4 Items To Check Off Everyone’s 2020 Financial Checklist

Having financial checkpoints to check in on your financial goals is as important as setting financial goals itself. The start of a new year is perhaps the best time to check in on your financial goals for the past year as well as set new ones for the upcoming year. So, make sure to check these 4 items off your financial checklist as you kickstart your financial journey in 2020.

1. Evaluate Your Financial Goals For 2019

Achieving your financial goals is an ongoing process that needs to be reviewed and evaluated periodically if you want to succeed. It is not just enough to set financial goals. You also need to track your financial goals to know if you are achieving them or not. Evaluating your financial goals from 2019 lets you reflect on where you have done well and where you failed to accomplish your goals. This puts you in a better position to understand what works and what doesn’t so that you can improve on what doesn’t work to achieve your financial goals in 2020.

Here are some key questions to think about when evaluating your financial goals for 2019:

• How many financial goals did I achieve?
• For financial goals that were achieved, what did I do well? What can be improved?
• For financial goals that failed, where did it go wrong? What can be improved?

2. Set New Financial Goals For 2020

If you want to be financially savvy, goal setting is important. Setting goals lets you have a long-term vision of where you are heading towards so that you can focus your efforts to grow your personal finances. At the same time, it provides motivation for you to work towards the financial goal even when the going gets tough.

If you are unsure what financial goals to set for yourself in 2020, here are some ideas to help you get started:

• Make a savings goal for a big ticket item
• Pay off your existing debt
• Get good financial advice
• Start investing
• Put your retirement plan into action
• Kickstart an education savings plan for your child

3. Appraise Your Investment Performance And Retirement Goal

If you have already started investing, that’s great. But it’s now time for the hard truth by appraising your investment performance.

Are your investments performing as well as you expected? If it isn’t, then do you need to rethink your investment strategy? As you turn a year older, do you need to rethink your investment strategy? For instance, you might want to increase allocation in your portfolio to safer and more guaranteed investments like endowments as your risk profile changes.

Let’s say you already have a retirement goal in place. Then you will also need to assess whether the investment return rate is good enough for you to achieve your retirement goal. If your investment return rate is not fast enough, then you will need to re-evaluate and adjust your investment strategy to reach your retirement goal.

4. It’s Time To Review Your Insurance Portfolio

The start of a new year is not only a good time for you to review your financial goals and investment performance, it is also the time for you to review your insurance portfolio. That’s because things in your life could have changed.

For example, in the upcoming year, you could be expecting a new member to your family. You could also be looking to start at your new company with a sizeable pay increment. These change in your life indicate that your financial status and/or life stage has changed. Thus, it is time for you to review your insurance portfolio to ensure that your new life stage is well-protected by your insurance coverage.

If you are doing your own portfolio review, here are some key questions for you to think about as you review your insurance portfolio:

• Has your life stage changed?
• Do you have a new dependent to take care of?
• Is your coverage adequate based on your existing pay?
• Do you need more coverage given that you have more financial commitments (e.g. a new home)?

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