If you have multiple high-interest debts, such as credit card balances or payday loans, you may choose to get a personal loan to consolidate them. By doing so, you can simplify your finances and potentially secure a lower interest rate, reducing your overall debt burden.
2. FINANCING A LARGE PURCHASE
A personal loan can provide the funds you need to make a large purchase, such as buying a car, renovating your home, or paying for a wedding. Rather than depleting your savings or relying on high-interest credit cards, a personal loan provides a structured repayment plan and a potentially lower interest rate.
3. COVERING UNEXPECTED EXPENSES
Life is unpredictable, and unexpected expenses can arise, such as medical bills, home repairs, or emergency travel. In such situations, a personal loan can provide immediate funds to cover these unexpected costs without disrupting your financial stability.
4. FUNDING EDUCATIONAL EXPENSES
If you’re considering furthering your education or pursuing a degree, a personal loan can be a viable option for covering tuition fees, purchasing textbooks, or paying for other education-related expenses. Personal loans can offer more favourable terms compared to student loans, especially for non-traditional students or those attending part-time.
5. IMPROVING CREDIT SCORE
If you have a limited credit history or a low credit score, managing a personal loan responsibly can help you improve your credit profile. Making consistent, on-time payments demonstrates creditworthiness, which may improve your credit score over time. A higher credit score can help you get better interest rates on future loans.
Remember that the decision to take out a personal loan should be based on careful consideration of your financial situation, repayment ability, and the terms offered by lenders. It’s important to compare loan options, understand the associated costs and fees, and ensure that borrowing fits within your overall financial plan.
At Financial Management 101 – we are committed to providing YOU with excellent financial education, training and support so that you can live the life you truly desire. Join our LEARNING HUB today!
What are 3 ways to change your poor money habits into good money habits?
Changing poor money habits into good money habits is essential for financial stability and success. Here are three effective ways to achieve this transformation:
1. Create a Budget and Stick to It
Developing a budget is the foundation for managing your money effectively. Start by tracking your income and expenses to get a clear picture of your financial situation. Categorise your spending and identify areas where you can cut back or make adjustments. Set realistic financial goals and allocate a portion of your income towards savings and investments. Regularly review your budget and make necessary adjustments. By sticking to your budget, you’ll develop discipline and make conscious spending decisions, which will help you break poor money habits.
2. Set Up an Emergency Fund
One of the reasons people fall into poor money habits is the lack of an emergency fund. Unexpected expenses or emergencies can derail your financial progress and lead to debt or poor financial choices. Establishing an emergency fund acts as a safety net, providing financial security and reducing the need to rely on credit or loans. Aim to save three to six months’ worth of living expenses in an easily accessible account. Start small, automate regular contributions, and gradually increase the amount over time. An emergency fund will help you break the cycle of poor money habits by providing a financial buffer.
3. Educate Yourself About Personal Finance
Improving your financial literacy is crucial for developing good money habits. Invest time in learning about personal finance concepts such as budgeting, saving, investing, and debt management. Read books, follow reputable financial websites, and listen to podcasts or watch videos that provide valuable insights into money management. Understand the principles of compounding, diversification, and risk management to make informed decisions. By educating yourself, you’ll gain the knowledge and confidence necessary to change poor money habits into good ones.
Remember, changing money habits takes time and consistent effort. Stay committed, seek support from friends or family members, and celebrate small wins along the way.
At Financial Management 101 – we are committed to providing YOU with excellent financial education, training and support so that you can live the life you truly desire. Join our LEARNING HUB today!
Yes, I believe there is, otherwise everybody would be living without financial stress and having no money problems at all.
But that’s not the case, so there must be a secret?
What is the secret to financial health?
Well, let me explain more what the term financial health means.
Having financial health is about having the money to enjoy things you love.
It means having money work to your advantage and not just to your bank or financial institutions benefit!
AND…… it certainly means not having any financial worries or stress relating to money.
What you were taught or brought up to believe about money, has shaped you today.
This means the difference between having awesome financial health where you’re able to pay your bills, have money in the bank and live without financial stress.
Or, living from pay check to pay check stressed out and worried that if something happens like loosing your income, you could be in some financial strife.
Here are seven ways to know if you are in good financial shape and have awesome financial health.
