New year, new finances

By Fatima Lopes, editor of Women in Action

You did everything you could in 2012 to start 2013 without financial worries. That's great. But to keep things going at this pace, you now need a check-up. Not just on you, but on your financial life. It's like a major diagnosis that will show you the strengths and weaknesses of your relationship with money. "Knowing your past financial performance, knowing your fixed and variable costs, your savings capacity, your debts, and thus planning for the future is the first step towards a healthy financial life," advises economist and personal finance expert Christiane Monteiro.

The process involves several steps. But, step one, you need to be truly willing to keep your financial life under control. From there, you need to know your income, the money that actually goes into your pocket. Itemize everything: salary, bonuses, thirteenth salary... "Once the monthly income is diagnosed, we will deduct taxes, union and cooperative contributions, pension plans, among others. All deductions must be made from gross income, so we will find the net monthly income," explains Christiane Monteiro.

According to Elisson de Andrade, an expert in economics and personal finance and author of the book "The Five Stages of Financial Planning," two very helpful tools come into play at this stage: the balance sheet and the cash flow statement. Confused? To explain: the first is a list of all your assets (car, house, that sort of thing), and the second is a detailed record of what comes in and goes out of your budget during the month. For Elisson, it's then necessary to establish goals, which will ultimately define your priorities and set deadlines for managing your money.

Christiane Monteiro believes a good approach is to define your standard of living: take your net income and calculate 10% of it. Then, subtract this amount from your net income. The result is your standard of living. For example: if your net income is R$2.500,00, 10% of that will be R$250,00. Subtracting this amount from the total leaves R$2.250,00. "This should be your economic standard of living, so that you have reasonable financial health. All your expenses should be within this amount," she says.

It's important not to forget that the success of the undertaking still depends on constant monitoring. Christiane Monteiro believes that, in the beginning, until the habit is established, it's best to check everything at least once a week.