If your finances are a mess, you’re not alone. Many Chattanooga residents struggle with managing their money. It takes a considerable amount of time and effort to stay on top of tracking your income and your expenses regularly.
Since we all have busy lives with plenty of responsibilities, it’s difficult to find the time to juggle everything that needs to get done in a day, a week, or a month. If you find yourself overwhelmed by money problems, here are some things you can do to escape your personal finance messes.
Progressively Eliminate Debt
Make a list of all your debts. Your list, for example, might include your student loan debt, your payday loan debts, your store credit debts, and your credit card debts. Add up the amount you pay each month towards each of these debts.
As you do this exercise, you’ll notice two interesting things. First, you’re paying more on interest than you realized after you’ve fallen behind in covering full monthly balances. Second, you’re spending an enormous amount of time each month writing out checks or making online payments.
One way to simplify the entire process of managing all your debts is to consolidate them through
MalloyLending.com, a financial service that provides loan consolidation debts. Consultants will coach you on how to eliminate your debts through loan consolidation, a debt restructuring method. They will also provide personal financial reviews to empower you to make smarter decisions about how to become debt-free. Check their YouTube channel out to find out how a consolidated loan can reduce the exorbitant amount in interest fees you’re paying to service your current debts.
Improve Your Credit Score
One way of keeping track of your spending is to monitor your credit score. Wise spending habits will improve your credit score.
Good credit ratings will then make it easier to get any type of financing you need, such as getting a lease or a mortgage.
Several factors determine your credit score, including how long you’ve used credit, your credit history, and your credit-to-debt ratio.
Credit scores range between 300 and 850; so, poor credit is 600 or less, average credit is 650, and good credit is 720 or higher.
Follow or Work With Personal Finance Experts
You don’t have to manage all aspects of your financial planning journey alone.
You can either follow or work directly with a personal finance expert.
Although you might be good at doing your own taxes, saving money, and managing your own portfolio of stocks, it doesn’t mean you’ve got it all figured out. Following the advice or working directly with a personal finance expert will often give you better results.
When you follow advice from a blog, podcast, or consultant, you’ll make better decisions about how to manage your money, and when you work with one directly you’ll reduce how much time and effort you spend managing your personal finances.
Apply the 50/30/20 Budget
A constructive budget framework is the 50/30/20 budgeting method. It’s a way to allocate your net pay, which is your pay after taxes.
First, allocate 50% of your pay to your living expenses, such as rent, utilities, household products, and groceries.
Second, allocate 30% of your pay to lifestyle expenses, such as clothing, health & fitness, hobbies, education, and entertainment.
Third, allocate 20% of your pay to your future, such as building an emergency fund and making retirement investments.
Bump up Your Income
If you’re not making as much as you’d like, taking small steps to improve your earning power will give you much more confidence in taking on better-paying work.
The first step to improving your income is to spend less by spending your money carefully, and the second one is to review your work to figure out how you can make slight improvements.
You can improve the quality and quantity of your work by improving how quickly and efficiently you do the work and by improving your knowledge and skills about your work.
In conclusion, you can improve your personal finances by getting rid of your debt, monitoring your credit score, getting guidance or help from personal finance experts, creating a 50/30/20 budget, and gradually increasing your earning power.