What is a financial planning toolkit and why do I need
one?
Quite simply, your financial planning toolkit is your
collection of resources that enable you to
confidently make accurate financial decisions.
Potential candidates for your toolkit might include
financial calculators, books on investing, and
personal finance websites. Your toolkit is an
extremely important part of your financial success
strategy because it allows you to:
- Identify spending patterns that could be
detrimental to your financial well-being.
- Calculate the financial impact of initiating
a debt elimination plan so as to spur you to
action.
- Make projections regarding the future value
of your investment portfolio so you can properly
plan for your retirement.
What should be included in my financial planning toolkit?
Below is a list of items that we believe are mandatory
for your toolkit to be effective. In the
future, you may decide to add other resources to
your toolkit you feel are necessary, and that is
perfectly OK. The components we deem mandatory
include the
following:
- Budgeting Tool - In order to make adjustments
to our financial picture, we first must know
where the money is going. There are
several ways to do this - from the simplest form
of just "writing it down on paper" to the more
advanced methods of using computer software.
The choice is yours.
For access to an
easy to use browser-based budget calculator,
click
here. To consider the
products that Quicken has to offer, please click on
the link below:
- Financial Planning Calculators -
These are computer software tools which provide
you with specific financial information.
These calculators can be extremely useful.
Examples include mortgage calculators, debt
elimination calculators, future worth
calculators, rent-vs-own calculators, home
refinance calculators, plus many others.
We have included below links to some of our
favorite financial planning calculator pages:
Liberty Bank of Arkansas
Bankrate.com
Motley Fool
- Financial Resource Library - Included
in your financial resource library will be
websites with useful financial information such
as our site and our
favorite website resources, financial books
such as those from our
recommended
reading list, and
any other financial resources that you will be
able to reference for useful insight.
A master’s degree from an Ivy League school is
not required to manage personal finances
effectively. Personal financial planning can be mastered by anyone utilizing
an effectively built toolkit!
We at Smart Money Advocate wish you the
best of luck on your journey to personal financial planning
success!
|
