Personal finance is a way of managing monetary resources. It deals with budgeting, savings, and debt management, mortgages, investing and even insurance. Personal finance basically deals with your money and how you spend it. With the knowledge in personal finance, you would be able to monitor where you stand financially.
Personal finance sounds really big when we hear it being defined in technical, financial jargons. But in simple terms, it is just how you manage your funds. They joy of earning your own money is priceless, especially hard-earned money. Yes, we work hard to earn it and ironically, spending it is practically one of the easiest things to do in this world – spend, spend, and spend.
This is why we need personal finance. We have to learn to budget our finances just like we budget our time, because just like time, once we spend it we can never get it back, (well with a revision on it) – we can never get it back with the same value.
We can still earn the money again with the equal amount that we spent but we cannot ignore the fact that there is an opportunity of spending it with another option, for example, is it wise to spend it with this pair of Levis Jeans or is it wiser to get the marked down items in Gap? And then you get the Levis and suddenly you just had the thought that you could have lived with the Gap. It was cheaper and the extra money could have been saved or used again to some other opportunity.
There are a few simple tips that we can follow to observe an exciting journey to a disciplined personal finance:Personal finance is not entirely the same as picking jeans but the wise spending of money. We know for a fact that we get returns by spending, sometimes it can be higher than what we expected but of course there is also the possibility that we will have a lower return.
1) Eliminate whatever debt you have. It’s better to start a journey without any excess baggage.
2) Set a saving amount goal! This will guide you on how much, where and when to spend your money. But please make it realistic.
3) Mark the date on when you should have achieved the goal amount.
4) Record your expenses, classic and I guess I no longer need to explain this.
5) Of course, when you have recorded your expenses, CUT IT! Check whether you are spending wisely asses and reassess your list.
6) BUDGET – another classic part of the drill and this actually speaks for the whole article.
7) Stop using credit cards for unnecessary purchases, remember that it is a business and you are not making yourself rich but the already multimillion dollar banks in Wall Street.
8) Set your savings amount first and then budget.
This is not an easy task. But we never should give up, either way it’s still for you in the end. Just cling to the thought that if you save, then you wouldn’t have to spend too much time whether you would choosing between what’s cheaper and not, if you have enough money to buy them both.
Awesome tips for those who want to learn to manage their money. It’s a difficult thing to do, but the key is to be disciplined and give it time. No one changes their habits overnight…it will take time to pay the debt down, just like it took time to acquire it. I think it is a good step forward if you implement the tips above and a great stepping stone for a sound financial future.