National Financial Awareness Day is a day dedicated to developing the financial principles and practices that can build a solid financial future from now through retirement. It celebrates implementing investment practices, so you can make your money work for you, spend less time working, and have more time to enjoy living your life. It also helps demystify finances by teaching people that financial matters can be straightforward and manageable – not overwhelming and stressful.
Financial awareness is both a mindset and a strategy that ensures you’re making, spending, saving, and investing money in a way that maximises your chance of success. With 45% of UK adults (24 million) currently lacking the confidence to take control of their finances and many likely to avoid thinking about money due to related anxieties, it’s no wonder such a large number of people don’t feel equipped to tackle their money worries head-on. Financial awareness begins with cultivating the right mindset towards money. It involves being conscious of your financial decisions, understanding the impact they can have on your overall financial wellbeing, and taking responsibility for your financial actions. Financial awareness requires having a well-thought out financial strategy or plan. This involves setting clear and achievable financial goals, such as saving for a down payment on a house, paying off debts or funding for retirement. Your financial strategy should outline the steps you’ll take to achieve these goals and the timeline or accomplishing them.
How to Observe National Financial Awareness Day
Educate Yourself
Financial education is key to personal and professional success. It provides a better understanding of how money, investment, and the financial market work, and helps you to make better financial decisions, which in turn can lead to greater wealth and economic wellbeing. Research has found that only two in five (41%) young adults are considered financially literate, it suggests that 3.4 hours of financial education each month could significantly boost financial literacy and equip individuals to make good financial decisions in later life. You can start with the fundamentals of financial literacy through learning the key terms like income, expenses, assets, liabilities, net worth, and cash flow. Understanding these basic concepts will form the foundation of your financial knowledge.
Review Your Financial Goals
Reviewing your financial goals is a crucial part of maintaining strong financial awareness and staying on track with your financial journey. When you experience a key life event that may impact your income and/or expenses its particularly necessary for you to make adjustments to your financial plan for the short or long-term to address changes in your cash flow. Begin by revisiting the financial goals you’ve set in the past. These may include building an emergency fund or paying off a credit card debt, and long-term goals such as retirement savings or funding your children’s education.
Create or Update Your Budget
A budget helps create financial stability, it allows you to take control of your finances, track your income and expenses, and make informed decisions about how to allocate your money. Through tracking expenses and following a plan, a budget makes it easier to pay bills on time, build an emergency fund, and save for major expenses such as a car or home. 73% of Americans say that they don’t regularly follow a budget according to a survey by OppLoans, with 1 in 10 respondents say they don’t keep any sort of budget at all. Without budgeting you will more likely be held with the consequences including a lack of savings, less financial security, out of control spending, a higher likelihood of going into debt and more financial stress. In addition, when you live without a budget, it becomes more difficult to navigate unexpected expenses, and achieve your financial goals. It’s important to review your past spending habits from the previous month(s) to understand where your money goes and identify areas where you might be overspending or areas where you can cut back.
Explore Investment Options
Exploring investment options is a critical step in building and diversifying your financial portfolio. Understanding different investment vehicles and their associated risks and returns can help you make informed decisions to grow your wealth. While investing can seem like a big decision, it can bring a number of benefits over simply saving your money. Research and learn various investment options available to you. This may include stocks, bonds, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, real estate and more.
No matter where your finances stand and the stage of life you are in, it is never too late to educate yourself and take action to managing your finances. National Financial Awareness Day provides an opportunity to discover new information and resources to help you take control of your life.
How Wellity Can Support You on National Financial Awareness Day
Managing your finances can feel overwhelming particularly in the face of a shifting economy and a world of uncertainty. Yet, taking control of your money management is key to helping you feel more empowered financially.
Our session ‘Mastering Your Money in a Changing World’ will explore the topic of becoming a money master, helping you to understand the fundamentals of budgeting, planning, and saving to set your financial goals. The session will guide you through ways to overcome the anxieties and obstacles to managing debt and personal income and expenditure, helping you to develop a strategy for taking control of your finances.
Objectives:
Understanding you money mindset
Exploring ways to be smarter with your income and expenditure
Identify opportunities to save and budget
Overcoming challenges and tackling debt
Create a strategy for setting short-term and long-term financial goals
For any information on this session or others we offer around this significant awareness day, contact us at hello@wellityglobal.com.