by Vicky Monroe
As the new year approaches, I’ve been thinking about how I can get better at managing my money. I’ve been a personal finance writer for over four years, which has helped give me a decent financial foundation.
I feel like I’ve gotten a pretty good handle on financial basics like budgeting and saving. However, there are still things I want to learn more about. I feel like my knowledge of certain aspects of investing and taxes could definitely be improved, which I plan to work on in 2023. Here are my personal finance learning goals as we head into the new year.
Taxes
I’m lucky that there are many tax and financial professionals on my partner’s side of the family, so I don’t handle my taxes and get free help. However, I want to start taking more responsibility for my own taxes. Although I know many other self-employed writers outsource their taxes, it almost feels hypocritical to write articles about how to file a tax return when I don’t do it myself!
I think what’s been holding me back is that taxes feel “scarier” than other aspects of personal finance. There are consequences and penalties for messing things up and underestimating how much quarterly estimated tax you need to pay. It feels safer to have someone else who’s a professional handle it, but that just seems like passing the buck. This year I want to face financial fears like taxes and become more self-sufficient.
Investing
Another area of personal finance that I’m a bit uncomfortable and out-of-my-depth with is investing. The main way we save for retirement is by investing in Vanguard target date funds through my spouse’s employer-sponsored 401k. We don’t do much investing outside of this. We aren’t enrolled in my spouse’s ESPP and I don’t have my own retirement accounts set up yet, which I need to work on in 2023.
Again, I think the main reason why I’m intimidated by investing is that I don’t want to mess things up. There’s a real risk of losing money in the stock market if you purchase the wrong securities. I know better than to try to time the market, so I don’t want to learn day trading or become an active investor. I still want to buy and hold securities over the long haul, because I believe that’s the best, safest, and most reliable way to build wealth.
But I think I want to diversify our holdings and invest in other assets besides Vanguard mutual funds. I want to learn how to create a balanced portfolio of stocks and bonds on my own instead of relying on Vanguard to do the heavy lifting for me.
I also want to look into alternative investments like gold, REITs, and buying shares of farmland. I’ve heard that alternative assets can be more resilient during recessions and periods of high inflation. So I want to do some more research and see if it might be worth investing a small portion of our disposable income in nontraditional securities.
However, I’m still going to stay far away from crypto and NFTs, which have never made much sense to me. Crypto doesn’t seem like it’s backed by anything and has always felt like speculation, so I avoid it.
Share Your Thoughts
Do you have any financial weaknesses you want to shore up this year? Are there any aspects of personal finance you want to learn more about? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below!
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Vicky Monroe is a freelance personal finance and lifestyle writer. When she’s not busy writing about her favorite money saving hacks or tinkering with her budget spreadsheets, she likes to travel, garden, and cook healthy vegetarian meals.