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How To Financially Prepare Yourself For 2011

2010 is coming to an end soon and we will be welcoming 2011 in around 11 days time! And before the year ends, this is a good time for you and I to look into our Financial Planning.

What Are The Areas That We Can Look Into?

In simple terms with regards to Financial Planning, as long as it involve some form of monetary sense, it’s always good to look into. And if you like to know something concrete, here’s a list of what you can start looking into:

>> Your Financial Investments

Financial Investments would include your Investment-Linked Plans, Stocks, Shares, Unit Trusts. This can also include your investment properties (though not much changes can be done in the physical area). And basically, you will need to know with the past and present economical changes, how has it impacted your investment portfolio?

You may ask yourself these questions:

– What Am I Doing These Investments For? Retirement? Mid-Term Wealth Accumulation? On Impulse? Answers to these will help you to keep track of your final objectives.

– How Are My Funds Performing? As compared to end 2009 and now end 2010, how’s the performance been? Any changes needed to make sure that I am on track to my objectives?

– Do I Need To Pay Particular Attention To Any Investments? This will better prepare yourself for 2011, keeping track of funds that need your most attention will make sure you will not face any last minute economical shock.

>> Review Insurance Portfolio

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2010 – A New Year To Start And Improve Your Financial Plans

Happy 2010!

Phew! 2009 has been a rough year for many and there are many valuable lessons that one can learn from and apply to in 2010.

And some of these which I personally feel that it’s worthy to keep in mind at all times:

  1. It’s wise to be more knowledgeable in what you are investing – nothing is safe till you know the risks involved.
  2. It’s always good to diversify – not just your investment portfolios. Big companies with many years of history may just go bust overnight so do not put all your nest eggs into just one basket. In other words, it’s okay to have the same type of insurance plan with other companies. You need it too!
  3. Not everybody will tell the truth – learn to listen and ask good questions and to put the feedbacks or answers down in writing (do verify after the writing)
  4. What “goes down in March” will “come up in August” – this is an investment lesson or experience that I have personally went through. A unit trust that went real down in March 2009 (also the time when many people choose to sell off) climbed back up in August 2009 (and it was higher than the normal times). So do not follow what other average people do, learn to differentiate and understands from within.
  5. Not all are down during the recession – many stock prices are down but not all and it’s evident in the property market (especially in Singapore) and in the prices of Gold (have you seen how it climb at the last few months of 2009). What this mean to all of us is that we need to understand how the financial market really work – relationship between various investment options like Equities, Commodities, Properties and Cash.
  6. Take good care of your health. 2009 is the year that many people are concerned about their financial health but they are unable to get the insurance that they need. Common illnesses: Hypertension, High Cholesterol and Diabetes!

So will the new year in place, have you set aside some of your resolutions to start and improve on your financial planning?

If not, how about getting some pointers and guidelines from this blog?

For Newborns And Children Starting School (Kindergarten or Primary School)

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Have You Started Your Retirement Planning?

Part of a Good Financial Planning is planning well and early for your retirement and a good rule of thumb of starting your retirement planning can be well around your mid 20s as you may have started working by then and have the means to start saving.

What To Note For Your Retirement Planning

And the things to note for your retirement planning would be basically

  • The retirement monthly income you would need for your daily expenses (without really working) and lifestyle
  • How long you plan for this retirement income to last

A general guideline to know how much you would need is to note down how much are your current expenses and once you have gotten this figure, do a rough estimation whether you would like to maintain this kind of lifestyle (you can choose to have an even better or just a simpler one – it’s your life, so your choice!)

Then the portion for the how long you plan for it to last would be a gut feel. An average person would wish to have a retirement income to last for 20 years starting from the average retirement age of 65.

Once you have your figures ready, head over to the CPF Board’s Retirement Savings Interactive Calculator to get a rough feel how much you need to start saving now to hit your desired retirement income.

A sample of my Retirement Planning would be like below:

My Retirement Planning

Hmmm… and seems like I do have to start saving like $600 per month for the next 37 years in order to achieve my desired monthly retirement income of $2000.

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