Chapter 1: What is financial self-care and why is it important?
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You're listening to Life Kit from NPR. Hey, everybody. It's Marielle. There are these things that you're supposed to do every day, week, month, and year to stay healthy. Like brush your teeth twice a day, floss once a day, shower every so often, go to the doctor, get that colonoscopy, move your body at least 150 minutes per week.
Chapter 2: How can I create a financial health calendar?
I know it's a lot and we're not doing all of these things consistently. Give yourself a break. Do your best. The reason I bring this up is that there's a version of this for your financial health. When it comes to money, there are certain things you should do to take care of yourself. And they have a cadence daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. You could almost plot them out on a calendar.
On this episode of Life Kit, we're going to walk through that calendar with you. We'll talk about the super practical stuff. You know, here's when to check on your tax withholdings and your investment accounts.
Chapter 3: What practical financial tasks should I do annually?
But we'll also go beyond the number crunching.
Because something I always tell people is the overwhelmed, overstimulated, exhausted brain cannot engage in financial planning. That's coming up after the break.
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OK, we're going to start with an exercise.
Chapter 4: How do I check my savings account interest rates?
It comes from Brent Weiss, who co-founded a financial advice company called Facet and has a whole bunch of letters after his name.
Right. A little bit of the alphabet soup. So CFP is Certified Financial Planner. CHFC is Chartered Financial Consultant. And CLC is actually Certified Life Coach.
He tells his clients to pick a time horizon, say three years, five years or 10 years from now, and then ask themselves.
What has to happen for you to look back and say that was a wildly successful period of my life? And I go, but here's the trick. You can't mention money.
Chapter 5: What monthly financial tasks should I prioritize?
Because money really is a means to an end. That end might be security and safety, pleasure, freedom. It might be a move to another country or the chance to start a business. Brent says your financial goals should get you closer to whatever it is that you want.
So it's really an exercise in sort of defining the life I want to live, the person I want to be.
And then you can create the goals, like I need to pay off my student loans, or max out my retirement investments, or save up for a down payment on a house. Speaking of savings, make sure you're getting a competitive interest rate on the money you keep in the bank. I talked to NPR reporter Arzu Rezvani about this for another episode of Life Kit. She says, take a look at your savings account.
And this might be an account that you started years and years ago when you were really young.
Chapter 6: How can I reflect on my financial goals regularly?
Maybe this is an account that you haven't checked in on in quite a while. And take a look at what kind of interest you're accruing there. It's not uncommon if you have an account at a very big bank that you will be getting an interest rate of like 0.01 percent. So not all savings accounts are created equal.
Right now, some banks are offering between 3% and 4% interest. And when you pick one, just make sure that your money is insured by the federal government. Look for the acronym FDIC or NCUA insured. Anyway, setting financial goals is a great annual practice, and you can pick any time of year to do it. But it can help to lump it in with the other financial stuff that you need to do annually.
For instance, taxes.
Chapter 7: What daily habits can improve my financial health?
In mid-April, tax returns are due for most individuals. Unless you choose to file based on a fiscal year or you're self-employed and making estimated payments, those happen quarterly. We're not going to go super in-depth on taxes here, but mark the important dates on your calendar and check out our other episodes on this topic. There's also open enrollment, which tends to start in November.
And that's a window when you can get a new health insurance plan on government-run exchanges. And if you have an employer, that's when they'll say, OK, time to pick your health insurance for the year. Brent says a lot of people just let last year's benefits roll over. Don't do that.
Take the time, sit down, look at any updates to your health insurance plans.
And make sure you're happy with your other insurance plans.
Chapter 8: How does mental health affect my financial decisions?
Also, check on your retirement plan contributions and make sure your beneficiaries are up to date. Those are the people who get a life insurance payout or the money in your retirement account when you die. You can also use this moment to see if there are any benefits you're missing at work, like a gym reimbursement or an employer 401k match. And to check on your subscriptions.
Make sure you're not paying for things you don't use. Also, look at your credit card benefits. Like, maybe you'll realize that one of your cards offers extended warranties on big purchases, and you want to use that in the future. Another annual task is to check on your investment accounts. Maybe that's a 401k or a Roth IRA or a brokerage account.
For this one, we're going to turn to Rita Soledad Fernandez Paulino.
You can call me Soledad. I am the CEO of Wealth Para Todos and I'm a money and self-care coach.
She says the first thing you'll want to do is look at the rate of return you're getting.
So the rate of return being how much money did you earn from your investments?
You can find that in your account statements or on the online portal for your brokerage firm.
Ideally, you're going to earn at least 10%. average over 10 years. There are going to be years where your rate of return is going to be really high, 21%. And there are going to be years that it's low.
Right. Sometimes stock prices drop across the board for some global reason, like a recession or fears of one, for instance. And as a coach, Soledad sees her clients get nervous when that happens. You know, they want to pull all their money out.
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