How To Manage Your Money

How To Manage Your Money.

Managing your money can sound intimidating and stressful, we all know that.. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, taking a few simple steps now will help you gain control and, most importantly, peace of mind.

Here are some tips to help you manage your finances this year:

Keep an emergency fund. Unexpected things happen in life and it’s good to be prepared. Emergency funds are a crucial part of a healthy personal finance plan. In most cases, it’s not a good idea to touch or take money out of the fund, rather, let it sit there earning interest. If you lose your job or an unfortunate or unexpected expense arises—such as your car breaking down or a health issue arises —this is when you should use your emergency fund.
Use a tool, a personal finance app. Your finances are likely already complicated, now let’s uncomplicate them. How? Maybe you could begin by getting with the times, put away your Casio calculator. There are new and free tools available that will show you ways to manage money as well as do all the hard budgeting and computational work. Many tools such as Quicken for Windows or the free MoneyStrands app will allow you to safely consolidate, manage and control your money all in one place.
Save 10 to 15 percent for retirement. I know it’s far off, but if you want to be in a comfortable and free place during your retirement, the sooner you start saving for retirement, the better off you will be in your later years.
Slash unnecessary expenses. Are you a big fan of Starbucks? If you are buying a Caffe Latte every day that’s around $4 out of your wallet. Multiply that out and you could be spending about $1,400 a year just on that. Make your own blend at home to save money. Paying for a gym membership but are you doing yoga in your backyard? Cancel it. Think long and hard of other memberships, subscriptions, accounts that you are paying for but could really live without.
Consolidate your debt. Debt, the dreaded word. No one likes debt. No one. And most people that need help managing money actually need help getting out of debt. If you are like the majority of Americans (~80%), then you most likely have debt. Firstly, to get it under control and work on getting rid of it, if you have credit card debts, student loans, and other debts; look to consolidate them and try to get the lowest interest rate possible.
Understand your income. This is the difference between income and expenses, most people know their full monthly income but have less knowledge of their full monthly expenses. Work out your total expenses and subtract that from your total income for the month in question and create your budget.
Understand your expenses. Ask someone off the top of their mind to tell you how much they spend a month and they might not be able to do so.. Many people actually don’t know the total amount of expenses they have on a monthly basis. Here is a solution for you: for one month, keep a log of all your expenses. Take all your receipts (food, rent, utilities, etc.) and look at your bank statements and add up all of your expenses. Remember to keep track of expenses paid by cash as well as credit cards.
Create a budget. Creating and sticking to a budget aids us in seeing with clarity and full transparency our financial situation and this is of most importance for better managing your money.

“When money realizes that it is in good hands, it wants to stay and multiply in those hands.” – Idowu Koyenikan, Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability

Let us know how you manage your money, maybe we will learn something new…