The Big Six: A framework for your personal finances

Personal finance can be complicated and overwhelming.

Here is a six part framework to get the basics right on your personal finance.

Making things simpler

Personal finances are complicated. Or at least they're MADE complicated by the bazillion financial products, perspectives and advertisements.

This is a simple six-part framework to make things simpler. These are the general areas of personal finance, without getting lost in the weeds.

If you get just the basics right with these six parts of personal finance, you'll be miles ahead of most.

Remember: IEITIE

I remember the six parts using the ​first letter of each: 

• Income
• Expenses
• Investing (saving)
• Taxes
• Insurance
• Estate (planning)​

Don't just think of these as data points. Don't think "What is my income?" or "What are my investments?".

Think "How can I increase my income? How can I add another stream of income?" or "Can I invest more? Can I do something better with this investment? Is this investment efficient?"

Sure you also need to know the "what" information, but don't skip over the step of scrutinizing what you're doing and how you're doing it.

I'll get into more detail on each in other posts.

I hope this is helpful!

Am I missing anything in my list? Let me know below...

Tommy Sikes