Managing your money can easily be one of the biggest frustrations in life. It doesn't have to be with these helpful tips.
How to manage your money
- Know where your money goes.
- Organize your logins.
- Know who you owe.
- Keep track of bills/utilities due dates.
- Create a budget.
- Create a plan for what to do with extra money.
- Review how well you kept to your budget.
1. Know where your money goes
One of the first tips I would suggest is to know where your money goes!
This is important because if you blindly spend money, you can't assess the amount of unneccessary spending you are doing.
Learning how to manage your money can start off with simply writing down every purchase you make. If you like the more digital approach, try downloading the free app called Everydollar.
Every dollar is a budgeting app that helps keep track of your spending and keeping you accountable for sticking to your budget.
2. Organize your logins
One of the most annoying things in my opinion is searching for my login usernames and passwords for specific things.
Not only will it make your life a little easier, it will also help you be able to find what you need a lot quicker.
3. Know who you owe
The next thing to do when you are learning how to manage your money is to make a list of your debt. This helps you know just how much you own, and specifically who you owe it to.
To be able to quickly look at your debt and equally to see the small changes in paying off your debt can really help motivate you to keep going.
As you make a payment, or pay off something, log it in this chart to see how you are doing.
4. Keep track of bills/utilities due dates
Learning how to manage your money means also knowing when specific bills/utilities are due. Write out a list of when your monthly, semi-annually, and annual bills are due.
5. Create a Budget
One of the most important things to learning how to manage your money is creating a budget.
The first thing you will want to do is fill out the expected income you will earn in a month and your expenses for that month. Then, at the end of the month, fill out the actual income and expenses that you incurred.
This will help you see if you stayed on budget, went over, or under.
6. Create a plan for what to do with extra money
If you stuck to your budget or even went under budget on a lot of your expenses there might end up being money left.
This is going to be your decision on what to do with this extra. My suggestion would be to either pay off some of your debt or even start a savings.
7. Every month, review how well you kept to your budget
The last thing that can help you start learning how to manage your money is by reviewing each month and see how you did. Did you go over budget?
What were your top 3 successes? What are the 3 things you need to work on? Do you have any goals for next month.
After struggling myself, I created a binder printable that truly makes organizing your finances so much easier.
Manage Money Printable
Download your free copy of this money binder printable
More Money Tips
- Extra money leftover from your budget should go to paying off debt.
- Mortgage tip: make an extra payment that goes directly to principal to help pay your mortgage off quicker.
- Refinance your home when rates are low to save money on interest.
- Try to pay credit cards off right away because they usually have very high interest rates.
- Create an emergency fund (3-6 months worth of expenses).
Learning how to manage your money takes time and dedication, but you will thank yourself for it later!
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