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[A758]At The New Year

by Roy Thomsitt, Roy

The end of one year and the start of another brings with it the opportunity and inspiration, for many, to consider their personal situation and plan for the year ahead. We all hope that we will end the New Year better off in our personal lives than we start it. By ?better off? we may mean financially, in terms of happiness and relationships, in our careers and lifestyles; in fact, in any aspect of our lives.

If we start the year with a positive intent on improving our lives in some way, then there is a good chance we can succeed in so doing. One of the ways we can help ourselves succeed is by setting personal objectives for the year ahead. It has long been a tradition to make New Year's resolutions, and they are an example of objective setting, usually based on a correcting a personal weakness, such as smoking or being overweight. However, New Year's resolutions are quite often just a bit of fun, and not taken that seriously. Planning ahead for the full year based on a set of objectives can be a much more beneficial way to improve yourself over the span of a year.

New Year's resolutions, however, do give a hint at one way to go about setting personal objectives for the year: they tend to be about addressing weakness. If you have a personal weakness at the beginning of the year, and have strengthened it by the end of the year, then you will have made progress. So, when you sit down and consider what personal objectives to set yourself, focusing on your weaknesses may be a good place to start.

How To Go About Setting Your Personal Objectives

There is more than one way to set about formulating personal objectives, but I will concentrate on focusing on personal weakness. By ?focusing? I do not mean just thinking about those weakness all the time in a negative, self critical way. The purpose is to improve yourself by the end of the year, so those weaknesses, or even just one weakness, need to be addressed in a positive way. Ultimately, you want the weakness you focus on to be no longer a weakness by the end of the year. Here are a few simple steps to follow:

1. Your first step is to identify an area, or areas, of your life where you want to make significant improvements. As an example, let us say you have your own business, which is quite new, and you are still finding your feet.

2. Once you have decided on what area of your life to concentrate on first, you should then think about it in a detached and realistic way, pen in hand, with a blank piece of paper in front of you. Go over in your mind your experiences since you started the business, and pinpoint what weaknesses have been exposed since you started the business. Jot them down in a relaxed way, there is no hurry. When you are confident you have highlighted the most critical weakness, and have missed none, move on to considering your list.

3. You should now go over your list of business related weaknesses, and prioritise them. If something really stands out as being critical, then that will be your starting point. At this stage, bear in mind that setting objectives is not about aiming for the impossible; that is self destructive. If you have a long list of weaknesses and it looks daunting, then the prioritisation is especially important.

For this example, let us assume that your most critical weakness in your new business is finance and accounting. For many people who start a business, that is a reality, so that is quite a realistic example. Do not expect that you will remove all weaknesses by 100% in one year; you should be realistic, and take a staged approach. Each year you will build on your strengths, and steadily eliminate your weaknesses. However, you cannot expect to do it all at once.

4. Now think more about the finance side of the business, and with a new sheet of paper write down all the things that trouble you. Is it everything about finance and accounting? That would not be unusual either. You may not even be able to tell a debit from a credit, but that is not surprising. To a normal person, double entry bookkeeping is back to front.

5. Assuming everything about finance and accounting is a mystery to you, set out a plan to remedy that situation. Any wise businessman needs to understand his business finances; he will be vulnerable if he does not. There are several ways to approach this weakness, but you will want to improve your accounting knowledge over the year. So, as an example, you could set yourself the following objectives for the year:

a. Learn some basic bookkeeping. You can achieve this through a book on accounting for small businessmen, or evening classes. If you have a local small business help bureau of any sort, they may be able to point you in the right direction; they may even have regular seminars.

b. Get to know your own accounting system, or maybe introduce a simple accounting software program that will not only help you keep accurate accounts, but teach you along the way.

c. Get to understand profit and loss accounts so that you can start to understand how and why your business is making a profit or a loss.

d. Learn to do cash flow forecasts, which will always be critical to your business.

By the end of the year, you should have a better understanding of your business finances, and when you go over the same exercise again the following year, you can plan to go up to a higher if you think it necessary, or address those weaknesses you have not yet mastered.

The finance and accounting example is just one. It could also be marketing or time management or any other aspect of the business. The important thing for you to do is to assess the most critical weaknesses and address them through your personal objectives. That process can be applied to any part of your life you choose, whether related to career, family, personal health or bad habits.

