The holidays are almost upon us, and that means that stores and businesses will begin advertising holiday specials and deals. These deals can range from good to cheesy, but you can’t go wrong if you follow some of the advice that we’ll be giving you today, including tips on saving money during the holidays, how to budget responsibly, and other money-saving tips.
If you’ve been looking to save money by simplifying your budget, you’ve come to the right place. Here are ten easy ways to simplify your finances and save money.
Respecting our elders is important, but so is respecting our friends. We’re all different, and we know what suits our needs better than anyone else does. Whether you’re just getting your feet wet in the world of investing, or you’ve been working on a particular financial goal for a while, we’ve got some advice to help you get there.
Want to de-stress your finances and stop worrying about money?
Sixty percent of Americans say they become anxious when they think about money. Women are also more prone than males to be concerned about money.
The following are some of the most frequent causes of financial stress:
- Debt with a high interest rate
- Insufficient savings
- Low-wage workers
- Prices are increasing (i.e. inflation)
- Cost of living is rising.
It’s enough to keep you up at night. Finding methods to simplify money, on the other hand, may be beneficial.
When it comes to your finances, remembering that “less is more” may save you time, energy, and money.
That doesn’t imply you should leave money management to chance. However, you can utilize some of the money minimalists’ methods.
Don’t know where to begin when it comes to simplifying your finances?
Today, I’m going to share some of my favorite money-saving ideas to help you simplify your finances and put an end to your money woes for good.
23 Free Money Saving Charts to Assist You in Achieving Your Savings Goals
10 Simple Ways to Make Your Finances Easier
In ten simple steps, learn how to simplify your finances.
When it comes to money, I’m all about taking the easy way out.
As a result, these ten suggestions are intended to assist you in simplifying your money as smoothly as possible.
1. Bill payments may be automated.
Do you want to discover how to make bill payment easier?
Set up automatic payments for your invoices.
Putting your payments on autopilot helps you in a number of ways.
To begin with, it assists you in avoiding late payments.
Late payments are inconvenient because you risk incurring a late charge if you do not pay on time. Even worse, a missed credit card or loan payment may harm your credit.
If you need to borrow money, having a high credit score is important. You don’t want to get turned down for credit or have to pay a higher interest rate.
Another advantage of automating your bills is that you won’t have to worry about them.
Isn’t it much more convenient to know that your expenses are paid on time each month?
You can be paid and know that your bills are covered if you have direct deposit set up with your bank. It’s that simple!
Keep a buffer in your bank account as a precaution.
You won’t have to worry about incurring overdraft fees if you have a little buffer. As a precaution, maintain the equivalent of one paycheck in your bank account.
2. Make saving a habit.
More over half of Americans (51%) say they don’t have enough money to pay three months’ worth of expenditures.
For many individuals, the battle to save money is genuine, but it doesn’t have to be.
Savings automation, like bill payment, is a simple method to simplify finances.
When you set up automatic savings deposits, you can be certain that the money you want to save will go where it needs to go.
If the money you intended to save automatically deducts from your bank account every paycheck and goes directly into savings, you’re far less inclined to squander it.
You may also automate your education and retirement savings.
I don’t have access to a corporate 401(k) since I’m self-employed. Rather, I put my retirement funds into a SEP IRA.
I make automatic monthly payments to my account, and I supplement my savings with additional deposits every few months throughout the year. I do the same thing with my 529 college savings accounts for my children.
The benefit of automating your savings is that even little sums of money accumulate over time.
It’s OK if you have to start with a $10 weekly automated transfer from checking to savings. You may progressively increase that amount while building your financial buffer in the meanwhile.
How to Make Bill Paying Easier
3. Keep tabs on your expenditures.
Do you want to know how to make your budget more manageable?
The solution is to keep track of your expenditures.
Because you know where your money is going when you monitor your spending, you can simplify your finances and budgeting.
If you don’t want your budget to be a complete disaster, keep track of your expenditures.
A budget is nothing more than a strategy for managing your money, with two sides: money coming in and money going out.
It’s a lot simpler to remain on budget when you’re aware of what you’re spending. You may also look for possible budget leaks that might be a waste of money.
You may monitor your spending in a variety of methods, but I believe the most convenient is to use an app.
You connect your bank account and credit cards to the app, and it tracks your spending so you can see where your money went at a glance. It’s simple as pie, and all you have to do now is set up your account.
Personal Capital is an excellent budgeting tool for anyone looking to streamline their money.
It’s completely free to use, and it allows you to keep track of all of your bank accounts in one location. It simplifies finances, which is ideal if you want to manage your money on the move.
4. Take use of banking notifications
You’re losing out if you’re not utilizing banking notifications to keep track of your money.
Without ever having to go into your account, alerts can inform you precisely what’s going on with your money.
You may set up banking notifications for the following things:
- Low equilibrium
- Debit transactions have been added.
- Credit transactions that are new
- Payments for bills that have been posted
- Reminders about bill payment deadlines
- Transferring funds between accounts
- Attempts to log in
You may also sign up for high balance notifications if you spend using a credit card.
You’ll be able to see how close you are to reaching your credit limit this way. You may also set up credit card notifications to get notified whenever your account receives a new charge.
These notifications may aid in the monitoring of expenditure as well as security.
You may also sign up for free credit monitoring alerts to monitor your credit card accounts for any unusual behavior.
5. Eliminate paper use.
You may feel overwhelmed if you have a lot of paper. Not to mention, if you don’t have a good system in place to keep track of your financial papers, it’s simple to lose sight of them.
