How to Get Your Finances in Line This Year

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At different points throughout our lives, we can start to focus on the various goals that we would like to work towards and achieve. Regardless of who you are or what you want for your life, you are likely to find that you will need to have the funds available to fulfil many of your goals. While of course, there are always those that require no investment at all, it's always useful to make sure that your finances are in line. This can offer me the number one goal we want to start with, and we can move on from there. Let's take a look at how to do it.

1. Get Clear on Where You Are

To get things underway, it is always important to start with clarity. You may know that you want to get your finances in order, but it's hard to know how you can shape them unless you know where you are starting from. So begin by looking at the bigger picture of your financial situation, including the money you have coming in, your expenses, your financial situation with your creditors, and your credit report.

2. Streamline Your Accounts

When you have more clarity on your starting point, the next thing that you need to do here is focus on streamlining your bank accounts. It's likely that you will have a daily checking account, perhaps even a joint account or household bills account with your partner, and savings accounts too. It’s important to make sure that you have all of the right accounts you need for the different purposes in your life and that they are streamlined and relevant. You may even need to open new ones here.

3. Set Goals Going Forward

The next step for you here is to make sure that you're putting goals in place. Saying that you want to get your finances in order is quite a broad idea. In general, start to think about what you actually want to achieve. Is it to pay down debt, to move house, to save for a particular investment, or anything in between? Once you know what it is that you're working towards, you can then start approaching your money in line with that goal.

4. Create an Empowering Budget

At this point, you can then start to think about creating a budget. Now, many people believe that we need to put a budget in place in order to restrict our spending and manage our finances better. However, it is really useful in helping you to funnel your money in the right direction, for you to get more visibility on your spending habits, and for you to make your money work harder for you. So creating a budget is going to help you reach those goals more quickly. 

5. Be Intentional With Your Money

Ultimately, when you know that you want to supercharge your finances and make sure that you get them to where you want them to be, you have to be a lot more intentional with your money. This isn't just about spending in general. The idea here is that you are beginning to funnel your money in the right directions that help you to grow your financial situation and start reaching those goals.