Morningstar Money Challenge

Me & My Money

Take a journey to start gaining control over your finances with us. This month-long money challenge will help you figure out where to begin with your money.

    Literacy Month 20 Buckets 650 Large

    Morningstar Money Challenge

    • Literacy Month 01 Expenses

      Day 1: Start Tracking Expenses

      Let's start with an easy task: Beginning to track your spending habits. Learn how to do this, what you need, and what you don’t!

    • Literacy Month 02 Stock

      Day 2: Take Stock

      Check your net worth by enumerating your assets and liabilities. If you’re positive, dig into the numbers. If you’re negative, you have your work cut out for you.

    • Literacy Month 03 Budget

      Day 3: Budget!

      Today is the day to allocate your spending money into various buckets – essentials like rent, debt repayments and fixed costs, and other stuff like eating out.

    • Literacy Month 04 Fin Comm

      Day 4: Find your Financial Community

      Spend some time finding your online financial community. Look for what is most interesting to you, and follow those websites, bloggers, influencers or news outlets.

    • Literacy Month 05 Makeover

      Day 5: Simple Money Makeover

      Clean out your wallet – unsubscribe from costlier credit cards, and find cards that work for you. Also get rid of subscriptions and memberships that you don’t need!

    • Literacy Month 06 Automate

      Day 6: Automate your Savings

      Once you make your savings automatic, it eliminates the need for you to remember to do it each month – time saved, money saved, peace of mind bought!

    • Literacy Month 07 Emergency

      Day 7: Emergency Fund

      An emergency fund is non-negotiable. This is money you can tap in case you lose your job or confront an unanticipated car or home repair.

    • Literacy Month 08 Cash

      Day 8: Make the Most of your Cash

      Just because you need to keep your money liquid, that doesn’t mean you have to settle. Make sure you shop for the best yields on cash investments!

    • Literacy Month 09 Goals

      Day 9: Map Out your Financial Goals

      Take time to document goals and quantify exactly how much your goals cost, this will help set your household's financial priorities.

    • Literacy Month 10 Money

      Day 10: Sort Out Your Paperwork

      What documents do you need to keep? What do you need to throw? How to file?

    • Literacy Month 11 Midterm

      Day 11: Invest for Mid-Term Goals

      This is the time you visualize your goals for the medium term – what do you want to do in 3-5-10 years? List them out, and find out what they cost!

    • Literacy Month 12 Employer

      Day 12: What Does Your Employer Offer?

      As you plan for yourself, it is important to know if you get any benefits from your employer. If you do get some benefits, you should know exactly what you get.

    • Literacy Month 13 Retirement Acct

      Day 13: Open a Retirement Account

      The earlier you start saving for retirement, the better. Because of the power of compounding, it really is worthwhile to save whatever you can afford to, even if it doesn't seem like much.

    • Literacy Month 14

      Day 14: Maximize your Retirement/Pension Match

      If you are lucky enough to earn matching contributions from your employer on your retirement contributions plan to take advantage of each and every bit.

    • Literacy Month 15 Tax

      Day 15: Tax Time

      It is important that you get a handle on what you owe the government. Find out what deductions you’re eligible for, and ask around to see how you might be able to minimise your tax liability.

    • Literacy Month 16 Portfolio

      Day 16: Quick & Dirty Portfolio Check

      A good starting point for a portfolio check-up is to take a snapshot of where your total portfolio is right now, with an eye toward flagging any notable trouble spots.

    • Literacy Month 17 Streamline

      Day 17: Streamline

      Today let's combat portfolio sprawl. ETFs that track a broad market segment are a good place to start if you're trying to streamline your financial life.

    • Literacy Month 18 Retirement Road

      Day 18: Starting Down the Road to Retirement

      It's essential that you periodically check in to make sure that your portfolio and your savings rate put you on track to help you meet your goals – especially long-term ones like retirement.

    • Literacy Month 19 Retirement Plan

      Day 19: What’s Your Retirement Portfolio Plan?

      Amassing enough assets to retire is the heaviest lifting that any of us will do in our investing lives. But even after you've cleared that hurdle, it's still important to have a plan for managing your assets during retirement.

    • Literacy Month 20 Buckets

      Day 20: Build Your Buckets

      One intuitive way to construct any portfolio is to create various buckets of money based on when you expect to tap them for living expenses.

    • Literacy Month 21 Checkups

      Day 21: Schedule Regular Checkups

      To avoid over or under-checking your portfolio, schedule regular checkups in advance. For most people, one comprehensive portfolio review per year is plenty!

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