1 Firstly, you don’t spend every dollar you earn, but have money left at the end of pay day
2 Secondly, you have a savings account with money it and ready for “just in case” emergencies like loosing your job.
3 Thirdly you’re able to pay more than your minimum mortgage repayments and you are well on your well to paying this sucker down before the end of your loan term.
4 Fourthly, you are paying your bills on time and before the due date
5 Fifth, at the end of each month you have a zero balance on any credit cards
6 Sixth, have money regularly put into an investment portfolio, whether it be for shares, managed funds or for property investment for example, and
7 Lastly, annual holidays are saved up and paid in full before heading away.
Making sure you work towards good financial health will mean the difference between living a very comfortable and happy life during your retirement years OR relying on government support living in poverty.
So do you feel you have awesome Financial Health? No, then time to do something about it don’t you think?
What I offer is a full coaching service that’s super affordable while you get the support, knowledge and help you require to make better financial decisions.
If money stress is causing you problems then check out how you can work with me below.
Let’s talk about how stress maybe shortening your life.
And, how you can become better equipped to deal with stress related symptoms whenever you start to feel them come up.
Are you aware what stress is doing to your body?
You may think you do. But I’m here to share with you that some of the symptoms are not as obvious as you may think.
Here in Australia, The Australian Psychology Society produce a stress and wellbeing report.
The area that always catches my attention is how anxiety and depression levels have risen over the years.
The report also shows that financial issues continue to be the top stress over the last few years followed closely by the second top stress being family issues.
I’ve said this before that whenever there are financial issues and stress in a person’s life, their loved ones suffer immensely.
So what effect is this then having on our emotional side and physical body?
Well, stress affects a whole range of areas within our body when we feel pressured or overwhelmed.
If you take a look at this illustration you’ll see that it’s affecting many areas within your body, some are obvious while others may surprise you.
I want you to look at the left hand side of this diagram to see how first hand it’s affecting your emotions.
When your emotions are overloaded by stress, you become irritable, you may alienate yourself from others and your confidence drops.
When you’re under stress, your behaviour changes and you may become accident-prone, lose appetite, take up recreational drugs or alcohol, and/or start smoking.
And no surprise here that stress greatly affects your mind and mental well-being, where you may experience more anxiety, become negative or make impaired decisions and judgments where you otherwise wouldn’t have done.
The area that I see common with stressed out people is when they experience headaches, skin problems and become breathless.
But did you know that stress can have a detrimental affect on other areas within your body like, complaints either in the form of diarrhoea or heartburn.
In more severe cases, stress can also affect your heart. You may experience heart palpitations or even worse, a heart attack.
In some cases stress has know to be the start of more serious issues like cancer and diabetes.
So you can see it’s more important than ever to take care of yourself and look at what’s stressing you out.
For a lot of people money is the biggest stress as I’ve outlined early in findings by the Australian Psychology Well Being Survey.
While I don’t have a cure for how stress affects the body – I do have a solution that anyone can adopt where financial issues are part of their stress and that’s getting more information and knowledge about how money works.
Obtaining financial education to improve your money position is critical to living a healthy stress free life.
Getting the right financial education, support and coaching will alleviate financial stress if you are serious about improving the quality of your life.
What I offer is a full coaching service that’s affordable while you get the support, knowledge and help you require to make better and healthy financial decisions.
So if money stress is causing you problems then check out how you can work with me in the resources below.
Many people are doing way too much comparing and complaining about their lot in life and not stopping to see the gifts and blessings they really have.
As I share with people often, there is someone doing it tougher than you that would kill to have the life you’re living and not the one they’re currently experiencing themselves.
Why do you feel the need to compare whether someone appears to be doing better than you or has a better life than you?
Unless you’re walking in their shoes you don’t have a clue what’s going on behind closed doors.
I know too often that on the surface things appear for some to be looking really good, but underneath the murky waters, they’re experiencing pain and what we see is really not what’s being reflected.
Often it’s not money issues that are causing them the problem, it’s the way they feel about themselves that’s causing challenges in either their work, relationships or even with their health.
What really makes you happy?
Have you ever just stopped and thought about this?
Most wouldn’t have a clue about what makes them happy, because they’re too busy sticking their noses in other peoples business.
