Personal Financial Planning

Salaam..

Something I read, and nak share ngan semua. Don't do the same mistake as I did, and I think as what most of us have done! Hopefully we can learn something from this. To those yang baru nak start terima gaji, harap dapat amik ni sebagai pedoman, or panduan menjaga duit. Bagi yang belum terlambat, moga dapat dijadikan panduan gak. Read on.

Every one of us has dreams and goals that we want to achieve in life. But in order to reach them, one needs a plan. No matter what income level you are at, there are steps that you can take to make more efficient use of your assets and to ensure a secure financial future. It helps to develop well-defined goals, and to map out appropriate strategies to turn your dreams into reality. The answer to this is in personal financial planning.

Personal financial planning can be defined as a process of developing and implementing an integrated plan to achieve an individual's overall financial objectives and goals.

There are 3 stages in personal financial planning :

1. FIRST STAGE

BUDGETING
Controlling your financial affairs requires a budget. Irrespective of your income level, a budget is the first and most important step you should take towards putting your money to work for you instead of being controlled by it and finding yourself always falling short of your financial goals. Budgeting and tracking your expenses helps put you in control of your spending and can help you plan to reach your financial goals.

2. SECOND STAGE

CHOOSING AND FOLLOWING A COURSE TOWARD LONG-TERM FINANCIAL GOALS
As with anything else in life, without financial goals and specific plans for meeting them, we drift along and leave our future to chance. A wise man once said : "Most people don't plan to fail, they just fail to plan." The end result is the same: failure to reach financial independence.

There are four simple steps in setting financial goals:

Step 1: Identify and write down your financial goals, whether they are saving to send your children to college, buying a new car, saving for a down payment on a house, going on a vacation, paying off credit card debt, or planning for retirement.

Step 2: Break each financial goal down into several short terms (less than 1 year); medium term (1 to 3 years) and long term (5 years or more) goals.

Step 3: Educate yourself by reading money magazine, or book about investing, or surfing the internet's investing website. With a little effort, you can learn enough about the stock market to make educated decisions that will increase you net worth many times over. You then identify small, measurable steps that you can take to achieve these goals, and put the action plan to work.

Step 4: Evaluate your progress. Review it monthly, quarterly, or at any other interval you feel comfortable with, but at least semi-annually to determine if your program is working. If you are not making satisfactory progress on a particular goal, re-evaluate your approach and make changes as necessary.

Ada lagik Third Stage, tapi tak yah lee, sbb dia dah masuk topik yang lain plak! I hope this can help you guys, and myself to build a stronger financial stability. Jangan tanya aku pasal apa2 yang aku tulis kat atas tu, sbb aku mmg tiru sebijik2. Kalau aku masuk University, mmg sah kena buang U sbb plagiarism!! HA HA!! But I think it is pretty much straight forward! So aku takkan bley bagi jawapan yang tepat. Maybe can consult ngan those yang deal ngan duit ari2. Aku deal ngan batang paip jek ari2!! hehehe...

I only wish that somebody had told me about this before, and really guide me thru this. I am really sucks at managing $$!! BIG TIME! Anyone nak jadik aku nye personal financial advisor? Preferably, female age 25-32, figure 34-26-36, 165cm in height, weighing in 50kgs max! HA HA!!

Okie le! Selamat menabung!!