Money always seems to be tight. Every year at Christmas the financial situation always seems to get worse. Increased electricity and heating bills to pay, expensive party food to purchase, presents to buy, travel costs to visit relatives, the list seems to be endless, while finances are certainly not. It is the season to be jolly, whilst trying to forget the long-term costs which will emerge in the New Year.

What can be done to reduce the New Year financial hangover?

Firstly, ensure your incoming finances are being maximised.

If you are in work, is there any part time or freelance work that you can do? Often jobs such as supermarket shelf stacking can be made to fit in around other commitments, while websites such as Dobiz ( ) have started springing up to get freelancers and businesses together. Selling on eBay or simply returning unwanted gifts can help recover some of your own expenditure.

If you are not working, then obtaining a job is the most important thing to do. Use the facilities that are available. The Jobcentre can provide some help, but it is frequently better to sign up with several agencies who specialise in your own area of expertise. A quick geographically based Google search will normally locate appropriate organisation in your area. As well as using specialist agencies, it is always a good idea to sign up to a couple of general agencies in order to get some form of temporary work, as these can often provide short or long term contracts to keep your finances above water, and they can be given up without much of a period of notice and they look better on a CV than a period without any work at all. If you need help with CV’s or interviews, then internet searches can provide many sites that will be able to help, like Capita ( ) or Jobseekersadvice ( ).

Regardless of your employment situation, you also need to maximise the money you have already. If you are using store cards to make your purchases, don’t. Unless you always pay off the entire balance every month, you will be paying more than you have to. Store cards usually have a very high rate of interest, and you should be able to get a much better rate if you use a credit card. If you are using a credit card to make most of your purchases, what is the APR of that card, and could you get a better rate? Many credit cards currently offer introductory 0% transfer rates, and the increased competition to handle your finances is leading to lower APRs all round. If you have a loan, could you get a better deal? Are you getting the best return on your investments? Comparison websites like Moneynet ( http:www.//moneynet.co.uk ) or Fool ( ) are there to enable you to check these details for free, quickly and easily, in order to make your money work for you.

The next thing to do is to try to reduce your outgoings. Budgeting is a good way to reduce costs. By highlighting how much your regular incoming and outgoings are, it is often easy to spot areas that can make huge differences. Most people find that instead of having very little money to spend each month, they are actually frittering away small amounts all the time. This pattern of small spending rapidly mounts up, and can leave little left over to spend on the things that you feel are really worthwhile. Keeping a daily record of your spending is a simple step to take but it can also show where important cuts can be made.

Other ways to reduce costs at Christmas include recycling last year’s decorations, only buying food that will be eaten, rather than obtaining large quantities that will end up being thrown away. Do most of your shopping online to save money on presents. Due to the lower costs of running a shop online, the price of goods can be considerably lower than in the High Street. Sites such as Kelkoo ( ) and Pricerunner ( ) enable you to compare prices from various suppliers and find the cheapest. Even if you prefer to buy on the High Street it can still be worth going armed with prices from these sites as many High Street shops will discount if they know they are beaten on price.

If you don’t win the lottery in the New Year and still feel that things have got out of control then you need to seek advice from one of the free advice organisations that are set up to help. The National Debtline ( ) and the Foundation for Credit Counselling ( ) are two non-profit making charities that can help with guides and free personal advice.

Regardless of whether you are trying not to shed those few extra pounds, or recover from debt problems, a few small actions like this can make a large difference to your New Year.

Disclaimer:
All information contained in this article, is for general information purposes only and should not be construed as advice under the Financial Services Act 1986.

You are strongly advised to take appropriate professional and legal advice before entering into any binding contracts.

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Both Roy Thomsitt & R.green are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Roy Thomsitt has sinced written about articles on various topics from How To Grow Wealth, Gift Ideas and Babies. This article was written by Roy Thomsitt, owner and part author of the Routes To Self Improvement website. Roy Thomsitt's top article generates over 9900 views. to your Favourites.

R.green has sinced written about articles on various topics from Finances, Insurance and Finances. Richard lives in Edinburgh, occasionally writing for the personal finance blog , and listens to music no one else likes.. R.green's top article generates over 6600 views. to your Favourites.