Jed Levene, MBA(FS) Class of 2013
If you were to ask my wife what the biggest stress in her life is, she would be quick to answer – me. However, if you were the Financial Planners Standards Council working with Leger Research and you surveyed over 1,100 individuals, fortunately (for me) you would get a different answer. Here are some key findings to the research:
- 41 per cent of those surveyed claimed money is the largest sources of stress – with health being a distant second at 23 per cent.
- 51 per cent of Canadians are embarrassed about lacking control over their finances.
- 51 per cent of women and 44 per cent of men say they have lost sleep over financial worries.
- 23 per cent feel pressure to keep up with their peers’ financial status (And that figure is 52 per cent among 18 to 43-year-olds.)
- 83 per cent of Canadian’s regret not saving more.
Managing our finances can be one of the biggest stresses in our lives. With some basic planning and just a little time each month, this stress could be greatly reduced or even eliminated.
November is Financial Literacy Month; use it as motivation to get a better grasp on your personal finances.
In my opinion, one of the reasons that we like to ignore our finances, aside from the fact that they are easy to ignore, is we think managing our finances is synonymous with sacrifice. It really doesn’t have to be this way.
A better way to look at this is what I call spending with intention. Simply put, you do not have to put limits on your spending, but rather think about how you want to spend your money and whether or not your current spending is in line with your values.
In my next column, I am going to show you how to do this and manage everything in 10-minutes per month. And trust me, it would take a lot longer than that to fix the biggest stress in my wife’s life.
CEGE Connection Editor’s Note: Republished with permission from Simcoe.com
Jed Levene MBA(FS) 2013 is President, Rockwater Wealth Management Limited and Investment Representative of Quadrus Investment Services ltd. He is a Certified Financial Planner® and holds a certificate in Behavioural Finance from Duke University. His articles on financial planning appear regularly on Orillia Today, Simcoe.com, CEGE Connection is pleased to advise that Jed has graciously agreed to be a repeat contributor on CEGE Connection.