Photo by CC user 401(K) 2012 on Flickr.
They say that it is the root of all evil and the unfortunate truth is that this description of money is worryingly accurate. For many of us, money is the biggest cause of stress and strain in our lives, the biggest concern that many of us have and the one thing that occupies our minds more than anything else. Having too much, not enough or trying to arrange our monthly spends is a constant battle.
The good news is that it really doesn’t have to be this way and by taking some simple steps you can drastically improve your financial outlook. Here are some tips on how to change your fortunes when it comes to money and remove the stress from your life once and for all.
Seek Advice
The first step on your road to financial freedom is to seek some professional help from a financial advisor. These aren’t exclusively for high corporations or rich people, great financial advisors like Keith Springer are helping people like you and me everyday to improve our finances. What a good advisor will do is to take a look at all aspects of your finances, they will help you to budget, to move money around to maximize interest, re-arrange loans and can even advise you on investing for the future.
Track Spending
One of the simplest and most effective ways of managing your finances month on month is through tracking your spending, all of it. Many people just keep an eye on the big purchases and bills but in reality it can be those little ones adding up that can cause the biggest problems. There are some great applications out there that you can download to your smartphone which will help you to track your spending. All you need to do is update it each time you spend something and then at the end of the month you will be able to see a report on how much you spend. You will no doubt be quite surprised at the results and just how much that daily coffee or sandwich is costing you each month.
Physical Budgeting
Once you have tracked your spending and seen the areas where you are spending too much money it is time to start cutting things out of your spends and budgeting each week. The best way that I have found to do this is to set my bills aside in my bank account to come out automatically, any savings which I’ll be making I put into a savings account and then the remainder I will take out as cash. With this cash I divide it into four envelopes, one for each week of the month. I will also add an envelope for anything in particular that I know I will be doing that month, for example if I know that I will be going out for a meal then I will put around $40 into an envelope for that event. Doing this really helps you to stay on top of your spends and helps you reduce reckless spending.
