While married couples are expected to do some sort of financial planning for their future single people usually aren’t expected to do the same financial planning. Just because you’re single doesn’t mean you don’t need a financial plan for your future. Single people should be planning financially for their future just like anyone else. They’ll have the same goals that married people have they’re just usually limited to one income to achieve those goals unless they work two jobs ensure they have enough income to meet their needs.
Single people have to take care of themselves should they become ill and unable to work without another income to fall back on as they recuperate. Single people must begin a financial planning from the time that they first begin to take care of themselves without the security of knowing someone else is taking care of everything even when they can’t. Once you’re own your own you should be prepared to care for yourself without someone else having to step in and do it for you.
Single people need a budget just like everyone else; the budget should fall below their income so that they are living below their means in order to assure that all bills are paid and needs are met. The budget guidelines for single people are the same as for everyone else which means they must includes savings, all bills must be below income, and they must find ways to reduce their budget order to meet their financial goals.
Single people must set goals when financially planning their futures. The goals that are set must be reasonable in order to be attained because unreasonably unrealistic goals spell failure when it comes to financial success. Setting large goals to find that these goals must be broken down to milestone that they can be tracked is often the first lesson in planning financially. The ability to track the progress of your goals means that you are more likely to stick to them as you see these steps in front of you and realize that you have reached then on or before the date you set for achievement.
Whether your goals are for dream vacations, or an emergency fund and comfortable retirement setting smaller goals in order to achieve a larger one will help you to stick to the financial plan that you have. Remembering that the fact that your single does not necessarily mean that there is not someone in your life is important to financial planning. You want to know that you and whoever you’re dating have an understanding when it comes to your financial future. Just because you may be dating someone does not mean that they are going to participate in your financial future and you probably aren’t going to participate in their financial future. This means that you must keep your financial planning separate from the relationship.
When you find yourself with extra income such as overtime on holiday bonuses designating them to go into your savings fund will help you to achieve your financial goals. If you are unable to place the entire amount of these into savings for whatever reason such as unexpected bills that you do not want to get into your current savings for at least put the remainder into savings. Tracking expenses will not only help you see where you are spending money but it will help you to see where saving money is possible so that in the future overtime and holiday pay are put into savings instead of going to pay unexpected expenses.
Even single people should track the amount of money they spend from week to week in day to day. Taking a small notebook with you in order to write down those tiny amount that add up and we don’t usually receive receipts for such a vending machine purchases will help us to see how these little expenses add up. By seeing the expenses add up will also find areas where we can reduce expenses; or will reduce the amount of money coming out of our pocket money we can then what we have left of our pocket money aside. Once we put this aside we can take half of it and place in the savings account for future use, the other half we can take away not to use until we have an emergency that only requires a small amount of money that we would not normally have covered by our pocket money during the month.
Single people should follow the same guidelines as married people when it comes to achieving their goals. Avoiding high interest credit card rate by paying cash for purchases, making a budget that is below are income and setting goals for themselves that are realistic are some of the best things that single people can do when it comes to planning for their financial future.