Guide to Personal Finance

There's a lot of information and plenty of resources to research when you are trying to start getting control of your personal finances.

Mostly, we want easy answers and quick results, but even on the web there isn't a truly easy solution. It is to our benefit that there are real people to whom you can turn for the solutions and results you want.

Financial advisors may or may not be able to help you with anything outside of investing or tax planning, so you should interview them and find out whether they can help you in your goal of budget planning and debt freedom as well.

Personal finance coaches and financial planners are more concerned with helping you with your overall financial lifestyle and goal-setting. Here are some basic areas you should address when you are considering your financial planning needs:

• Know what your income is, including what you pay in taxes: You may need to adjust your W-4 to get more in your paycheck each pay period rather than a tax refund. A tax refund is an interest-free loan to the government. Your responsibility is only to pay the correct amount in taxes to the government.
• Have control over your liabilities: This area concerns maintaining your credit and monitoring your FICO. The biggest goal here is to know how much the debt costs you – interest – and when you will be finished paying – term. When the term is fixed you can pay it off faster than if it is open-ended as in revolving credit.
• If you know what you have in income and liabilities you can control your net worth: The wealthy concentrate on net worth rather than income only. They leverage their assets and their liabilities to create a greater net worth.
• All of your income, liabilities and your net worth should be written down: This will firmly fix in your mind what you want to adjust. Maybe the first thing you want to do is manage your debt or increase income or both.
• Protect your assets: This means protect your income, any wealth you have accumulated, and, your credit. Just like you have insurance for your home and your car, you need to make sure you are covering your family's needs in these areas.
• Find a personal coach or financial planner who can help you: There are dozens of ways to approach this but you should be in the right place based on your personality and your goals. This is not a "one size fits all" area. Unless you are comfortable with certain areas of investments and you understand your risk reward profile, you should get recommendations from someone who understands this area of finance and can help you navigate.

This is only a primer for getting started on your personal plan. A great way to get on track and keep on track is to have a personal finance professional help you and you can determine the right person by asking if they can help you and your family with all of the above.