Budgeting
If you’ve made a resolution to be more disciplined with your spending, or you’ve overspent over the holidays, a budget is a good way to get back on track. Here’s a good article from Practical Money Skills that you might find helpful.
A budget is a plan, an outline of your future income and expenditures that you can use as a guideline for spending and saving.
Only 47 % percent of Canadians use a budget to plan their spending. But Canadians are feeling more in debt than ever with 90% saying they have more debt today than five years ago. A budget can help you pay your bills on time, cover unexpected emergencies, and reach your financial goals — now and in the future. Most of the information you need is already at your fingertips. Read more 
Debt Load
Are you out of your debt comfort zone? Does it seem as though you’re paying too much to bill collectors and not enough for savings and the things you enjoy in life? If so, it’s a good idea to figure out just how much debt you have and compare that to how much you earn. This will give you clear understanding of your financial health.
Debt Load
Debt load is a term that is used to describe a consumer’s amount of debt. It is often used to understand if you are carrying a “safe” amount of debt. Creditors look at a debt/income ratio, comparing your income with your debts to analyze whether you have an appropriate amount of debt. The debt/income ratio is figured monthly and reveals either how good — or bad — your financial situation is. Read more
Replace bad financial habits
Most people have at least one bad financial habit. Whether it’s impulse shopping, forgetting to pay bills on time or putting off building that emergency fund balancing what you want to do and what you “should” do is never easy.
You might recognize a few of these common bad financial habits in your life:
- Paying bills after the due date
- Paying only the minimum required on bills
- Ignoring bills and letting them go to collections
- Putting off saving for retirement or a rainy day
- Impulse shopping or “retail therapy”
- Not keeping track of how much debt you have
- Taking on debt to pay for something you don’t currently need.
