Dad, my finances are a mess. What can I do? How about a financial cleanse?
You have probably heard people talking about going on cleansing diets. Some of them can be pretty weird and drastic, but the idea is to let all the toxins flush out of the body. What needs to be remembered when taking such action is that it won’t take long to reverse any benefits you may have achieved, unless you change some of your habits.
This easily applies to your financial health.
How about flushing all the financial toxins you’ve accumulated out of your budget? Trust me. You’ll feel a lot better!
The
first thing you need to do when you decide to take the plunge with your
financial cleanse is to figure out just what your financial situation
is.
Pull your records together and look at everything. If you’re
married, get your spouse involved, too. Get all your investment,
retirement account, and bank statements in front of you, along with your
tax returns for the last few years. Include any debt statements, such
as your mortgage, car loan, credit card, utilities, etc. Life
insurance, disability, extended care insurance policies and anything
else along this line should be on the table, as well as any other
important financial documents you can think of. Put everything on the
table.
Look at your monthly spending. Your bank statements for
the last few months will show you how much you’re spending on average
per month, as well as what you’re spending your money on.
What you’ll
notice is that you have three different kinds of expenses, your fixed
expenses, like your mortgage, that are the same every month, variable
expenses, such as groceries and gas, and incidentals, which are often
(not always) things bought on a whim.
Then create a budget. Fixed expenses, like mortgage payments, are just part of life. Make sure to be realistic about the variable expenses. The more bank statements you have to look at, the more accurate you will be when you average the variable expenses. Then set a limit on how much “mad money,” – the money you can spend on a whim – that you can afford and add that into your budget. When you do this, you are more likely not to blow your budget.
Start focusing on paying off any bad debt you have. Debt for anything but your mortgage or sometimes a
sound investment should be considered bad debt. Stop using credit
cards until any credit card debt you have is totally paid off.
If creating your budget is the financial cleanse, changing your habits and sticking to your budget is what will keep your financial life happy and healthy.