Improve Your Finances By Organizing (And Still Buy What You Want)
Are you looking for a simple way to get your finances more organized?
For this blog post in video form, please head to my YouTube channel or check the bottom of this post.
Are you looking for a simple way to get your finances more organized? Want some easy ways to start? Read this post for quick budgeting without feeling like you are sacrificing the things you love.
If your dreaming of getting your finances a little or a lot more organized, by the end of this post you will see my top ideas to implement into your life immediately. Disclaimer: I am NOT a financial expert and these tips are just some ways that have helped me stay financially organized. I have shared these tips with friends and clients and I mention in my book how being organized can help you stay on a budget.
Treat your life like a business
Nicole Lapin, author of Rich Bitch (2015), is a financial expert who started her career in business news reporting. She also credits her success to being organized. Lapin links being organized to financial success, and includes this in her twelve-step program to get your finances in order. Lapin’s program focuses on making your life your business, and treating your home like a business. Lapin advocates keeping your closet organized, getting rid of clutter, having a system to tackle bills, scheduling time to spend with your partner, and even putting flowers beside your night table to ensure your space is decorated in a way that makes you happy—even if you’re on a budget.
So for me I know employ this method and treat my entire life like a business as I treat my time, personal expenses, and happiness like a business.
Financial goals
I have an abundance mindset and a great relationship with money - I love money and I work hard to bring value to customers and employers and they are happy to pay me for this work. I also feel strongly that we should be sharing what we make especially among our fellow women so we can help each other develop this mindset and also increase the wage gap! We have goals in all areas of our life and finances should also be one of them. There are lots of tools online on how to reverse engineer your goals into what it costs and you can work this out to how much you need to make annually and even hourly. Then this can also help you decide how you live. Scaling down on your housing might make you reach your dream sooner or buying another property to rent.
“Run your life like a business ”
Budgeting tools
I still love excel for budgets (yup, I’m old school). But what I do need in terms of software is digital receipt storage and for my business an accounting software, and they have to link so that I NEVER have to manually enter a receipt and or keep the paper! Whenever I buy anything online or in person I scan the receipts with my phone or simply forward if it is an electronic receipt and delete/trash the originals as they will be stored in the cloud for access. I use NEAT as this software then atomically sends it to my accounting software, Quickbooks.
Weekly check-in
Just like in business, for our own personal finances we should have a weekly check and a proper month-end. I schedule 30 minutes every Friday to go through my receipts and financial overview. For receipts I go online and categorize, first personal or business and then business into their appropriate categories and I make notes as needed for taxes. My personal receipts I put into quick categories and see the weekly spend, then transfer this to my weekly budget. If I have overspent on one item, for example food, I see why and how, or if I could scale back on another category.
Now you know some of my key tips on how I stay financially organized. Below is the link to the reverse engineered money statement I use when determining how much I aim for making annually and even hourly!
Next week I will be sharing 10 hacks to help keep you motivated to stay organized in your entire life!
