Your mid-year financial health check

If you made a new year’s resolution of keeping on top of your finances, mid-year is a great time to reflect on your progress to see if you need to make any changes to your plan. Has anything changed since you created your plan? Have your priorities changed? Do you need to do anything differently?

In this blog, we’ll revisit the 8 practical steps we set at the beginning of the year to help you on your journey towards financial fitness in 2024.

1. Reflect
Take a mid-year sense check of your income, outgoings, your debts and your savings. Review your spending habits since the beginning of the year – has anything changed?Have you had a pay rise or a bonus?

2. Set clear goals
Have any of your short and long-terms financial goals changed? Revisit your plan to ensure the goals listed on your plan still reflect your current priorities.

3. Budget
At this mid-year point revisit your spending habits from the beginning of the year – has any of your bills changed? Could you allocate more budget towards saving for your long-term financial goals? Have the budgeting apps helped you with keeping control of your finances?

4. Emergency fund
Have you managed to build up a 3-6 months’ worth of living expenses for your ‘rainy day fund’? As we all know, life can be unpredictable and having a financial safety net is crucial for your financial wellbeing. 

5. Pay off your debts
Have you met your priorities of paying off your outstanding debts? If you have then consider putting any money that you’ve been using to pay off debts directly into an extra savings pot or your pension. If you’ve not been used to having the money in your pocket, you won’t miss it.

6. Invest wisely
Have you looked at different investment opportunities to make your money work harder for you? Money in your current account is not always the most effective place for it to be. A financial Adviser could help you with developing your investment strategy.

7. Educate yourself
Are you feeling more comfortable with your levels of financial literacy? Make sure you keep abreast of what’s going on in the markets and politics, especially with a general election upon us! Keep informed of the news to enhance your general understanding of how any changes in government policy could affect you. 

8. Review, review, review
Financial planning is always an ongoing process. Keep reviewing your budgets, plans and goals regularly to check if you’re on track. Your financial plan should also be altered to accommodate for any of life’s changes.

Mid-year is a great time to review and reflect on your journey to feeling financially empowered by the end of 2024.  Changes you make now could still make a big difference by the end of the year.

The value of an investment with St. James's Place will be directly linked to the performance of the funds you select and the value can therefore go down as well as up.  You may get back less than you invested.