How to Create Your Financial Wellness Game Plan

How to Create Your Financial Wellness Game Plan

By: Courtney Jinjika, Senior VP and Regional Retail Leader for KeyBank in CT and Western MA

Saving money and achieving financial stability or wellness consistently ranks in the top 10 for New Year’s resolutions. Yet, by the second week of February, approximately 80 percent of people fail at these goals. Why? Because often people get overwhelmed with the lofty goals and don’t have a plan in place to achieve them.

To ensure you reach your 2018 financial goals, here are some tips to get you started:

• -Evaluate your expenses.
• -Identify your long- and short-term goals.
• -Create a budget.
• -Manage your debt.
• -Stay on track.

Take out last year’s bank and credit card statements, identify your spending categories and put those expenses in a spreadsheet or app to analyze your spending habits. Is there one category that is higher than others? How can you reduce those expenses?

Once you’ve evaluated your expenses, write down your financial goals and calculate how much money you need to save to reach them.

Now, it’s time to commit yourself to a budget. How do you do that? Deduct your monthly fixed expenses like rent, a mortgage payment, utilities, a car payment, or daycare from your income to determine how much money you have for the rest of the month. That amount will be used on your variable expenses like eating out, grocery shopping, gas or going to the movies.

However, don’t forget about your financial goals. If saving for a vacation, a house or a car is one of your goals, calculate what your monthly savings should be, incorporate that into your monthly fixed expenses, and put it into a savings account.

If spending less on groceries or everyday items is a goal, allot a specific amount for these categories in your monthly budget. Also take advantage of coupons or sales to stay within that amount.

We all have debt and it can wreak havoc on budgets and best-laid plans. To achieve financial wellness and reach your goals, though, you need to know how much you owe and create a plan to concur it.

Debt consolidation or the ‘snowballing’ strategy (make larger payments toward debt with the highest interest rate) are good solutions for decreasing your debt amount.

Whatever you decide should be incorporated into your budget’s fixed expenses to avoid further overspending.

Hold yourself accountable and schedule daily, weekly or monthly check-ins. Also, use your bank’s financial planning and tracking tools. At KeyBank, HelloWallet provides customers with notifications if they’ve overspent or reached their allotted spending amount for particular categories.

Courtney Jinjika is KeyBank’s Senior Vice President and Regional Retail Leader for Connecticut and Western Massachusetts, and leads Key’s market retail network of branches. She has been with the bank for more than 15 years. For more financial planning recommendations and advice, please visit your local KeyBank branch - www.key.com/locations.