It sounds so simple, but it's true: before you can figure out where you want to go and how to get there, you need to have a solid understanding of where you are and how you got there.

This is especially true when it comes to personal finance.

And when it comes to your current financial situation, there are many moving parts of which you should be aware. They include:

• Income (salary and wages, rental property income, investment income, etc.)
• Expenses (regular and irregular)
• Debt (mortgage, student loans, auto loans, credit cards, personal loans, other lines of credit)
• Assets (home, cash savings, investments, vehicles, etc.)
• Net Worth (Assets - Debts)
• Insurance (renters/homeowners, life, auto, disability)
• Retirement Planning

It's enough to make your head spin.

But taking action just for the sake of doing something isn't likely to improve your financial situation.

Simply put, you need to have a solid idea of what needs improvement.

Taking a Look at the Big Picture

In the past, looking at every aspect of your finances involved several phone calls, hours of reviewing documents, and one big headache. Now you can just about do it all using two free services.

1. Credit Sesame

One of the easiest ways to begin with the big picture in mind is to pull a free copy of your credit overview. You can do this through a number of companies, but Credit Sesame is our preference for a few reasons:

• Unlike other services, Credit Sesame is free, and they don't ask you to put a credit card on file and switch you over to a subscription plan later on.
• Their dashboard shows your current credit score, payment history analysis, and a debt analysis which includes your total debt obligations, monthly payment obligations, and debt-to-income ratio.
• CreditSesame shows a simple debt analysis which breaks down your debts into convenient categories: total debt, home loans, auto loans, credit cards, student loans, and other loans.

Don't pay too much attention to their recommendations tabs and alerts, but checking out your credit overview is a wise way to gain insight into one of the most important sectors of your financial big picture.

2. Personal Capital

Personal Capital is another useful and free tool when looking at your big picture. It fills in the gaps left behind by CreditSesame, notably your current checking, savings, and investment balances, a look at your 30 day cash flow trends, and your owned assets (Personal Capital allows you to manually add vehicles and other assets). It will even provide an estimate of your net worth!

Wrapping Up the Big Picture

Finally, gather up documents and declarations regarding your renters/homeowners insurance, auto insurance, life insurance, and disability insurance. At this stage, you just want to be sure that you have these policies in place for your protection. We'll get to analyzing them in a future unit.

Print out the worksheet on the next page and fill in the applicable information as it applies to your financial situation. You will be referring back to this document later.