Give yourself the luxury of finding out what makes you happy.
What puts a smile on your face and what would make you want to jump out of bed in the morning instead of hitting the snooze button?
Time is going by so fast. I can’t stress that enough.
Just think back to the last 12 months how quickly that has that flown by. Think back to even last month how fast that’s gone.
Ok so I want you to stop and take a moment to imagine you are turning 80 years of age tomorrow.
Come on really imagine how you would look – grey hair, no grey hair or no hair at all. A little bit more wrinkly now and possibly some of your body parts are heading more south than you would like. Yeah, guys, this doesn’t just apply to us girls. Some of you guys have what was once called pectorals or pecks that are now considered “man boobs” and they’re heading south too.
Ok so getting back to imagining you are 80 years of age and you now have between 8 – 10 years left on this earth. 8 – 10 years to spend doing whatever you choose and with whom ever you choose.
How would you decide to spend the next 8 or so years of the remaining time of your life?
Let’s just say you’re still in reasonably good health.
Would you still be comparing or complaining, or would you just go and enjoy every moment and live the remaining years of your life, making sure they are the best years you’ve ever had?
Would you be worried about making a fool of yourself, or fearful of what others would think of you? I somehow think you wouldn’t and would care less about what people think or do.
So what are you waiting for?
Live your life like that now. Enjoy your time while you are here on earth and do what makes you truly happy inside.
If you knew that life was going to be shorter than expected….I bet you would be looking at life in a whole different way.
You would stop concerning yourself about whether this person texted you back, whether this person is gossiping about you, whether this person likes you and so on.
When you stop and appreciate all that you have in your life right here right now – you become happier and grateful that you’ve got it better than you thought.
I often remind my daughter that we live in one of the best counties in the world. We have an abundance of food, sunshine and freedom.
We are able to go outside without the fear of a bomb hitting us. We can go outside and see how green the grass is, how tall the trees are growing, how free birds fly and chirp around us. How we can go to the supermarket and get every conceivable food or beverage we choose.
We have a choice.
You have a choice to live your life the way you want.
For most of us we were born with free will but the sad part is that a lot of us are choosing to be victims – trapped in our own head by our own thoughts.
Every choice you make will either enhance your spirit and self worth or drain it.
When you’re not happy living the life you so desire you’re actually betraying yourself. And it’s no wonder you bitch and complain and pick holes in other people. It’s why you’re so quick and easy to bring other people down.
Because you’re not happy and you’re letting yourself down – nobody else.
We all have free will.
We all have choices that we can make about the kind of life we want to live.
One with misery or one with absolute joy.
Are you making everyday choices that are harming you?
I believe we create the path we choose to live. Some of us have decided to start living with more joy and love in our heart.
The worst betrayal by not living this way is to yourself!
What I’ve observed is that it’s not until someone reaches that certain age in life that they start to question their existence. They question the choices they’ve made. They question the things they did or didn’t do.
The power of choice!
The most powerful choice you make in life is not the house you buy, how many children you have, the partner you choose or don’t choose or what type of work you do.
The most powerful choice of all is the life you choose to live. How you treat your mind, how you treat your health and how you treat other people. These to me are the most powerful choices you can make in your every day life.
Why, because it determines the kind of life you live and how truly happy you are and this determines the quality of your life and your health.
If you choose to live a life of misery, always comparing or gossiping about other people – you are living a very short and limited life.
So do yourself a favour and stop comparing or complaining about your lot in life and look around to discover how good you have it compared to other people.
Learn to be gracious and grateful for the wonderful gifts you have in your life whether it’s your health, your relationships, your family, your work or the very place you’re fortunate to live in.
When you’re grateful, you become a happier and healthier person.
If you’re looking to discover how you can become happier and compare less then I have a worksheet that can assist you in living a happier life. Download your worksheet HERE
If you’re looking for more support and assistance then there are a couple ways for you to stay in touch.
1 Leave me a comment here;
2 Head over to my FB group where you can access more financial and emotional support at Official Karen G
For a while now I’ve been fascinated with the mirage of advice and sharing on what the best morning routine is, whether you’re out working a job or working from home.
Today while I was getting ready for the start of my day, I was reflecting on how does a morning routine really affect whether we have a productive, happy day or not?
