Welcome fellow souls to « The Human Family Crash Course Series, » a new project collaborated together by empress2inspire.blog and sensispirit.wordpress.com. Together we will be working on a different topic for each crash course; our second topic is focused on «How To Thrive In 2021.» Each topic will have eight posts with posts on Mondays and Thursdays. We hope you enjoy our series and we look forward to knowing how our posts have inspired you!
Managing your money can sound intimidating and stressful, we all know that.. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, taking a few simple steps now will help you gain control and, most importantly, peace of mind.
Here are some tips to help you manage your finances this year:
- Keep an emergency fund. Unexpected things happen in life and it’s good to be prepared. Emergency funds are a crucial part of a healthy personal finance plan. In most cases, it’s not a good idea to touch or take money out of the fund, rather, let it sit there earning interest. If you lose your job or an unfortunate or unexpected expense arises—such as your car breaking down or a health issue arises —this is when you should use your emergency fund.
- Use a tool, a personal finance app. Your finances are likely already complicated, now let’s uncomplicate them. How? Maybe you could begin by getting with the times, put away your Casio calculator. There are new and free tools available that will show you ways to manage money as well as do all the hard budgeting and computational work. Many tools such as Quicken for Windows or the free MoneyStrands app will allow you to safely consolidate, manage and control your money all in one place.
- Save 10 to 15 percent for retirement. I know it’s far off, but if you want to be in a comfortable and free place during your retirement, the sooner you start saving for retirement, the better off you will be in your later years.
- Slash unnecessary expenses. Are you a big fan of Starbucks? If you are buying a Caffe Latte every day that’s around $4 out of your wallet. Multiply that out and you could be spending about $1,400 a year just on that. Make your own blend at home to save money. Paying for a gym membership but are you doing yoga in your backyard? Cancel it. Think long and hard of other memberships, subscriptions, accounts that you are paying for but could really live without.
- Consolidate your debt. Debt, the dreaded word. No one likes debt. No one. And most people that need help managing money actually need help getting out of debt. If you are like the majority of Americans (~80%), then you most likely have debt. Firstly, to get it under control and work on getting rid of it, if you have credit card debts, student loans, and other debts; look to consolidate them and try to get the lowest interest rate possible.
- Understand your income. This is the difference between income and expenses, most people know their full monthly income but have less knowledge of their full monthly expenses. Work out your total expenses and subtract that from your total income for the month in question and create your budget.
- Understand your expenses. Ask someone off the top of their mind to tell you how much they spend a month and they might not be able to do so.. Many people actually don’t know the total amount of expenses they have on a monthly basis. Here is a solution for you: for one month, keep a log of all your expenses. Take all your receipts (food, rent, utilities, etc.) and look at your bank statements and add up all of your expenses. Remember to keep track of expenses paid by cash as well as credit cards.
- Create a budget. Creating and sticking to a budget aids us in seeing with clarity and full transparency our financial situation and this is of most importance for better managing your money.
“When money realizes that it is in good hands, it wants to stay and multiply in those hands.” – Idowu Koyenikan, Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability
Let us know how you manage your money, maybe we will learn something new…
Thank you for your useful advices. 👍🏻
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Glad you liked the post
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Welcome, glad it was useful.
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🖤
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❤️
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Thank you for sharing this post
Money health is important
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Glad you liked the post
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Welcome, indeed.
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Reblogged this on Love and Love Alone.
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Thank you for sharing
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Thanks for sharing.
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You are most Welcome… 😍👍😂
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🙏🏼
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It may seem difficult to have that emergency fund, especially when you’re in a week to week cycle, but putting back a couple dollars each week, especially if you can get it deducted from your pay automatically and deposited in savings, you don’t miss it. Then, its there when you absolutely need it.
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I agree. The importance of saving money is simple: It allows you to enjoy greater security in your life. If you have cash set aside for emergencies, you have a fallback should something unexpected happen. And, if you have savings set aside for discretionary expenses, you may be able to take risks or try new things.
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I have been in both circumstances. From not having the funds when they were so desperately needed and that taught me this lesson. When I was working I had ten dollars a week automatically deposited into a savings account in a bank that was in another town and not readily accessible. Yet, when a crisis came about, I had that savings to use. Proof positive that works.
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Excellent example. Thank you for sharing
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That’s wonderful, good to hear a real life experience of a worked out plan. 🙏🖤
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❤️
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Great and Synthetic advices. Thank You!
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Glad you liked the post
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Welcome
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I enjoyed reading these tips thanks. For me a budget and knowing what my expenses are has helped me 😊
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Most welcome
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Glad you enjoyed reading and for sharing what works for you.
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Reblogged this on The Reluctant Poet.
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Thank you for sharing
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Thanks so much for your great post, Dear! Hope you are having a great Day!!
xoxox 😘💕💖🌹
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Hoping the same for you 👍🏼
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Thanks for sharing as always. 🙏
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Invaluable advice. Very few people talk about this. Money spending is considered a cooler thing to do. Saving money and investing is a wiser choice. What do opt for? Make your money work for you, not the other way around.
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Being middle class brings with it a fair share of stress and strain. Cash is perpetually in short supply though credit is always available on demand. There are EMIs to be paid, educational expenses for the kids that always piling up and of course, spending due to peer or societal pressure never ends up which left us with no or miniscule savings. I am glad to be able to save some money every month.
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Hi Garima,
Getting a handle of that slippery income is huge. I am sure like Americans you all battle with money. But what a blessing to get it managed right. It’s a good feeling to pay things off
Thanks,
Gary
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Yes Gary. My parents taught me how to save money from the very start. Blessed.
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So smart. They did you a great service.
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Thank you 🙏🏼 🙏🏼🤞🏼
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Thank you for such a good piece
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Most welcome. Diosraw.com is a good writer I have recently collaborated with
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Welcome. 🖤
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💙
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Great points👍🏼
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Glad you liked the post.
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Good to hear.
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Really good information. Keep up the good work!
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I am glad you liked the post. This is written by Diosraw.com
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Glad you liked.
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Money advice we should all learn before we earn a single cent. Wonder why school doesn’t teach all this
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Yes indeed, I absolutely agree with you.
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I completely agree, there is a reason for this and it is that knowledge is power and how can the 1% stay powerful with fully informed citizens?
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This is really interesting, I enjoyed this post. This is full of useful information. Thank You for sharing.
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Most welcome. Glad you liked the post. Money management provides you with a 360-degree view of your financial picture while applying key financial disciplines to help you overcome the obstacles to wealth. With a clear purpose for your money and sound money management principles behind it, you are in much more control of your financial destiny.
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Good to hear it was valuable to you.
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Thank you for sharing such interesting piece, Really worth Reading. So much knowledge to gain. Worth Sharing.
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Most welcome William. Money management has become imperative with the pandemic more than ever.
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Thank you for sharing
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Thank you for sharing
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Useful tips 💗
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👍🏼
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