5 Things You Can Do To Take Control Of Your Finances

If you don’t already know me, I am a wife, mother of two little ones, and also the mom of a high maintenance but world’s best dog.  As a mom there’s so many things that happen that I can’t control and I’m always learning how to go with the flow because it doesn’t come naturally to me.

2020 has been a year of uncertainty and change. Covid-19 has changed the way we live and work, the Black Lives Matter movement has increased awareness from every community to do more and has hit pretty hard emotionally. Whatever plans you had for the year have been altered or you’ve been forced to pivot. You’re doing it but you don’t necessarily feel in total control. Many of us are doing things to contribute but change doesn’t happen overnight so there’s still a feeling of not being in control and it can create unnecessary anxiety. I want to share 5 things you can do to take control of your financial life to alleviate some of that unwanted energy.  

5 Things You Can Do To Take Control Of Your Financial Life:

1.       Commit to making a change – give yourself a deadline, recruit a friend / partner and do it together so you’re not just talking about it or thinking about it but you’re actually doing it .

2.       Know where you stand today- having full transparency over your situation is huge. A lot of the stress is hidden behind the unknown. What I tend to see most often is, once you crack it open and take a look under it all, it’s actually not so scary. So I’ve created a lifestyle guide to help you take a deeper look at what you’re spending vs what’s coming in or if you don’t have income coming in at the moment you can look at your savings to see what your cushion looks like.

3.       Check your credit report – something easy to do and know where you’re at, there shouldn’t be any surprises but this is something you should keep a pulse on at least twice a year. It’s like personal maintenance similar to what you might do for a car, get your oil change, tires pumped, this is one of those things. It should just be part of your process.  

4.       Get invested –investing, the objective is to grow your money or at least participate in the stock market, as you get invested it’s without having to actively do something every day, it’s doing the work for you, so there’s a big sigh of relief and that factor of being in control because you know it’s going on. Sort of like if you pay to have your house cleaned on a biweekly schedule, you know your house needs to be cleaned, you have a plan set up, so you don’t need to stress out about trying to get everything done -

5.       Find out what makes you feel powerful when it comes to your money- having money means different things to you than it does to any one of your friends. Maybe having 6 months of an emergency fund makes you feel powerful, maybe it’s creating a plan to ask for a raise at your annual review or new responsibilities, maybe it’s paying down some debt. But think about this and find out what would make you feel powerful with your money and then go after it!