The new year brings with it new goals and desires, be it eating healthier, going to the gym or running more. Still, it’s important not to forget about personal and family finances, and to still be ready for any future eventuality. Here are five tips that can help improve your "financial health" in 2019.
With the help of Doutor Finanças, a personal and family finance consulting firm in Portugal, we've put together some ideas so that saving money isn’t at the end of your new year's resolution list.
5 ways to save money in 2019
- Control cash flow
When it comes to saving money, it’s important to write down everything you spend: this is necessary to control your incoming and outgoing balance. Taking note of how much you earn and what you spend every month will give you a very clear idea of your spending patterns and where you can make changes. To help with this, Doutor Finanças recommends an app to manage personal finances – Boonzi. This Portuguese personal finance app centralises all your expenses associated with bank accounts in one place, showing expenses in detail, presenting graphs, detailed maps and allowing you to prepare the next few months in advance.
- Define your financial objectives
You should set your financial goals based on the life goals of each person in the family and on what they want to achieve, whether they are buying a car or moving to a new house. A key condition for the success of financial objectives is to be realistic about how much you want to save and how long you want to do it in, be it in the short, medium or long term. To save consistently you need to follow methods and have clear and achievable goals.
- Revise your insurance policies
The beginning of the year is always a good time to review your insurance policies and remind yourself of the costs and benefits of insurance (car, home, health) to see if you need them or not. There may be some coverage that you no longer need and you could save money by cancelling it.
- Consolidate your loans
If you have several different loans, a good solution to make savings in 2019 could be to consolidate all your debts into one. With this consolidation, says Doutor Finanças, you will certainly get better conditions and a lower repayment rate. Monthly instalments can be reduced by up to 60% and, instead of several random instalments, a single, lower instalment will be paid. It will thus be possible to reduce charges, ensuring significant monthly savings.
- Transfer mortgages
When they make a mortgage agreement with a particular bank, people tend to think that this contract is for life. Not true. It is possible to transfer or renegotiate mortgage loan conditions at any time. "With the current situation of the market in Portugal, savings of around 1,000 euro per year can be achieved without much effort. The trick is to negotiate to save money," concludes the financial consulting firm.
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