I Tried Tracking My Personal Finances For any Month – Automatically. This is what I Learnt
One of my (financial) resolutions for 2021 would be to actively track my finances to better understand how much I have and what am I spending on. My goal was to identify the way i can reduce unnecessary costs will be able to do without and spend smarter on the a few things i need.
Two Ways Of Tracking Personal Finance Metrics
One of the things that I have long admired Kyith of InvestmentMoats for, is the meticulous manner in which he reviews his investment portfolio and net worth. Kyith has detailed spreadsheets with plenty of carefully collated data points, which are then moulded with formulas and displayed as charts. These spreadsheets created can also be found for anyone to download.
As almost as much ast I admire the rigour and discipline that individuals like him have to stay on surface of their finances, I admit that I am sorely without those qualities. I also doubt that I am the only one not spending considerable time tracking and making sense of my personal finances.
Is there a means for data about my savings, spending, insurance and investments to become collected automatically, with insights presented intelligently, and recommendations tailored to my finances – to allow me know how I'm able to improve?
It works out there's. I recently reached learn about something known as Your Financial GPS.
Meet Your Financial GPS
Your Financial GPS is a financial planning tool that may provide you with personalised insights and suggestions based on the way you use your savings accounts, charge cards, regardless if you are protected with coverage or have made investments to grow your wealth.
Your Financial GPS is part of NAV, is a comprehensive suite of resources produced by DBS and POSB to help you enhance your financial know-how, empower you to critically assess your own financial needs and develop action plans based on your stage of life and particular financial situation.
Besides providing an intuitive digital financial tool that provides you insights on your money habits and personalised suggestions on how to build or adjust your financial plan, NAV also provides a repository of quality, relevant content, an open community for discussion of money matters, in addition to in-person events and free one-on-one consultations. NAV aims to supply the various enablers you need to help you find your way.
If you already have a DBS or POSB iBanking account, you already have Your Financial GPS. You don't have to download any new apps or create any new accounts. Plus, data is going to be automatically pulled out of your DBS and POSB accounts, which means you could access insights and suggestions from the first day!
If you're on your hard drive, simply log into DBS/POSB digibank on the internet and select Your Financial GPS from the Plan menu. You do not even need to create any extra accounts and have another password.
For those found on your cell phone, log into your DBS/POSB digibank app and choose the Your Financial GPS tab:
For those who do not have a current DBS/POSB account, you are able to join.
Using Your Financial GPS
Think of the Financial GPS as a digital dashboard along with a good financial advisor – accessible wherever you're, anytime during the day.
Your Financial GPS provides a handy snapshot of my expenditure – compiled automatically.
After logging in, the Your Financial GPS dashboard is simply one click away. The ease of accessing Your Financial GPS has certainly contributed to my regular use in the last month.
Because it was a digital dashboard, I didn't have to manually compile and furnish Your Financial GPS with transactions across all my DBS/POSB accounts. All my transaction data – even those dating back to before I started using Your Financial GPS – can be accessed automatically.
Like me, you probably have accounts with other banks as well. To not fret, because Your Financial GPS allows you to easily input additional data or change existing information, making the charts and recommendations more holistic and useful.
To help you produce sense of the insightful information available, Your Financial GPS categorises the data while using SAIL framework, which stands for Savings, Assurance, Investment, and Life Goals.
Savings: Understand your hard earned money inflows and outflows instantly, and ensure you have enough liquid cash put aside for emergencies.
Assurance: Identify insurance protection gaps according to your life stage and dependents.
Investments: Discover suitable investment products according to your risk tolerance.
Life Goals: Specify just how much you'll need and also the timeframe to find in case your current savings rate and investing portfolio is sufficient to hit your goals.
Guided walkthroughs assist you to set realistic savings and investment goals.
One of my financial goals would be to actively save up in my wedding. I made use of the life span Goals planner to specify just how much I wanted to save and also the date I'd require the money.
Right away, Your Financial GPS realized that my target wedding date necessitated dipping into my emergency savings and suggested a review.
Alongside the Life Goals planner, I found the curated choice of personal top finance articles and tools was essential in helping me better understand what the information means and also the actionable steps I'm able to take, for example making investments which are suitable for my risk tolerance.
Personalised suggestions that guide me around the next actions to take.
Whether you're new to personal finance, or a seasoned expert, you should use Your Financial GPS and make use of the automatically-compiled data, personalised insights, and insightful curated content.
Achieve Personal Finance Zen
To make real change, it needs to be practiced over the long period to determine benefits – lifelong.
Keeping track of your spending by meticulously keying in Excel is possible, but if you're like me, its improbable that you will follow-through consistently and also over the long-term.
You may eventually outgrow the features supplied by Your Financial GPS, but that's a good thing, because it means Your Financial GPS has succeeded to get you began and empowered on your personal finance journey.
Now It is your Turn
As mentioned earlier, Your Financial GPS belongs to NAV, which aims that will help you enhance your financial know-how, empower you to critically assess your personal financial needs and develop action plans according to your stage of life and particular finances.
NAV concentrates on helping you learn and discover concepts and data so you can be empowered to make financial planning decisions with confidence.
So whether you prefer to read easy-to-understand articles, participate in the NAV community by asking them questions, attend an academic class and have a one-on-one chat with an abundance Planning Manager, you can study about personal finance and money management the right path.
