Here are seven small financial changes you can make that have a big impact.
Tracking Your Spending
Tracking your spending is the number one thing you can do to bring a better awareness to your personal finances. And luckily, you can use an app to track this for you.
Sign up for software like Personal Capital or Mint (both free) link up you bank accounts and these apps will track your spending for you. Make sure you check your spending at least every other day so you can get a good feel for exactly where your money is going.
Signing up for Your 401k at Work
If you haven’t already, sign up for your employer’s 401k plan. Using a 401k to save for retirement is one of the easiest ways to go about it. And don’t worry if you don’t have a lot to stash away – just do the best that you can.
Negotiating Lower Rates for Your Bills
When is the last time you called some of your service provides and asked for a lower rate on one of your bills? If the answer “it’s been a while” or “never” you need to do this pronto.
Call your cable provider, phone provider and internet provider and see if you can get a better rate. It only takes a couple phone calls and could free up a couple hundred dollars per month that you could use for other goals.
Saving $20 per Week
Developing the habit of saving will benefit you for the rest of your life. If you aren’t putting money in savings account on a regular basis now is a great time to start.
I recommend that you open up an online savings account and have money automatically taken from your checking each week.
Putting an Extra $50 Per Month Toward Your Debt
Debt is hard on personal finances – especially high interest debt. If you have debt make a plan to put extra money toward it each month (as much as you can) so that you can pay it off quicker.
Making Your Own Food
If you need to trim down your budget the easiest place to start is with food. If you regularly eat outside the home your savings could be pretty significant.
Make a goal to cook all of your own food for at least a month.
Reading a Personal Finance Book
The one thing that got me interested in improving my finances was reading personal finance books. The more you know about financial health the easier it will be for you to take the steps necessary to improve your own.
Here are the personal finance books we recommend.
If you want to make changes to your finances try one of these ideas. You’ll reap great benefits with a fairly minimal amount of work.