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Developing Lifelong Financial Fitness in 5 Easy Steps for Better Financial Health

Here at 5 Steps to Financial Health: Achieving Lifelong Financial Fitness, welcome. We hope this tool enables you to make the necessary progress toward financial stability and health.

  1. Be Organized

After getting organized, you can see your entire financial situation. Making decisions that result in the sound financial management of your finances will be made easier for you with careful planning and discipline.

Start by looking at your financial records, specifically your income and expenses. Keep a safe place for all the paperwork related to your earnings and outgoings. The next step is to arrange your legal documents. Powers of attorney, wills, and health care proxies are examples of this.

  1. Get copies of your credit report 

Your credit reports can give you an insightful overview of your financial situation. You can spot mistakes or fraudulent activity by checking the accuracy of your credit reports. According to the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions (FACT) Act, every consumer is entitled to a free credit report from each of the three credit bureaus, Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax, once a year. You should stagger your requests so that you receive one report from each agency every four months to check your report as frequently as possible. This will ensure that you see your report three times a year.

  1. Object to any inaccurate information on your credit report.

You are protected by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) if you discover an error on your credit reports, and the credit bureaus are obligated to give accurate and complete information to businesses requesting credit histories. 

You can also submit a dispute form online by the credit bureaus. You can ask the credit bureau to send corrected copies of your report to any creditors who have already received it within the last six months or to any employers who have already received it within the previous two years if an item on your report is found to be incorrect and corrected.

  1. Establish short, medium, and long-term goals.

You might want to further divide your SMART goals into short-, mid-, and long-term objectives when creating them. The amount of time required to achieve each plan will vary. 

Priorities that can be achieved within a year are referred to as short-term goals. 

Priorities that can be achieved in the next two to five years are called mid-term goals. 

Priorities that may take longer than five years to complete are long-term financial goals.

  1. Monitor Your Spending

Although most people find keeping track of their spending tedious, doing so is essential to achieving financial health. Before creating a budget, you should keep a record of your spending for at least 30 days. It may be challenging to estimate your monthly expenses if you don’t accurately. We advise you to keep tabs on your spending until you completely understand how your money is being used.

You can track your spending in a variety of ways. You can keep track of all of your purchases in a notebook. Another choice is to keep all receipts and later organize and keep track of them in an excel file or on a daily calendar. It would be best if you first decided where your hard-earned money is going in either case.