![]() Make the best choices you can. When you have to make a financial move you know isn’t optimal, make the best “bad” choice you can.Put as many bills as you can on automatic pilot so you don’t pay late. Automate contributions to IRAs, health savings accounts, and 529 college savings plans. The key is to take this magic and apply it in other places of your life. The money goes into your account automatically, and because you don’t see it in your paycheck, you don’t spend it. Automate. Automation is the magic that makes 401k plans and other work-based retirement plans work.The rest will come from Social Security to get you to a replacement rate of income that you should be able to comfortably live on. The point of that retirement stash is to cover about 45% of your pre-retirement income in retirement. But if you can get to the point where you’re saving 15% a year, you’ll see those numbers are absolutely within reach. If you haven’t started stashing money away yet for your future, these numbers may look unattainable. At 40, 3x at 50, 6x at 60, 8x and by the time you retire, 10x. By the time you’re 30, aim to have 1x your annual income set aside for retirement. Look at your investment strategy. Make sure the strategy is still appropriate for you and the amount of risk you want to take in your life.Consider freezing your credit for a period of time.It’s best for your credit score to keep it under 30%. That’s the percentage of the credit limit you have that you’re actually using. Keep an eye on your credit utilization.Make sure you pay your bills on time, every time.If you find an error, file a report to have it corrected, and that bureau has 30 to 45 days to get back to you. One-fifth of all credit reports have errors, and some of those errors are bad enough to drag down your score. If you have a loan or credit card with RCU, you receive your free credit score in online and mobile banking, which is updated quarterly. Build good credit habits. To establish good credit, do these things on a regular basis:.It’s time to cancel the ones we’re not using. Because we’ve been spending so much time at home, we know which ones we actually use and which ones we don’t. And there are savings to be had in maintaining some of the changes we made. We’ve learned what we really value and what we can live without. Restaurant, entertainment, travel, and transportation spending are way down, so you can save a little more on a consistent basis. Assess and adjust. Our spending is very different than it was last year at this time.Start funding the account with automatic transfers of whatever size you can afford on a regular basis. It lets you monitor your progress to the goal you set for yourself. ![]() I like RCU’s Build Your Own Savings Account. This has to be a priority because emergencies happen. Three to six months’ worth of emergency savings is ideal-three months for a two-income family and six months for a single-income family. Be prepared. There’s an old saying: “Whatever gets measured, gets managed.” One thing to manage is a pot of cash to cover emergencies.Here are six money moves to consider making right now. ![]() We can’t deny that bad things sometimes happen in life, but we can learn to be more resilient by focusing on those things we can control and by taking action. ![]()
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