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Whether you’re married or single, you share money or you don’t, or you have a lot of money or a little, you’ve got to take charge of your finances. And the best way to do that? Set up a system for managing your finances.
Why take charge?
Why set up a system for managing your finances?
There are two main reasons. ONE: the consequences are too great. And TWO: you won't meet your goals until you do.
Taking charge of your finances isn't easy-- many people struggle with the ways to make sure they are managing their finances to meet their goals.
If you are struggling, maybe some of these systems below sound familiar. These are BAD systems. You need a GOOD system for managing your finances and I'll show you how!
Bad system: being surprised by bills
If your system involves getting a bill in the mail, being surprised by that bill, and then looking into your bank account online to see if you have the money for that bill... YOU NEED A SYSTEM for managing your finances.
What you are doing right now is letting the bills be the boss of you. When the bill comes, you hop to it and see if you can pay it.
What if you could take charge of your finances and you knew the amount and date of all the bills that were coming in? Wouldn't you be free from worrying about mystery bills and never knowing what bill was going to arrive and impact your account?
Knowing when the bills are coming in and how much they generally are: that's half the battle and it's so doable!
Bad system: Waiting until the end of the month
If your system involves waiting until the end of the month to send whatever money is left over to debt or savings... YOU NEED A SYSTEM for managing your finances.
Trusting yourself not to spend some of the money just freely sitting around in your bank account is wishful thinking and no way to build savings or pay debt.
You've got to determine how much that should be every month and send it there FIRST before it even hits your spending account.
You can find out how much you will have left over to send to debt or savings if you do a few hours work to set up a system for managing your finances that puts YOU in the driver seat.
We typically spend what we have in that bank account, so get it out of your account before you can even spend it on UberEats or Amazon.com.
Bad System: relying on your memory
If your system involves using your memory in any kind of way to make sure things get paid on time... YOU NEED A SYSTEM!
No one can remember all the details of a bill payment system, and if you are relying on memory you're doing too much work.
Right now the work of managing your finances is taking more time than it actually needs to. When you set up a system that automates most of the work and is based on some good decisions you can make for yourself, you're on your way to taking the work out of financial freedom.
A system for managing your finances that works
Whatever your financial situation, setting up a system is the right thing to do. Even if you share money with your partner, even if you're independently wealthy, you need a system.
A system takes the guess work out of every month and empowers you to make good decisions that help you meet your financial goals.
Use the resources here to get started: download this Audit Your Account sheet to organize your audit process (and watch THIS video to walk you through it).
Get The Bossy House budget templates to get started planning for when your bills arrive and how much they cost. Start tracking your spending.
RELATED: Make a Down to Zero Budget
Give it three or four hours of work and in no time you'll be crushing your goals!
I know you can do this and take charge of your money management! All it takes is a few good hours and YOUR persistence!
Get this set of financial planning templates to get started on your budget journey!
