Financial Goals

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Knowing your risk tolerance is an important factor in investing. Some investors are willing to take big risks with the potential for big rewards. Others prefer to minimize their losses, even if it means smaller returns.

Determining what type of risk taker you are by taking our risk tolerance quiz can help you decide how best to invest your money. The stock market can be volatile, and the assets and allocations you choose should be those that make you feel comfortable personally and financially — especially for the inevitable dips in the market.

What Investment Risk Tolerance Is

When it comes to investing, understanding risk tolerance involves the following three factors:

•   Your risk capacity: This is your ability to handle risk financially — the amount of money you can afford to lose without impacting your financial security. How close you are to retirement and the financial obligations you have will affect your risk capacity.

•   Your needs and wants: These are your goals for your finances and your lifestyle. For instance, maybe you want to retire soon or save up for a down payment on a new house.

•   Your emotional risk IQ: This is about your personality and how you see risk. You might be a thrillseeker who likes to live on the edge. Or perhaps you prefer a sure and steady approach.

💡 Quick Tip: Before opening an investment account, know your investment objectives, time horizon, and risk tolerance. These fundamentals will help keep your strategy on track and with the aim of meeting your goals.

Risk Tolerance Quiz

Take the risk tolerance quiz below to find out, then read on to learn about the best investment strategies for your investing style.

What Your Risk Tolerance Means

Now that you know whether your investment style is conservative, moderate, or aggressive, you can dig a little deeper to understand what’s driving your specific risk tolerance.

First, of course, there are the goals you’re saving and investing for. Is it retirement? A down payment on a new house? Sending your kids to college? Where your money is going will make you more or less willing to take risks for the potential of higher returns.

Your time-frame is another major factor. If you plan to retire in a few years, you have less time to recover from possible losses, so you’ll likely take a conservative approach to investing. You need your money to be there so you’ll have income to live on in your golden years.

But if you’re a newbie investor in your 20s, you have decades ahead of you with plenty of time to recoup any losses. In that case, you may be more aggressive with your investments to try to maximize your returns. And if you fall someplace in the middle of these two groups, time-wise, you might favor a more moderate investing strategy that balances risk and reward.

Your income is also very important. If you expect your income to grow, you may feel freer to take risks. But if your income is uncertain — maybe you’re a freelancer, for instance — or you don’t anticipate your salary to grow, you might be much more cautious with your money.

Finally, there’s your temperament. If you invest in stocks, for example, are you going to be filled with anxiety every time the market dips? Or are you more or less unflustered by swings in the market?

Thinking about these different factors can give you some insights into your feelings about money.

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Finding Investments That Match Your Risk Tolerance

With this new knowledge in hand, you can invest your money in a way that makes sense for you and the amount of risk you feel comfortable with. These are some scenarios you might want to think about, depending on your investment style.

•   Conservative: A conservative investor may opt for a portfolio that mainly consists of funds that tend to be stable and lower risk, such as money market funds and government bonds.

•   Moderate: An investor who takes moderate risks might choose to balance their portfolio between riskier assets like stocks and more stable investments like money market funds and bonds.

•   Aggressive: This type of investor will likely gravitate to assets with a high potential for return, but also a higher potential for volatility and loss, such as growth stocks and options trading.

Whatever your risk tolerance is, it’s wise to diversify your portfolio across different asset classes including stocks, bonds, and commodities.

The Takeaway

Each investor has a risk tolerance level depending on their individual circumstances. A risk tolerance quiz can help you evaluate how much risk you should take.

That said, it’s vital to know that all investments come with some degree of risk. A conservative investor will likely feel better with lower risk investments, while an aggressive investor will typically look for assets with high growth potential, despite the higher risk they pose.

Once you have investments that suit your style and temperament, the better you may feel about your investment strategy. Just be sure to check your investments regularly to make sure they’re on target to get you where you need to be to meet your financial goals.

Ready to invest in your goals? It’s easy to get started when you open an investment account with SoFi Invest. You can invest in stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), mutual funds, alternative funds, and more. SoFi doesn’t charge commissions, but other fees apply (full fee disclosure here).

Invest with as little as $5 with a SoFi Active Investing account.

Third-Party Brand Mentions: No brands, products, or companies mentioned are affiliated with SoFi, nor do they endorse or sponsor this article. Third-party trademarks referenced herein are property of their respective owners.

