Financial Updates

Before you can maintain control over your financial situation, you need to get it back to where it needs to be. For whatever reason you may be looking at mounting debts, bills over due and maybe even a mortgage in default. Therefore, before you can start maintaining good financial behaviours you need to first get rid of the evidence of your bad past financial behaviours. You can do this with the following steps.

Once you decide you need to regain control of your finances, the time for excuses and ignorance is over. This means you need to know exactly what is going on with your money situation and the best way to do this is to get a copy of your credit report. Your credit report is how the financial industry views you, and whenever you get a loan, apply for a credit card, or any other sort of finance, your credit report will be scrutinized.

Therefore, it is important for you to know the state of your finances because once you know the problems which are marked on your credit report, you can start working to fix them. You will also be able to identify if there are any errors or fraudulent entries on your credit report so you can be sure you haven’t been the victim of identity theft. When a bad report is made on your credit report that is a mistake, you can apply to have it removed from your record.

This can sound like an insurmountable task if your finances are currently the ones in control, however, before you can start implementing good financial behaviours, you need to be sure that your mistakes from the past have been rectified. When you become debt free you will be able to live within your means and when you spend less than you earn you can save that extra amount at the end of each month, or treat yourself as reward for your new good habits.

Before you can reclaim control over your finances you need to reclaim control over your attitude towards money. You need to acknowledge that there is a problem and work to fix it, but that’s not all you have to shift in your mind. You need to change your perception of yourself and your life, to make it your goal to live within your means. Instead of lusting after a new pair of shoes and finally putting them on credit, think about putting them on lay buy instead and paying them off gradually, or saving up for things you want to buy.

Being in control of your finances requires constant maintenance because it is easy to slip back into bad behaviours – that is why there are so many people just like you, who want to manage their finances better. To maintain control of your finances, you need to look at the following steps.

This means creating a budget, sticking to a budget and maintaining a budget. It is not enough to do just one of these things, but you instead need to be committed to all three parts of new, controlled budget.

First, create a detailed budget of all of your income and every single outgoing expense from your car park costs to your mortgage and everything in between. Hopefully there will be some income left over after all of the expenses, and if there’s not, you need to look at where you can cut down – eating out less often, fewer new suits or making your own coffee at home before heading to work. While you want to cut down your budget so you spend less than you earn, make sure you are cutting in places which are maintainable, because longevity is the key to control.

Secondly make your budget easily accessible by having it on your phone, in your diary or on your computer. This will help you stick to your budget because you’ll be able to see at any point how much money you’ve spent, how much more is outgoing this week, and whether you can afford dinner and drinks out with the girls, or whether it needs to be a girls’ night in.

Finally, maintain your budget by entering your day to day spending as it happens. This will also help you remain in control because you’ll pick up on all of those incidental expenses you may have forgotten to enter in the beginning, and you’ll find new ways to cut back on your spending.

Staying in control of your finances can be as simple as staying organised. When you know which bills are due when and how much money is in your accounts at any one time, then you can remain in control and avoid heading for debt and bad finances again. When you look at late fees and interest charges which can accumulate on bills and credit cards if you don’t pay them on time, you will want to find the note book, app or spreadsheet which works to keep your finances in order.

Staying in control takes creativity and practice because you often need to find ways you can save money, to ensure there is money left over at the end of the month. Therefore, consider whether you could cut back on incidental spending such as :