I wanted to do some research into this trend on talking about our morning routine and see if there is any truth to the benefits of having one.
You see the majority of us have a morning routine whether we like it or not.
We all get up to start our day, shower (well some do), brush our teeth, hair and get dressed before heading to the kitchen to either eat breakfast or start our day off with our favourite beverage either coffee, tea, smoothy or whatever takes our fancy. Most of this is done all before heading out the door or to our desk to start our working day.
But I want to find out more about the “morning routine” that I hear the high achievers do at the beginning of their day.
First, let me share with you the common one that I’ve read time and time again and it goes something like this….
Plan out your morning the night before.
Set your alarm to wake up earlier.
Drink a glass of water upon waking
Move and exercise your body first thing when you get up.
Stay off tech and your devices for the first hour upon waking.
Before heading to work or your desk – spend time journalling and writing down your intentions for the day / week.
This is the usual take on what a morning routine looks like according to experts.
Continuing on with my research these are the top 5 searches on google that people are asking on this very subject:
What should my morning routine be?
What you should do every morning?
What should be your daily routine?
What is the first thing you do every morning?
What is the miracle morning routine?
Why are we so fascinated with ensuring we have ourselves a top notch morning routine?
Well, what I found out in reading loads of articles and researching the various books available on Amazon it’s really very simple.
It’s all about being organised to the point that you know what your major objective or project is that you want to achieve for the day and week ahead.
And it’s all about making the time without delay and interruptions to completing the designated tasks or projects.
Because at the end of the day we all want to feel like we’ve achieved and completed what we’ve set out to do.
This sounds great, but that’s easier said than done.
Something gets in the way of us achieving what we want to do and that is procrastination.
Procrastination is one of the biggest self sabotages in our life. People often procrastinate because they’re afraid of failing at the tasks that they need to complete.
This fear of failure can promote procrastination in various ways, such as by causing people to avoid finishing or even starting the task in the first place.
So one way to combat this is to plan the night before what you want to achieve for the next day.
This already sets out the intention on what you are going to do once you’re ready to start your day and saves valuable time, when you get to your desk or work place.
I believe that this is one area that when I plan out exactly what I’m going to do the night before, I just get in without delay and waste no time at all getting on with what I’ve set out to do for the day.
I also find that at the beginning of the week I already know what I can expect to achieve for the rest of that week.
What I have noticed that the times I haven’t done this I’ve wasted many a good day and week achieving “bugger all”, which is super frustrating and annoying especially when you have an expectation of getting things done on your list.
Next what I find is that when I adopt a healthy attitude towards food and moving my body I achieve way more in my day.
I’m not talking about heading to the gym for an hour long session here I’m talking about being aware that your body needs to stretch first thing in the morning to wake it up and I’m talking about being aware of what you put in your mouth all day long.
Because I don’t know about you, but what I’ve found is that when I eat healthier and make healthy food choices, I feel better mentally and physically.
Now as for writing down in a journal your intentions and gratitude for the day.
I have mixed feelings about this.
Firstly, sometimes I forget to write in my journal first thing in the morning because I have so many other things to get sorted being a working Mum.
So for me, what I find more valuable is writing in my journal at night.
I generally grab my journal and write down the kind of day I’ve had whether good or bad and I also write down how I’m feeling.
What I find by doing it a night I allow myself to get out of my head some of the things that may have been bothering me. It also allows me to write down what I’ve thankful and grateful for.
So do I agree with what the experts say you should do upon waking – yep most of it but I feel we all need to adopt what works for us in the morning and whether that’s getting up early, stretching or writing in a journal that’s completely up to you.
I do feel that deciding what you want to do or achieve the following day is best to do that the night before as it not only saves time but gives you a clear direction on how to start your day.
At the end of the day just do what works for you and makes you feel good.
So whether you adopt some of the rituals that I’ve shared above or come up with your own morning routine and habits, either way it’s about just getting on with the job at hand and making sure you have a good day.
If you’d like more support and help to achieve more in your day then why not head over to my MONTHLY COACHING program where you will feel supported and loved during your financial and emotional journey.
Look forward to seeing you there.
In the meantime, here’s to your health, wealth and happiness.