Financial Tips & Strategies: The tips provided on this website are of a general nature and do not take into account your specific objectives, financial situation, and needs. You should always consider their appropriateness given your own circumstances.

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There are many ways to manage your money, but there is always one key piece that you need no matter how much or little you earn. The best way to get ahead in life and work when it comes down to personal finances:

Planning.

Yes, a little bit of planning will make sure your bills are paid.

If you are looking to save money and make more, then this article is for you.

We have broken down five effective bill calendar strategies that can help boost your finances. With each strategy comes an eye-opening fact about how to make paying bills easier.

Use these tactics in order to get ahead of the game and be one step closer to financial freedom.x

The term “bill calendar” may seem like a jargon-y thing stuck in the past, but it’s actually an effective way to keep track of your finances and budget.

That being said, not all bill calendars are created equal. Make sure you choose one that meets your needs or is most suitable for what you’re looking for so you can get the maximum benefit from this tool!

What is a Bill Pay Calendar?

A bill pay calendar is a financial tool that enables an individual to manage, track, and forecast bills.

It is useful for those who have multiple bills each month or need to plan ahead for upcoming expenses.

This is one of the files you can find in our budget binder.

A bill pay calendar is typically used in conjunction with a budget planner to help manage financial goals and stay on track towards financial success.

This simple tool helps you manage your finances better. The useful trick is to see where all of our bills fall in relation to when we make money, so it’s easy enough for us to plan out what we need and don’t need.

The strategies are effective because they allow you a visual way to see your bills and expenses. Thus, making bill-paying much easier than ever before.

Why a Monthly Bill Calendar Works

A monthly bill calendar is a great way to keep track of upcoming bills and make sure you’re not missing any.

Also, it is helpful if you want to plan ahead for certain events like birthdays, holidays, or special occasions. Just to make sure you set aside enough money.

If you’re struggling to keep up with your bills, a monthly bill calendar can help.

It will remind you when it’s time to pay them and give you the proper schedule for future payments so that they don’t get delayed.

A monthly bill calendar is an effective way of organizing finances because it provides reminders about what needs to be paid on which day. This helps to ensure debts do not accumulate over time without being noticed until they become unmanageable.

Other benefits of a bill paying calendar:

  • Keeps you focused.
  • Motivation to improve your finances.
  • Visually track your progress.

Simple Bill Calendar Strategies

The financial benefits of a proper bill calendar include increased productivity, improved cash flow management, and long-term savings opportunities all brought about by thoughtful organization with an emphasis on efficiency in priority setting.

Just like with any time management idea, you must actually implement the system for it to work.

All of these strategies will give you a chance to get on top of your finances and start working towards getting out from under that large, unmanageable debt.

Five effective bill calendar strategies that will boost your finances include:

1. Use Budget Binder

Personally, I have found that those who have a printable budget binder stick to their budgets long term vs those who try to manage their finances digitally. That doesn’t mean you can use your favorite budgeting app (I love Quicken). It just means you are writing out key financial information for your reference or if someone needs to pay your bills.

If you’re looking for a way to organize your bills and keep track of when they are due, the bill calendar is an effective tool. By putting all of your bills on one page, it makes it easier to coordinate payments with your employer or other creditors.

The template allows you to add in expected paydays so that you can easily plan ahead.

2. Plan Reoccuring Time to Review

Not many people jump at the excitement of paying bills. Normally, it is a task that we put off until we just cannot wait any longer.

For me, I review our bills every two weeks. That is what I have found to work best for us.

To make the time more plausible, many couples will celebrate bill paying with a special treat or date night.

Do what you need to do.

Just make sure you review your bill payment calendar on a regular basis.

3. Avoid Paying Bills Late

Paying your bills late will incur additional fees; those penalities in extra fees and interest are just not worth it. In addition, your credit score will take a hit with each late payment.

By consistently paying your bills late, you will have access to less cash. On the flip side, you could be saving money by paying your bills on time.

To avoid paying bills late, many people have set up automatic payments. This can be done by setting up a direct debit or Automatic Clearing House (ACH) payment.

When looking at your bill payments calendar, decide what bills are going to be paid by what paycheck. Make a plan for your money.

That will help you avoid paying bills late.

4. Keep Track of Bill Due Dates

One of the most important tasks that households have is paying their bills on time. However, it can be difficult for those without a lot of organizational skills to keep track of bill due dates and upcoming bills.

