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How to Track Your Finances

If you try and you fail; you should pick yourself back up and try, again and again and again. One bad chapter doesn’t mean that your story is over!

INTERESTING FACTS

Did you know that the creator of the famous Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling, was rejected by 12 different publishers before her novel was finally accepted? Those must have been terrible times for her, especially with other issues she was dealing with also at that time of her life. However, she was persistent and her story was later told.

Did you know that Michael J. Fox lived in a small apartment and was turned down for many roles before he finally landed his famous role of Alex Keaton in Family Ties in 1982? He barely had enough money to feed himself and was going to quit acting before the role came through and from there, he went on to the “Back to the Future” series and so many more hit roles afterwards. He also was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in the early 1990s but that didn’t stop him from taking up more acting roles. He even took his sad situation and turned it around for good by creating a charity that will focus on raising awareness about it and money for Parkinson’s research.

Many successful people all around the world have had have bad days and seasons in their lives before they finally got their big breaks. It actually takes a lot of hard work and perseverance to achieve anything worth achieving.

Persistence and dedication pay off eventually, they always do!

Winston Churchill – “Success is not final; failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

This write up is dedicated to those who might be going through a bad chapter in their life to help them get through the dark times towards your success.

Do you have a toxic mindset about the subject of money?

Instead of filling your mind up with negative thoughts about money, why not dwell on the positive ones; start thinking how you can shift to the positive thought area of money! Just so you know, I didn’t always have a good relationship with money myself.

For 3 years I would fill my mind with negative thoughts about money, I would always stress out over my debt (because it seemed impossible for me to pay them off back then) and I was always worried about how I was going to take care of my bills.

But the moment I started working on my mindset, things started to change for me. I noticed a difference in my relationship with money as my ability to ease the pressure made it easier for me to make and manage my money. If you can change your mindset about money and start thinking about how you can make that positive thought shift, your relationship with money will become easier and more pleasurable.

Do you need a mindset shift about money?

Here are some tips below to guide you through with it

Instead of thinking: I’ll never get out of debt “TRY THINKING; I need to put this much $$ aside from my payment each month so as to get me closer to paying off my debt.

Instead of thinking: I’ll never be able to save enough for retirement, TRY THINKING; I need to put this much $$ aside every month as savings so as to plan for my retirement.

Instead of thinking: I will never have enough money to do the things I want, TRY THINKING; what can I do to save enough money to be able to do the things I would love to do.

Instead of thinking: Budgeting will take too much of my time TRY THINKING; I’m going to take it one step at a time.

Four Budgeting Tips to Help You Get Started.
Below is a list that I used back then when I first started to budget, you might want to save these tips for later.

1. The envelope system: This is one way to track exactly how much money you have allocated for each budget item for the month by keeping the cash tucked away in envelopes and spending only from the envelops of each budget head.

2. The 50/30/20 Rule: This is a simple plan designed to help people reach their financial goals. 50% of your after-tax income on needs, 30% savings and debt repayment, and 20% on everything else that you want

3. Snowball budget: This is simply a debt-reduction strategy that focuses on you paying off your smaller debt balances first while making minimum payments on the larger ones.

4. Digital budgeting: There are a few free apps that can help you achieve this – Mint, Wally, and Simple

I hope you’ve been able to gain some insights around the subject of budgeting and how useful it is for financial planning.  Note if one budgeting method doesn’t work for you, try a different one and keep trying them out until you find one that works perfectly for you.

Your mindset and belief system affects everything in your life, from how you think, how you feel, how you act and react to things and people around you.

So, what you allow to happen is what will keep happening, so make sure to check your thoughts, your attitude, and your heart.

One of my favorite quote is:

Beware of little expenses: a small leak can sink a great ship. ~Benjamin Franklin

Life Lesson:

If something costs $1000, and then it goes on sale for $750 and you decide to buy it, know that you haven’t saved $250, you’ve actually spent $750.