Spring Clean Your Spending - Seven Tips To Spruce Up Your Finances Quickly
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We can step up our finance game in any season, but spring always feels like a great time for a fresh start. As you’re working through your checklist, don’t forget to set aside a few minutes to spring-clean your spending!
Add these things to your spring-cleaning to-dos to spruce up your entire financial situation.
Organize your priorities.
Most of us have more discretionary income than we realize, and it is easy to let that extra money slip away to unnecessary expenses when we aren’t careful. Start by getting your priorities straight. It’s easier to make decisions when you position the question not as, “Would I rather put money towards something that I don’t care about or something that I do care about?” as opposed to “Would I like to buy this thing or not?”.
Set big money goals! Having something to work towards makes it much easier to make good money decisions. Maybe stashing away a few extra dollars for retirement doesn’t mean that much to you right now, but having a six-month emergency fund, and the freedom to ditch your job today for a passion-driven career does!
What matters most to you in life? Does your checking account activity reflect your priorities?
With your priorities in order, you can dig into the ways that you are spending your money to make sure that you’re leaving room for more of the things that really matter.
Wipe down your credit card bill.
With your list of priorities in mind, look through your last credit card bill and checking account statement. There are probably things that you are spending money on that aren’t serving you, your mission, or your goals.
Identify low-priority items that you can discontinue spending money on going forward and look for subscriptions that you don’t use anymore or could live without.
By removing those unnecessary expenses, you’ll have more room in your spending plan for more of what matters!
Dust off your spending plan.
Your new, decluttered credit card bill is going to give you more money to work with each month (hooray!). Have a plan for your dollars going forward to make sure you’re making progress toward your #1 goal.
Know what you want to spend each month. I’m not even going to use the “b” word, because I know that the thought of budgeting usually just freaks us out. Following a spending plan isn’t about controlling yourself or putting yourself on a spending leash. It’s about having an idea of how you WANT to use your money to accomplish your goals.
Somehow, we’ve developed this idea that following a spending plan means that we are poor and that spending money recklessly or without care means that we are rich. That’s just not true. Regardless of how much money God has entrusted us with, it is our job to steward it properly. Give yourself a plan to follow to ensure that your money is achieving everything that you want it to.
Soak buying decisions.
When you think of something that you want to buy, instead of whipping out your credit card and making it happen on the spot, let that buying decision soak a bit. Sleep on it and make sure that it is the best use of your money.
Create a list of things you’d like to buy and add to that list as you come across buying opportunities. Leave items on that list for a while before you move forward. If after 30 days or so pass and you still feel that you want to buy the thing, go ahead and buy it! Often you will realize that after “letting it soak” you realize that you really can live without it.
By soaking those decisions and letting some unnecessary purchases pass, you’ll save so much money! And all that money is now available for more of the really important stuff.
Clean up your credit.
Make sure you’re paying your bills on time and start chipping away at all of those little debts!
Declutter your debt by starting with the smallest one and paying it off as quickly as possible. Then take the minimum payment amount required on that loan and add it to the payment amount of the next smallest debt. This is your debt snowball and will help you wash away debt in a hurry!
Spruce up your system.
Automate as much as possible so that you can live your life, knowing that you are working towards your financial goals, without having to sit down every month to make payments and transfer money to savings.
Eliminate decision fatigue. Instead of making yourself decide what to do with every single dollar that you earn, make the decision one time.
Schedule payments to be made automatically, including extra debt payments.
Transfer money to savings and investments automatically.
Set up your system and let it go to work!
Declutter your stuff.
We have more than we need. Once you adopt the minimalistic mindset and declutter your stuff, you’ll be less inclined to buy more things that you don’t need.
Go through your home and find things that you can either toss, donate, or sell. Take any money that you earn by selling your unneeded items to reduce debt or add to savings!
Relax and enjoy the space that you’ve just created for more of what matters!
You know that feeling after you deep clean the house, light a candle, open up the windows, just enjoy the fresh air and appreciate your newly-cleaned, clutter-free space? It’s the same after deep cleaning your finances!
Take a few minutes to enjoy the space that you created in your finances and relax, knowing that your system is getting you closer to your goals, even while you sit and soak up some of that spring sunshine!
Which item on this list would make the biggest impact in your financial situation? Comment below and let’s get to work!
