Any time of year that you decide to tackle your finances is the best time of year. But, when New Year approaches, many people decide that will be when they make the most of the finances.
Taking a real look at debts, income, and creating a budget.
It is important to remember not to put too much pressure on yourself. At the start of the year, people often decide to make many large changes and then can feel bad if something doesn’t go perfectly. When it comes to your finances, you can make changes, no matter how small, to significantly impact.
Consider it like a snowball. It will start small and gather speed and size, meaning impact as you go.
Something that makes tackling your finances interesting is that it doesn’t matter how much money you have. Everyone can benefit from some actionable steps when it comes to their finance.
So how do you get the most out of it? And what can make your financial life more comfortable?
Read on for some simple tips.
Debt
It is very easy to push that to the back of your mind and begin to bury your head in the sand. Even though that is a massive source of stress and can be one of the things many people struggle with.
Unfortunately, most of the time, that isn’t going to go anywhere, and it will need to be handled eventually. It is a good idea to note all of your debts, who they are owed to, the amount that is owed, and even looks at your original agreements.
You can find many template letters that can help you to get in touch with your creditors and freeze interest, reduced repayments, and come up with a monthly payment plan that suits what you can afford. If you don’t want to be contacted by phone, you can also request that all communications come via letter.
Depending on how much debt you have and what it relates to, you might get a debt management plan.
If you need some help, here is a useful guide that can help: Struggling With Debt?
Future planning
Is this the year that you begin to save for your forever home? One of the biggest things that they wish to purchase is a house or a new car for many people. These are new financial obligations that need to be carefully planned into your future. This means when you put your budget together, there should be a large amount allocated to these in terms of monthly repayments.
In the case of adverse credit, you might be required to speak to a specialist to see if there are alternatives to help you make your future financial dreams a reality.
Banking
Many people open a bank account, and rather than shop around for alternatives, they keep the same bank account for years. This is partly out of convenience and partly out of loyalty.
You must remember that in the end, you don’t actually owe your bank anything, and they might not be providing you with the best possible service. It is very straightforward to swap banks in most cases.
You can even swap your bank account online in some cases, should you need to. Use a comparison website to look at all of your bank’s different offerings compared with other banking companies. You might even find that you are paying higher charges or have a low-interest rate with your current bank.
Budget
A budget is not just something for those who are on a low income, or those looking to save money. Almost anybody can benefit from a well put together budget. A good financial budget can help you with that future planning that we just recently discussed, and it can even help reduce your debts.
One of the simplest ways is to set up your budget is to look at the money you have coming into your home and where it gets spent.
You might find that you have more money left at the end of the month than you thought if you simply skip a few of those takeaways or reduced the number of times you use the car.
It can be surprising just how much money you can save but putting a budget together.
Automation
You can often find that you can get a discount on utilities or services if you have an automatic payment set up. Another great thing about automatic payment is that they are usually taken on a regular date every month, making it very easy to work this into your budget. And you are much less likely to spend any money that is already allocated on automatic payment.
You can also set up automated savings. There are several phone applications, and even some banking services provide this now.
They look at your income and outgoings, and using a special algorithm can work out how much you can save safely, and they will automatically put that into a savings pot for you.
The great thing about automatic saving is you very rarely notice it, and it can be as small as a few pence or cents at a time. Even a matter of weeks or months with the small automatic saving can give you quite a little pot of cash.
Credit card
If you are currently relying on a credit card for emergencies, then perhaps it’s time to start putting cash into an emergency fund. You can use the automatic payment system mentioned in the previous point to help you build up an emergency fund.
This might mean that you will need to hold off on unnecessary spending or put all of your focus on paying off any current credit card debt. Then with your spare cash, start filling it into an emergency fund.
Finance can be scary, but once you understand all of your options regarding handling your creditors and putting yourself in the driving seat with a well thought out budget, you will have your finances ship-shape in no time at all.
