Start the New Year with a Strong Financial Plan
Original content posted on Big 550 KTRS: Talk of St. Louis.
Checklists for your personal finances can be long and complicated … including tasks such as selling investments and re-balancing portfolios, to maxing out retirement savings contributions and using FSA balances. Follow these three steps to make financial planning easier this year:
Here is a simple 3-step checklist to complete:
1.Set up Auto Pay for your regular, recurring bills.
Most of your recurring bills – utilities, mortgage, car loan and credit card – provide an option of having payments automatically deducted from your savings or checking account. You can also create your own “auto-pay” by scheduling recurring payments directly from your account with online bill pay. Paying bills on time helps your credit score and saves you money. Make it easy this year by making it automatic.
2. Sign up to receive eStatements
eStatements are a secure, convenient, and environmentally friendly way to access your monthly account statements. When you switch from paper to eStatements, it is important to be aware of “email clutter”—because, let’s face it, we all receive more email than we can read! So there are a few “best practices” for managing eStatements:
Open and save your statement each month. Save it to a folder you create, much like the folder or filing system you had for the paper version.
Keep your contact information up-to-date with your financial institutions, utility companies. This ensures you receive all notifications regarding your eStatements.
Keep your computer secure. This of course, is important whether you receive eStatements or not!
3. Set up debit and credit card alerts
Most card issuers offer some type of “activity alerts” for your card. Typically these range from activity alerts based on your spending preferences and patterns to alerts defined specifically by you, the cardholder. These can be as specific as when, where and how the card can be used. Alerts will help you keep your accounts safe, but more importantly they will help you stay in-tune with your day-to-day spending and even assist you with budgeting.
We’re here to help navigate your financial journey.
Whether it’s paying down debt, better money management skills, learning how to invest, or saving for a big life moment—Together Credit Union is here for you.