One way to keep track of bill due dates is by using a calendar that has notes on each day, as well as other information such as what’s coming up in the near future.

You may want to color-code your bills by paycheck. Another option is to track your payments with colors, such as red for debt, green for paydays, etc.

Either way, you want to notate when you paid a bill and the manner you paid it.

5. Digital or Paper

Now, for the endless debate… do you use a digital or paper system? Or do you need to use both for double reminders?

Regardless of what you decide, you should use a monthly calendar printable template to track what needs to be done.

Here are some options on how to organize your bill calendar.

  • Keep your monthly bill calendar in your budget binder.
  • Print out the month’s schedule and hang it up on your refrigerator or wall for easy reference. This is an important habit because you’ll never miss due dates if you don’t have to worry about finding paper calendars or trying to remember which bills are due when.
  • Create a post-it note with the day’s due date on it and stick it to your monitor so you don’t forget.
  • Use Google Calendar or iCalendar, which are both free online calendars that can be accessed from any computer or mobile device. This allows you easy access when away from home but still keeps things relatively simple as well since these options only.
  • Many budget apps have cost-effective solutions with tons of cool features and helpful tools that will make your life easier.

The end goal is to keep things simple, allowing you more time for other tasks.

Bill Calendar Sample

Here is a bill calendar example.

You would personalize this for your needs and your expenses.

Remember, many times it is helpful for people to visualize how bills will be paid and when.

This helps with cash flow planning.

Bill Calendar Template

It is important to keep track of your bills and how much you have to pay each month. The best way to do this is with a bill calendar template that has columns for your monthly expenses, which include rent, utilities, phone service, groceries, etc.

Some effective strategies for keeping tabs on what’s due when are:

– Create a list of all the upcoming payments in order from high priority (such as a mortgage) to low priority (such as grocery store), and then put them in your calendar as they come due.

– Create a list of all the upcoming bills, rent from highest to lowest priority, and then put them in your calendar as they come due.

To make the most of your budget, you need to know where every dollar is going.

A bill calendar template will help you plan and prioritize which bills are due when so that money can be properly allocated for important expenses without letting any slip through the cracks or being overspent on things like entertainment.

FREE Printable Bill Calendar

A bill calendar is a type of monthly planner used to keep track of bills that are due. This free bill calendar printable can be downloaded and used personally.

Having a visual reminder of what’s coming up helps me stay focused and watch my spending because it gives me an idea at a glance of how much money comes out each month.

It also helps remind me when certain events occur such as income tax or mortgage payments.

Download your printable monthly bill calendar. (This is a perk for our readers who subscribe to our email list.)

A bill payment calendar is a helpful tool for keeping track of when your bills are due.

Bill Calendar App

A bill payment app is a form of software that helps people pay their bills online. It offers a way to manage the process and avoid any potential late fees.

Bill payment apps are useful for many individuals.

They can help you keep track of your monthly bills without having to use a paper calendar, which is typically cluttered with social events and day-to-day tasks.

Furthermore, bill month calendars organize recurring payments that occur on the same date each month so that they don’t get charged twice or renew prematurely before you know it!

Here are some great options:

How Will a Bill Paying Calendar Help You?

All in all, a bill calendar is another tool in the personal finance toolkit.

This bill organizer calendar is an important part of your managing money.

You can choose a checklist style or a monthly layout.

Bill calendars are a simple and effective way to keep track of your bills and expenses.

They can help you save money and come up with strategies to boost your finances. They come in many different types and are often used for budgeting purposes.

Many people use a bill calendar in conjunction with a budget binder with envelopes as well.

How do you see a bill calendar improving your finances?

From all of the free and paid budgeting apps, here are our top budgeting apps to check out!

This section may contain affiliate links, which helps us to continue providing relevant content and we receive a small commission at no cost to you. Please read the full disclosure below.

Empower Personal Wealth, LLC (“EPW”) compensates Money Bliss  for new leads. Money Bliss  is not an investment client of Personal Capital Advisors Corporation or Empower Advisory Group, LLC.

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Great way to use cash flow budgeting. Plus uses “envelopes” to budget.

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More importantly, did I answer the questions you have about this topic? Let me know in the comments if I can help in some other way!

Your comments are not just welcomed; they’re an integral part of our community. Let’s continue the conversation and explore how these ideas align with your journey towards Money Bliss.

Source: moneybliss.org