When I first started managing my money, I wouldn’t be able to consistently and actively manage my finances. I would take good note of my expenses and write down my spending for two weeks and then stop and then start again. I was stuck in the middle.
Believe it or not, managing your money is more difficult than you may think it is. A person that doesn’t have good money habits will have a hard time managing their money. It’s easy to read “Organize your spending” but it’s much harder to actually take action and DO it. The key is to make it a habit.
“Money management” isn’t just paying your bills and having a savings account. Instead, paying your bills on time and having a good savings account are results of having good money habits. The primary goal of having good money habits isn’t just paying the bills; it’s to start recording every aspect of your financial life so that you are in control of your wealth. Anyone can record their expenses, but it takes a person that is truly good with their money to accumulate wealth. This was my goal when I first started seriously managing money. I wanted to tweak my money habits so that I could save up money and get richer.
No matter what your reasons may be, it is important to keep note of your goals. Why is it important to understand what your goals are? It’s important because how you manage your money depends on why you want to manage money. For example, I wanted to save up money and get richer, so I first started out by writing down ALL my expenses. Even if I bought a $1 drink, I would record it. Every Sunday I would sit down and look at what I spent my money on. Since my goal was to save money, I actively searched for any unnecessary spending. Then I would write down how much money I spent on unnecessary things (I considered a $1 drink as unnecessary). Finally, I would write down how I could change my habits so that I could stop spending money unnecessarily. For me, I would stop buying water from a store and just buy it in bulk at Costco. Eventually, these little actions built up and I was saving a lot more money than I thought I would.
So my advice to any beginner is this: Think about why you want to manage your money. Once you figure out why, figure out what you are going to do to meet your goal. Tailor your money management to your goal. Then think of how you will implement your ideas into action. If you want to be successful in managing your money, you must first organize your plan.
