What Is Personal Finance?
Personal finance is a term that covers managing your money as well as saving and investing. It encompasses budgeting, banking, insurance, mortgages, investments, and retirement, tax, and estate planning. The term often refers to the entire industry that provides financial services to individuals and households and advises them about financial and investment opportunities.
Individual goals and desires—and a plan to fulfill those needs within your financial constraints—also impact how you approach the above items. To make the most of your income and savings, it’s essential to become financially savvy—it will help you distinguish between good and bad advice and make intelligent financial decisions.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Few schools have courses on managing your money, so it is important to learn how through free online articles, courses, blogs, podcasts, or books.
- The core areas of managing personal finance include income, spending, savings, investments, and protection.
- Smart personal finance involves developing strategies that include budgeting, creating an emergency fund, paying off debt, using credit cards wisely, saving for retirement, and much more.
- Being disciplined is important, but it’s also good to know when you shouldn’t adhere to the guidelines.
The Importance of Personal Finance
Personal finance is about meeting your personal financial goals. These goals could be anything—having enough for short-term financial needs, planning for retirement, or saving for your child’s college education. It depends on your income, spending, saving, investing, and personal protection (insurance and estate planning).
Not understanding how to manage finances or be financially disciplined has led Americans to accumulate enormous debt. In February 2024, the Federal Reserve Bank reported household debt had increased by $3.4 trillion since December 2019, prior to the recession. In addition, the following balances increased from the third quarter of 2023 to the fourth:
Areas of Personal Finance
The five areas of personal finance are income, saving, spending, investing, and protection.
Income
Income is the starting point of personal finance. It is the entire amount of cash inflow that you receive and can allocate to expenses, savings, investments, and protection. Income is all the money you bring in. This includes salaries, wages, dividends, and other sources of cash inflow.
Spending
Spending is an outflow of cash and typically where the bulk of income goes. Spending is whatever an individual uses their income to buy. This includes rent, mortgage, groceries, hobbies, eating out, home furnishings, home repairs, travel, and entertainment.
Being able to manage spending is a critical aspect of personal finance. Individuals must ensure their spending is less than their income; otherwise, they won’t have enough money to cover their expenses or will fall into debt. Debt can be devastating financially, particularly with the high-interest rates credit cards charge.
Saving
Savings is the income left over after spending. Everyone should aim to have savings to cover large expenses or emergencies. However, this means not using all your income, which can be difficult. Regardless of the difficulty, everyone should strive to have at least a portion of savings to meet any fluctuations in income and spending—somewhere between three and 12 months of expenses.
Beyond that, cash idling in a savings account becomes wasteful because it loses purchasing power to inflation over time. Instead, cash not tied up in an emergency or spending account should be placed in something that will help it maintain its value or grow, such as investments.
Investing
Investing involves purchasing assets, usually stocks and bonds, to earn a return on the money invested. Investing aims to increase an individual’s wealth beyond the amount they invested. Investing does come with risks, as not all assets appreciate and can incur a loss.
Investing can be difficult for those unfamiliar with it—it helps to dedicate some time to gain an understanding through readings and studying. If you don’t have time, you might benefit from hiring a professional to help you invest your money.
Protection
Protection refers to the methods people take to protect themselves from unexpected events, such as illnesses or accidents, and as a means to preserve wealth. Protection includes life and health insurance and estate and retirement planning.
3. Pay Yourself First
It’s important to “pay yourself first” to ensure money is set aside for unexpected expenses, such as medical bills, a significant car repair, day-to-day expenses if you get laid off, and more. The ideal safety net is three to 12 months of living expenses.
Financial experts generally recommend putting away 20% of each paycheck every month. Once you’ve filled up your emergency fund, don’t stop. Continue funneling the monthly 20% toward other financial goals, such as a retirement fund or a down payment on a home.
4. Limit and Reduce Debt
It sounds simple enough: Don’t spend more than you earn to keep debt from getting out of hand. But, of course, most people have to borrow from time to time, and sometimes going into debt can be advantageous—for example, if it leads to acquiring an asset. Taking out a mortgage to buy a house might be one such case. Still, leasing sometimes can be more economical than buying outright, whether renting a property, leasing a car, or even getting a subscription to computer software.
On the other hand, minimizing repayments (to interest only, for instance) can free up income to invest elsewhere or put into retirement savings while you’re young when your nest egg gets the maximum benefit from compounding interest. Some private and federal student loans are even eligible for a rate reduction if the borrower enrolls in auto pay.45
Student loans account for $1.59 trillion of consumer debt—if you have an outstanding student loan, you should prioritize it.1 There are myriad loan repayment plans and payment reduction strategies available. If you’re stuck with a high interest rate, paying off the principal faster can make sense.