Managing your personal finances is a task that everyone struggles with on a daily basis. Surprisingly, even with all of this practice, a lot of people don’t know a first thing about making smart financial moves. Regardless if they have a deficit or a surplus in their household budget, what comes next always seems to remain a mystery. With that in mind and without further ado, here are top 8 smart financial moves you should definitely make this year.

Consolidating debt

Having multiple debts is not just inconvenient from the standpoint of the amount that you’re indebted for. Juggling between different deadlines for a monthly credit payment, different interest rates, and different terms altogether can be outright exhausting. So, why not replace all of these debts with a single major one. Moreover, this can help you get a better interest rate, therefore having to pay less in the long run.

Starting an emergency account

Once an unforeseen occurrence takes place (a positive or a negative one), you might feel the need to dip into your 401K or into the bank of your business. The only way to resist this urge is to have a fun that’s specifically designed for these situations. As for the size of funds in the account, there’s no strict rule. Generally speaking, you need to have at least three months’ worth of your expenses. This is mostly to get ready for a scenario where you get fired so that you can bridge until your new employment and the next salary.

Investing

Not everyone who wants to learn a thing or two about finances worries about the lack of funds. There are some who already have a sound financial basis and want to learn a thing or two about protecting it. Currency tends to devalue itself if you leave it in the account long enough, while some assets tend to be more volatile than others. The safest thing to do is to diversify your portfolio. Put some of your money in the account, use other funds to buy stocks, while investing in precious metals might not be a bad idea either.

Creating a side revenue

One of the best things to do with your funds is to try and create a source of side-revenue. For instance, there are so many online businesses that you can launch, provided that you have the time.

For example, if you’re passionate about something, you could start writing about it, create a blog and monetize it later on. You could also make some money with affiliate marketing, by sharing and recommending products/services and getting a commission each time you drive a sale. For instance, recommending eLearning platforms, will not only make you some money, but you’d also make you responsible for spreading the knowledge!

If you don’t have time, you need to look for options that will help you create a passive source of income. This could be so helpful to your finances in the long run, that it might be worth considering personal loans. Business loans are also an option. However, it might be easier to go with a personal loan if you’re starting a sole proprietorship.

Boost your retirement fund

If you have some big plans for your retirement, now’s the time to start thinking about them. First of all, you’ll need a healthy financial basis to see them all through, which is why you need to start investing in your retirement fund while you’re still earning. Moreover, you need to watch out for the possibility that some of your retirement plans may depend on the age at which you retire. While nothing is impossible, doing extreme sports in your 70s is quite unlikely, while doing so in your late 50s or early 60s shouldn’t be that much of a problem. In other words, why not plan for an early retirement? On the other hand, this is something that you have to plan decades in advance.

Keep tax records

You never know when your tax records will be needed, which is why it’s advised that you keep them for at least 7 years (even though this may depend on local rules and regulations). Past this, there’s no longer any need for such a thing, however, due to the fact that a person of the 21st century has a privilege of keeping these records in a digital format, there’s really no reason to ever delete them. If anything, this can provide you with a much more accurate analytical analysis of your finances over the course of years.

Make shopping lists the night before

A trick that you can use to stop impulse buying is to give yourself a tad more time to review the product and see if it’s really something you need. Some people use an excuse of a particularly lucrative limited time discount that they’ve encountered, while, nowadays, they can see this online even before they reach the store of the supermarket. So, make your list the night before and let it sit on the table until the morning. Then, revisit the list and see if you still need to buy all of these items. Chances are that you’ll downsize the list by quite a bit.

Read one-star reviews for products

This one is fairly easy to decipher. Once you encounter a one-star review, there are two probable scenarios that led to it. It’s either a person who deeply regrets the purchase or someone who’s just there to tarnish the name of the company (even troll) in their review. Fortunately, for you, this is quite easy to decipher, meaning that you shouldn’t have a problem to figure out which one is it this time. With five-star reviews, things are, however, much more complex. This is due to the fact that you’ll have a much harder time figuring out if the review is genuine or left by someone whose job is merely to boost the rating of a product.

In conclusion

The diversity of the above-listed 8 ideas provides you with a possibility to protect, multiply and smarter manage your funds at the same times. Fortunately, each of these fields and aspects are something that you could greatly benefit from, regardless of how much you’re making or spending at the moment. Furthermore, each of these tips is something that you need to do in continuity for years and years to come. With these tips on your side, no obstacle would be challenging to overcome.