A new year is here and it brings a welcome reminder to check up on your finances for the year ahead. It’s also a useful reminder to check how you have things set up in Toshl, so the way you track your finances aligns well with your goals.

General financial checkup

• Set some financial goals for the year. Are you looking to increase your investments this year? By how much and where? Are you saving up for any large purchases? Setting goals will also inform your budgeting requirements and hopefully your general attitude to your finances as well.
• Build or Boost Your Emergency Fund. Prepare for the unexpected. Your emergency fund should probably contain about 3-6 months of your living expenses, so you can overcome new circumstances that life may throw upon you. You can start small and set just bit on the side every month until you reach that level. Put it in an account that pays out interest, just make sure the funds are liquid and accessible in case of emergencies. The peace of mind with having that fund available will help you make more rational financial decisions elsewhere.
• Set a plan to pay off debt. Make sure you plan for repaying debts regularly if you have any to pay off. If the interest rates have fallen since you originally took out the loan, it might be worth checking with your financial institution if the debt can be reprogrammed or consolidated.
• Set up automatic savings and investments. There are quite a few financial services and banks – including lots that you can connect directly to Toshl as bank connections – that provide round-up options and other automatic saving options. Any purchase you make can round up to the nearest round amount and save the rounded up part. Some can also automatically invest the rounded up part into your funds of choice. Broad and well diversified ETFs with low yearly costs are usually a good long term choice – but make sure to do your own research.

Toshl-specific hints

• Reflect on the past year. What good is noting and organising all this info, if you don’t take a moment to analyse it? Set the time span to the entire 2024 and take a look at your expense and income graphs. See which categories and tags had higher or lower amounts that you expected. The Planning graphs can also be useful here, as they’ll show the movements over the entire year. This can be even more useful when filtered to individual accounts, categories or tags.
• Set up yearly, monthly or weekly reports by email. If you’re not the reflective type on your own, the automatic email reports can help with a nudge in that direction. Automatically producing infographics based on your finances, right to your inbox. You can also customise what kind of info you’d want included there.
• Re-evaluate your budgets. It’s always good to have a general monthly budget for all expenses to monitor your general spending. Does the amount you have set reflect your finances well? Does it allow you to save some of the incomes each month? Also check your category and tag budgets, see if they’re tracking the right spending and with the appropriate amounts. At Toshl we like to track just a few categories where your spending can vary most based on your personal choices, but budgeting styles can vary.
• Make sure your bank connections are updated. If you’re using the automatic bank connections, go to main menu / Bank connections and check if all is green and in order there. Some bank connections may require a re-authorisation every 6 months or so, while the semi automatic ones might need a log in with every update. Keeping them up to date, makes sure that all the transaction data is flowing in as expected.
• Set a reminder for the non-automatic stuff. Buying with cash often? The Toshl apps can send you a daily reminder at the time of your choice, so you’ll remember to add any cash expenses from the past day. You can set it in Settings / Notification. It can also serve as a reminder to import from file, if some of your accounts require that.

Make sure your financial 2025 will be cooler than a ninja with a lightsaber riding a unicorn.