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Five Steps to Organizing Your Financesby Miriam Caldwell | More from this Blogger One great New Year's resolution is to organize your finances. It is a great time to sit down and take stock of what you are earning, saving and spending. Here are some basic tips to organizing your finances and to help you get on the money track that you want to. 1) The first thing you need to do is realize that money is a tool that you can control. If you do not choose to control your money, you will never be able to use it to help you reach your dreams and goals. You will become slave to any debt that you acquire. Then you will be working just to pay the bills. 2) The next thing you should do is right down your life goals. Be specific. What do you want to do for retirement? When do you want to retire? Do you want to put your kids through college? Do you want to open your own business? Do you want to purchase a home? If so, what type? Then set time guidelines for these goals. 3) Once you have goal that you are working towards specifically then you can begin to see money as a tool. After you have written down five major lifetime goals, then you should stop and see what ones are affected by the financial choices that you make today. Which of your goals require some sort of money to achieve? 4) Once you do this ask yourself if your spending and saving behavior today is helping you to achieve the goals that you have written down. If it is then you are on the right track. You may want to check for areas that you can tweak so that you can make your money work for you even better. It may be time to talk to a financial advisor, or you can up your contribution to your 401K plan. If your behavior is not helping you to meet these goals you will need to change it. 5) It is time to sit down and look at the ways that you are managing your day to day finances. It may be that you need to set up a budget or trim certain categories. You may need to work aggressively to get out of debt, so that you can put more money into savings. You may find that you are doing great. Related Articles: Finding Balance with Money Management Learn more about Miriam Caldwell  Miriam is a SAHM mom of three children. She has a daughter who is seven, and two sons, four and two. She loves being a parent and spending time with her children. Relevant money tags |
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