Money (in progress)
Like exercise, doing well with money takes some tracking and a little bit of knowledge, but it's usually not too complicated. Like health, people can end up in all kinds of situations for reasons both inside and outside their control, but regardless of the reasons there are steps you can take to improve where you are at. Most of what I feel about money strategy can be summed up by Mr. Money Mustache and his advice and general philosophy.
- Money Working For and Against You: Money you can invest safely makes money for you without requiring additional work. Debt is the opposite. Frugality pays off more that it at first appears, because not only can the money saved be invested to increase your effective income, but your frugality means you require less income, making earlier retirement possible.
- Current Financial Health Assessment: Kind of like with exercise, you need to determine how much money you have where. What are all of your expenditures? List every recurring bill. List every form of savings or investment. What are your income streams?
- Mindset and Goals: Most of us are wasteful (I definitely am). There are many mindsets about what people think they deserve, or the unfairness of what others have compared to them, and if they get stuck in this mindset it can take them away from making decisions that could improve their situation. If you spend everything you make, you'll have to work forever. If you spend half of what you make, you'll have to only work for half the time (simplified, but an important point).
- Debt: Generally should be aggressively paid off, paying off highest interest debts first. When one debt is paid, the money previously going towards paying it off should be rolled over to paying off the next debt until debt is eliminated. You should not casually take on debt. The paying off of debt does have to be balanced a bit against having an Emergency Fund and Retirement Savings. An Emergency Fund can provide a buffer against incurring more debt.
- Emergency Fund: Having an emergency fund available to pay unexpected expenses (auto repairs, home repairs, medical emergency, etc.) provides some ease of mind and keeps you from needing to take on additional debt anytime an unexpected expense comes up. If large enough, it gives you enough to live on should you lose a job. They say to put away 3 to 6 months of expenditure into an Emergency Fund so you have time should you lose a job. This can be hard when you want to prioritize killing of debt. It's up to each individual how they want to balance their risks. Personally, if I have a couple thousand dollars I can get in an emergency fund, I prefer to work on debts a bit more than growing an emergency fund. The interest on debts is costing you money for nothing.
- Retirement Savings: Here in the US, your personal retirement savings should generally be going into either a 401K or a Roth IRA (or other IRA). Aside from that, you can expect some amount of Social Security once you reach retirement age. If you have money in the market generally (like, in a total market index fund), the rule is that you can safely withdraw 4% of it per year, forever. This gives you an idea of how much money you want your retirement account to reach. A million dollars means safely pulling $40,000 per year forever. As for building the account, a common, very sensible suggestion for those with 401Ks is to contribute at least as much as it takes to get the full matching amount from your employer. This is just free money you're leaving on the table if you don't do it. Due to how compounding interest works it's nice to get as much in as early as possible, but the reality of our lives means this is hard to make happen.
- Early Retirement Savings: If you manage to handle debt well, have a solid emergency fund, and are contributing enough that you suspect you'll reach your retirement goals... another goal is early retirement. If you can not spend your excess money on silly things and have everything else in order, you can try to grow your investments outside of a retirement account, then buy yourself some more years of financial freedom between now and your retirement age.