“Get rid of clutter and you may just find that it was blocking the door you’ve been looking for!”
– Katrina Mayer
Do you ever find yourself wasting your spring worrying about taxes, bills, and new payments coming in? Well, let me help you with decluttering your money and spring cleaning your budget!
When looking at your funds, there are a few things you ladies can do to make your spring more enjoyable, and most likely even change the course of your monetary year! My first piece of advice is to track your income and your expenses. The first step to finding more money to save and invest is to sit down and track where your money is and where it could go. How much income hits your bank account every paycheck, every month? This is the amount after taxes are taken out, health care insurance is paid, and any other items taken out of your paycheck. Then, look at recurring expenses every month versus discretionary expenses, like food, shopping, any one time purchases that you can make smarter. Clarity is key to understanding the flow of your money so you can begin to make better choices. With each expense, prioritize it as a need, want or wish!
Another step to spring cleaning your budget is going through your memberships and subscriptions. As you’re writing down all your expenses, see which items are recurring and if you still utilize it or not. Girl, it’s fine if you haven’t gone to the gym since 2018, but that monthly fee is money in the bank if you cancel it! There are so many apps out there, like TrueBill, that can help you clean out unused subscriptions or find overlapping ones in your budget.
Monthly. Spending. Cleanse. Ladies, trust me, this is a fun and effective way to find extra money, simply going through your expenses and picking ONE discretionary expense a month and not spend on it. One month it can be wine, another it could be fast food, and so on, it might seem small, but it adds up! Go into your tracking worksheet of your expenses and see how much you typically spend on whatever you’re picking that month. Then, after 30 days, move that amount into your savings account! Stick with the monthly spending cleanse for 6-12 months and begin to see your savings skyrocket, without feeling too deprived!
Now that you’re saving money, where do you put all this extra cash? Sit down and write your top 5 goals, buying a house, paying off your car, that big birthday trip! Then prioritize each goal and align it with a savings tip. For the short term, a savings or high interest savings account is great! For the longer term, you can open an investment account and begin investing a certain amount every month.
Do any or all of these and you’ll have money to save, and money to spend!