Think of Yourself Like a Business
As any CFO knows, in order to maximize profit you must understand every dollar in and every dollar out. If you don’t do this regularly already I wouldn’t be surprised if you find some outdated or no longer needed subscriptions that can instantly save you some money.
Document and categorize your:
- Income – how much money you have coming in each month?
- Expenses – how much money and on what you spend each month?
There are a number of ways that you can easily accomplish this. If you like spreadsheets, you can download your monthly bank and credit card statements then allocate your income and expenditures into categories. Email me back and I’ll send you a free, easy to use template with all the categories you’ll need.
If you would rather do it the easier way (like me) there are a number of free apps you can use to connect to your bank and credit card accounts that will pull in and categorize everything for you – provided you feel comfortable sharing your financial info with them. These are helpful not only to understand your current financial situation and budgeting, but also for easy reporting when it comes time to do your taxes.
The apps I like:
- Mint: https://mint.intuit.com/
- Rocket Money: https://www.rocketmoney.com/
I don’t receive anything from recommending these apps and there are others out there if you prefer. Caveat being that most others I’ve come across are trying to sell you some other kind of service their parent company provides. These two do as well (they have to cover the cost of providing the free service somehow) but it’s not intrusive like the others.
Whether you already have this step covered or you are starting now, shoot me a message and let me know where you are at. That way I can personalize future articles and tips to your wealth building journey.
