Feeling overwhelmed by money worries? Whatever your circumstances, there are ways to get through these tough economic times, ease stress and anxiety, and regain control of your finances.
Create a Budget
The hardest will be the first few months of planning and sticking to a budget but as you understand what to do you will get used to doing it. The budget will let you decide when and how you are going to spend your money. By creating a monthly budget you can know where your money goes. The process will keep you on track and regain your sense of control. Understanding how you spend your money is key to budgeting and devising a plan to address your financial problems. You should be aware of your triggers to find healthier ways of coping with them. Keep looking for ways to save money. Most of us can find something in our budget that we can eliminate to help make ends meet. Regularly review your budget and look for ways to trim expenses.
Get Outside Help
You can take classes on money management and investment strategy which will help you plan your future finances. Talking to someone is also helpful in those cases. You may feel awkward about disclosing the amount you earn or spend, feel shame about any financial mistakes you’ve made, or embarrassed about not being able to provide for your family. But bottling things up will only make your financial stress worse. In the current economy, where many people are struggling through no fault of their own, you’ll likely find others are far more understanding of your problems. The person, whom you tell about your worries, can give you good advice about which you have never thought.
Take Inventory of Your Finances
Include all your incomes, and then keep track of all you’re spending. List your debts, include past – due bills, late fees, payments, and money you owe to somebody. When you are faced with a pile of past-due bills, all your expenses, buying a coffee on the way to work may seem like an irrelevant expense. But seemingly small expenses can mount up over time, so keep track of everything. Look to make small changes. Even spending money on cigarettes during the break can add up to a significant monthly outlay. So, cutting down nonessential spending can help you to free up extra cash to pay off bills. So the small expenses can cause big triggers.
Make a plan – Stick to it
If you’ve taken inventory of your financial situation, eliminated discretionarily and impulse spending, and your outgoings still exceed your income, there are essentially three choices open to you: increase your income, lower your spending or both. How you go about achieving any of those goals will require making a plan and following through on it. If you have taken inventory you can identify your problem. Devise a solution and brainstorm ideas with your family or a trusted friend, or consult a free financial counseling service. You may decide that talking to credit card companies and requesting a lower interest rate would help solve your problem. Or maybe you need to restructure your debt, eliminate your car payment, downsize your home, or talk to your boss about working overtime. Start focusing on your progress.
Our Solution
Writing down all your expenses takes time and if you want to see your monthly expenses but also you do not want to waste your time on it, you can use ExpensePie. ExpensePie helps to track expenses and automatically categorizes them. You do not waste time but have a visual picture of your spending. Remember that it is proved that financial problems adversely impact your mental health. The decline in your mental health makes it harder to manage money. The difficulties in managing money lead to more financial problems and worsening mental health problems and so on. So, hurry up, download the app.