While you are being responsible if the question that comes to mind is lyft cheaper than uber, but when it comes to your finances it needs to go a step further and probably look at every dollar coming in and going out. If you can pull last month’s credit or debit card statement you can go line by line and see exactly where your money is going, and where you can look to improving spending. Taking a look at your whole financial picture, there are smart money moves you can make now to improve your financial outlook starting now.
Get a Free Copy of Your Credit Report
It seems like weekly you hear about information getting stolen, whether it’s on the news, family or friends, or you personally, you just never know who has your info these days so it’s a good idea to pull your credit report to ensure all information and accounts are accurate and up to date. The credit bureaus will offer a free copy of your credit report at least once a year, but beyond that, you can view your score on monthly credit card statements to ensure it’s still trending in the right direction.
Give Yourself a Cushion
Speaking of never knowing when something might occur…you could be plugging along every month and then all of sudden get hit with a huge vet bill, have to replace a home appliance, or even worse, lose your job and need funds to cover until you find a new one. If you can give yourself a cushion of a few months’ worth of expenses, you can avoid putting any unexpected charges on a credit card and risk throwing your budget out of whack and increasing monthly expenses trying to pay the balance back.
Maximize Retirement Savings
If you sit back and think about how long you have been out of school, in your career, or even your current job, it could be surprising of how fast time has gone by. The next question being, how prepared are you on a path to have enough money in retirement? While it can be decades away until you do walk away from work, that doesn’t mean you should put off saving until later. By increasing contributions now, and taking advantage of any company matching contributions, you can take advantage of saving early on to maximize saving over time, while continuing to increase contributions a little each year to feel less of a financial burden now.
Make the Necessary Sacrifices
When it comes down to it, in order to free up extra money you can avoid going out to eat and opt for going grocery shopping instead, you can even lighten the load of your monthly expenses by cutting your cable cord and going for a streaming service instead, either way, you may need to make the necessary sacrifices when it comes to building up your net worth, staying out of debt, and giving yourself enough to live off during retirement to still being able to enjoy life to its fullest.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.