So, what’s the quick fix?
Go paperless to simplify your finances.
You may go paperless for a variety of reasons, including:
- Statements of account
- Bills for the home (i.e. mortgage statements, utility bills, insurance bills, etc.)
- Statements of Investment
- Statements of student loans
- Bills from credit cards
- Insurance identification cards
One of the most effective methods to simplify money management is to go from a physical paper trail to a digital one.
Checking statements or invoices online is so much simpler than dealing with a pile of papers.
You’ll also feel good about spending less time and paper in managing my finances.
How to Make Your Finances Easier
6. Accounts should be consolidated
Half of all Americans have several bank accounts.
If you have accounts all over the place, you may be making it more difficult for yourself to keep track of your finances.
Transferring all of your funds to a single bank may simplify your finances and the task of keeping track of your accounts.
You already have the two fundamental tools you need to manage your money if you have a checking account and a savings account.
Do your research carefully before transferring all of your funds to one bank. Consider the following:
- The types of accounts that the bank provides
- Any fees for checking or savings accounts you’ll have to pay
- What sort of benefits and features do you receive when you sign up for an account?
- The rate at which you may earn interest on your savings
- Locations of ATMs and how easily you’ll be able to obtain your money
- The bank’s overall reputation and customer service
If you don’t have a lot of time to compare banks, use a tool like MyBankTracker to compare your choices. (I write for them, so believe me when I say they know what they’re talking about when it comes to banking.)
How to Make Your Budget Easier
7. Make credit cards easier to use.
If you use your credit card to earn cash back or other incentives, you may save money.
However, if you wind yourself in a lot of debt, they may rapidly turn into your worst nightmare.
So, if you have credit cards, how can you simplify your finances?
Reduce the amount of cards you’re using.
You might, for example, maintain one card to get cashback. You may also have a second credit card for accumulating travel miles or points.
It’s easier to keep things simple if you just use one card. It may also assist you in managing your debt.
When searching for a catch-all card, look at the benefits first, but also the fees and interest rates.
If you want to simplify your finances, the last thing you need is a credit card that will only cost you money.
8. Cut costs that aren’t required.
Over the past several years, I’ve discovered that it’s not the large items that destroy my budget.
My finances are thrown out of whack by the simple things – minor expenditures that I don’t think about.
Consider what you can eliminate if lesser expenditures are chewing a hole in your budget.
For instance, consider the following:
- Subscriptions to online video games on a recurring basis
- You don’t utilize streaming movie and TV services.
- Magazine or newspaper subscriptions that you don’t read
- You don’t need or utilize a monthly cloud storage subscription.
Finding ways to cut these little expenditures from your budget may result in significant savings over time.
If you’re having trouble cutting costs, there’s a tool that may assist you.
Trim Financial Manager examines your expenditure and identifies financial holes. It aids in the elimination of squandered funds, allowing you to save more.
9. Bills should be bundled and consolidated.
If you want to simplify your finances and perhaps save money, bundling is a lifesaver.
You may combine services such as mobile phone, internet, and cable television. You may also be able to save money by bundling two or more services on a monthly payment.
You may also combine your vehicle insurance with your homeowner’s or renter’s insurance.
Aside from the potential savings, the best thing about bundling is that you can reduce the number of bills you have to pay each month to just one.
The idea of bundling may also be used to debt.
Balance transfers may assist to simplify costs by consolidating balances onto a single card with a 0% APR.
You may reduce your debt’s interest rate and simplify your monthly payments. It’s a win-win situation!
You may also save money on credit card interest by using a program like Tally.
Tally may help you reduce your credit card APR so that more of your monthly payment goes to debt.
Tally App Review: The Easiest Way to Pay Off Credit Card Debt? Related post: Tally App Review: The Easiest Way to Pay Off Credit Card Debt?
Use a password manager to keep track of your passwords.
How many times have you forgotten your online banking password or your credit card account login password?
Isn’t it aggravating?
Then you change your password, just to forget it once again.
Rather of attempting to remember numerous passwords, there is an easy method to keep track of them all in one location.
Using a password manager to ease money management is a brilliant idea. You may store all of your passwords in one place to keep them safe and secure.
Try 1Password if you’re looking for a basic password manager.
It may be used to store the following items:
- Passwords
- Numbers from credit cards
- Numbers on driver’s licenses
- Numbers from the Social Security Administration
- Account numbers are numbers that are used to identify a
- Numbers from reward programs
- Numbers of members
It’s a one-stop shop for keeping track of crucial personal and financial data.
Final ideas on how to make your money easier to manage
If you wish to simplify your money, keep in mind that it doesn’t have to be difficult.
Small adjustments like these may have a big impact on how you handle and react to your money.
Although I am not a financial expert, I have put each of these suggestions to the test. They’ve all helped me become a lot more zen about my money, and I want you to have the same experience.
What are you doing to make your finances more manageable? Tell me about it in the comments section.
Don’t forget to take advantage of the Resource Library’s FREE budget template. Also, don’t forget to check out my top Smart Money Resources!
This year, you could use a little help simplifying your finances. Whether you’re simply trying to put together a plan to save money, or want to learn about easy ways to pay down debt, here are a few tools and strategies to help.. Read more about simplifying financial life and let us know what you think.
Related Tags
This article broadly covered the following related topics:
- minimalist money management
- minimalist bank
- minimalist finance
- financial minimalism
- minimalist approach to personal finance
