How Does Your Family Save Time & Money? Achieving Financial Independence
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Capital One 360. What does financial independence mean to you? To me, it means being able to travel whenever we can. It...
How to Keep Track of Finances
How to Keep Track of Finances
Do you have a financial bucket list? I know that I have one and while it is fairly long, it mostly consists of goals for our entire family. Our bucket list has lots of great things on it like adding to the kids’ college funds, touring Europe on a 14-day Mediterranean cruise, making renovations to our home, or spending a few weeks in the summer traveling the US in an RV. I would also love to own our home outright. We hope that this How to Keep Track of Finances post inspires you.
How to Keep Track of Finances
One thing that holds us back from achieving our goals is money. We simply need to do a better job of keeping our finances on track. We need to learn how to make a financial plan because this year we want to focus on making our bucket list items a reality.
How to Keep Track of Finances
Set a budget.
You would be surprised by how many people don't have budgets set in place. We didn't until last year. Setting a budget–no matter how much you earn–can be especially helpful for keeping those finances on track. Our general rule is to consult each other on any purchases larger than $150 (groceries not included).
Cut expenses.
There are so many ways to cut expenses, such as weatherproofing your home or updating old appliances. I recently audited our cellphone bill and realized that I could save almost $30 per month. I called the cellphone company and they were happy to help me out. We are about to start doing the same thing with cable and the rest of our utilities. There are always little things you can do to save money.
Track all spending.
To figure out where all of our money goes, we now track all of our spending. We write everything down and save the receipts. It is enlightening to see what you’re spending money on the most and it's very helpful to figure out where you can cut back. We use cash for the majority of our everyday purchases, so we are easily able to track where every cent goes.
Get rid of debt.
A huge goal for our family is to be debt-free and to have savings. We have everything that we owe written down on a spreadsheet, along with interest rates, fees, etc… This allows us to get rid of our debt by tackling what costs us the most money first–and then we work our way down.
Work with a CFP® Professional.
The key to staying on track with your finances is to come up with a plan. What better way to do that than with a CFP® professional? A CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional is the recognized standard of excellence in personal financial planning. A financial planner can break down your finances to help you set up a solid plan for your future. And speaking of all of the things I mentioned above… We were able to take all of that to our financial planner and that became the basis for our plan.
Why a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional?
A CFP® professional will help you understand everything from investments and college savings to retirement and estate planning. A CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professional understands that you want to get the best out of your life and that begins with a sound financial plan. Most people don’t know this, but anyone can call themselves a financial planner but only a CFP® professional is trained and certified to handle your finances. If you’re ready to get your plan started, visit letsmakeaplan.org and find a CFP® professional near you!
Get social with CFP® Let's Make a Plan
Check out the CFP Let's Make a Plan website | Visit CFP Let's Make a Plan on Facebook
We hope that this How to Keep Track of Finances post inspires you. Happy planning!
Thank you to CFP Board for sponsoring this How to Keep Track of Finances post.
Excellent tips you shared. I am all for cutting expenses. If I can cut here and there, things that aren’t necessary or useful, then that’s a double win.
I am loving all your tips. My hubby is an accountant and he is allllll over our spending lol.
All these tips are credible and useful. We just need to follow the in life! Thank you for a great reminder.
I have a CFP and have had one for the last 2 years now. I think having someone in my corner to plan for the future is so important.
Our hardest thing is sticking with a budget. I definitely have one, it just isn’t always fun to follow.
I really need a personal financial planning . This tool seems to be perfect for me. Thanks for sharing!
These are great tips to save money and plan for a great future. I found these really useful, financial planning is the best and have to think wisely.
Budgeting is my weakness. I am trying to get better – will try your ideas!
These are all helpful tips. I have started to cut unnecessary expenses but do need to sit down and set up a budget. Meeting with a financial planner would help.
Very helpful and important article! Thank you for sharing all of your insight.
This past two weeks I was working on a challenge. It came out very well. I will write about that small thing very soon.
Great tips. For 2019 I gave myself a budget to stick to which has been great 🙂
I can never have too many tips when it comes to saving money. I always want to learn more.
a very useful article thanks we have recently overhauled our finances and knowing where every penny goes has hugely helped us to cut back on spending
your article is really important for people like me who are so bad with their finances and usually dont know where to start
These are some nice. Always good to get a bit of advice on how to get better at managing my money
Such important and smart tips! They should be teaching this in school, if only!! I love reading new tips and I try to stick to a good budget monthly, It def helps!
Tracking my expenses is one of the task I do on a daily basis to ensure that I take control of my budget. I believe these tips will help many people out there struggling to manage their finances. Thanks.
Having a budget in todays economy is so important! I think you have a great list going here. I am currently cutting expenses myself
These are great suggestions! Having a budget and sticking to it is so important.
Tracking your spending can be a real eye opener. I think we’re all more than capable of fooling ourselves into thinking we spend less than we do. You can’t argue with hard numbers, though.
I love your advice! Cutting anything unnecessary has been at the top of my list for a while, and it’s done wonders!
Tracking my spending is something I really need to start doing. I’m pretty good about keeping an eye on my money, but I would like to see where the bulk of it goes.
I use a lot of your tips for my financial planning. Keep it coming. Thanks
I really agree with you here, this is such an informative and helpful article, tha kyou for sharing
The tips you mentioned hits to where it hurts. It’s kind of hard to keep track with a budget set and most of the times, unexpected spending happens.
These are definitely some great tips! We have been struggling with saving money for such a long time, I guess we need to hire a certified financial planner for this.
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This is a great post! And awesome tips for keeping your finances on track. Can’t wait to implement them into my life.
Keeping your finances on track is sometimes the hardest thing to do. Sometimes we spend money in unexpected ways. I am more concerned with my expenses nowadays so saving would be the best thing to do.
As I want to do more traveling, these are great tips on how I can better control money management so I can afford to do more of what I love. I do need to sit down and see what cuts I can make for unnecessary spending so I can put that money towards future goals.
This is all great advice! My husband and I need to tackle our debt. Our problem, is that when we come into a little money, we spend it on fun things or home improvements. We need to set a budget and that would help us stay on track!
This is great advice! We tackled some debt by paying off small balances first, then taking whatever payment we made on that balance, and applying it on top of another payment to a different balance. Thus, snowballing the payments we make on each account until they are paid off.
It’s a daily struggle for me. But I really need to learn how to do this.
I’m always trying to keep my finances on track. So glad I found this post.
These tips are really helpful! Thank you so much!
My husband and I really need to stick to a budget. That’s our biggest downfall when trying to save and manage debt. We lost track of our goal and end up spending frivolously.
i agree with all of your tips! we are careful with our budget and now we’re buying a second house!
These are some wonderful tips! I’ve started keeping a track on my expenses and it really makes a huge difference!
I probably do 3 out of the 5 things but I definitely need to work with a CFP. Despite what I think is right, it’s always good to get a professional’s opinion. Great tip!
Grrrrr. life is so hard sometimes 🙂 Actually I spend too much and don’t know where to start for saving a bit!
CFP Professional seems like a great tool in maintaining a good budget. I hope I can use it too. Great budget tips too!
All the above tips are useful. I was able to pretty keep track of my finances and be debt free when i set a budget for everything. I also cut my credit card to avoid temptation from buying.
You’re always giving the best tips on tracking finances! I think my biggest one now is remembering to ile paperwork on time now that I have a small business running too.
For me it would be clearing out the debt. Especially student loans, they seem to never disappear unfortunately!
I love these tips! During this period, we should really watch out for unnecessary expenses and cut them off. we should prioritize things which are only necessary so that we can recover faster after this crisis is done.
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