I’ve added a private comment box so you can email me directly. Money is still a tough subject to broach and you may not want your first baby steps to be plastered on the web. So, for public comments, you can use the link on the top left of the post, but if you want it to be private, use the form at the bottom.
Vix's Money 
Feb 23, 2012 @ 07:59:35
You should have a direct link to The Game from your home page, so your readers can check to see how they are doing!
Feb 23, 2012 @ 17:32:43
Great idea! Thanks for dropping by! 🙂