It seems like lately, it is hard to go even a single day without someone somewhere telling you how to get physically fit – what to eat, what not to eat, what exercises to do, what exercises you should not do! Social media and advertisers bombard us with the latest and greatest ways to get in shape.
While physical fitness is definitely something to strive for, we hear much less about fitness in other areas of our lives. Since our area of expertise is finance, we thought we’d share with you three easy things you can do right now to crank up your financial fitness. Trust us, these things will PUMP YOU UP! Financially, that is.
- Enroll in a program that aggregates your financial picture.
If you’re a client of IWC, you know we use eMoney to accomplish this. The software allows you to aggregate your accounts into one place so that when you log in, you can see your checking account, credit cards, investments, mortgages, etc.
It is quite powerful to log in and have the landscape of your financial life in one glance. You can quickly spot any issues without having to remember dozens of passwords. And if you can spot the issues, you’re way more likely to do something about it.
- Log in to your data aggregation software once a week.
This isn’t so you give yourself anxiety over market volatility, but so that you can stay on top of any issues that might pop up if you let your finances go unchecked for too long.
Issues such as charges you don’t remember making. Or money movements you didn’t initiate. Or low bank balances that require your attention.
- Categorize your spending.
Most aggregation software, like eMoney, gives you the capability of categorizing your spending.
If you can break your spending out into just a few categories, you’ll be able to see where your money is going.
For example, you might have the following categories:
- Food
- Shelter
- Clothing
- Saving
- Charitable Giving
- Entertainment
There’s no need to get bogged down with 20 categories, just a simple map of your spending that you know will be easy to keep up with for a year.
At the end of the year, you can analyze where your money went, and where there’s an opportunity to make a change, if a change is needed.
Doing these three easy things will help you have a much better understanding of your financial landscape. Having a better understanding will enable you to make better decisions. Making better decisions today will have rippling effects on your financial fitness for the “you” you are today, and the “you” you will be in the future.
