Well hello there. Fancy to see you here. I’m glad you found my page. I decided to start this blog as a way to keep my myself accountable and to share with you tips and tricks I’ve learned along the way. I looove being efficient. I hate to work harder if I know I can work smarter. That’s what made me fall in love with personal finance. If you’re not in love with personal finance, hopefully I can sway you into a healthy and productive relationship with personal finance. A relationship that helps you achieve your dreams while shutting down toxic noise that moves you further away from your dreams.
Now let me start by saying I’m not a millionaire yet. I’ve only got about 100K in assets, personally, not including my husbands and since I went to law school I’ve got even more in debt. So why am I recommending what to do with personal finance you ask? Because I reached a point where I wasn’t going to ignore my debt anymore, because I got to a point where I wanted to feel financially secure and not worry about my debt and I got to the point where I decided to take control and change my financial course. I no longer have credit card debt, I’m investing, saving, and trying to be self-sufficient so someday the only boss I need to impress is me. I hope you can too. I started with what I call mini steps.
Mini steps to taking control of your finances
- I figured out what you owe on everything and figure out what assets you posses. Assets can be your car value, your bank account, savings and any property. It’s okay if you find out you don’t have much.
- Try to cut back on spending. I did this by just trying not to spend money as much as possible or if I had to I tried to find coupons, find less expensive options, cut subscriptions, and find free activities I enjoy.
- Save at least $1,000 in an emergency fund. Maybe all you can afford is $50 a pay period to go into savings, maybe more from an incentive. Get that emergency fund cause the last thing you want to do is to put money on a credit card.
- If your employer has a 401K match, match up to the full amount. So if your employer will match up to 4% of your paycheck then do that, it’s free money! If you can’t afford it, go back to step 2 and maybe look at a cheaper housing situation or some side income.
- Pay off that high interest debt. That debt will eat you alive and keep you poor. Nothing is worse than paying way more for an item than it truly costs and nothing is a bigger waste of money!
- Strategize and invest.
I’ll stop at step 6 because that’s where I’m at. Yes, I have debt but it’s very low interest and I’d rather put my money in something that has a 7% return rather than something that saves me 3% interest. 7-3=4 so mathematically my money grows. Also, the earlier you invest, the sooner your money multiplies. This is where money gets fun.
Look up the rule of 72. It’s an equation that shows you how long it approximately takes for your money to double. So you put some money in an index fund that has a 7% return and reinvest that return, in not too terribly long your money will eventually double without you barely lifting a finger. If you’re not excited about this then maybe you’re just not as lazy as I am and you like working harder not smarter. This is what made me start taking a hard look into what I was doing with my money and if you’ve never come across this, I’m glad to be the one to tell you. You can make more money outside of your career. You can start your path today to financial freedom and do it with me.
If my writing was completely unpersuasive and you’ve still somehow made it this far in my blog, I also urge you to check out the blog, Afford Anything and the podcast as well as the podcast Stacking Benjamins and their affiliated website magnifymoney.com. That website is where I go to shop car loan rates, mortgages, and especially high yield savings accounts ( yes, your savigns account can return more than pennies in a year). They are great resources on what to do with your money, handling money questions and learning about side gigs people do to make money.
So that’s a bit about my love affair with personal finance and some tips for you to get started with. If anything I shared is helpful, please feel free to share it and if you want me to write more about topics I covered, let me know at watchmymoneygrowblog@gmail.com or follow my @watchmymoneygrow on instagram.
Stay well!
Watch My Money Grow 