Day 7 – 30 Days of Positive Life-Enhancing Habits Challenge

There is no doubt that rich people and regular folks think of money differently. This isn’t to say that one is right, or one is wrong. It’s just different. The truth is ordinary people, and poor people need to try to think more like rich people when it comes to money. Money is to be managed and leveraged. And you can learn to do it.

A daily habit that will propel you to success is learning to manage your money. This isn’t really about investing. Although you should definitely set up regular investments and plan for your future, this is more about the idea that you should always know what’s coming in and what’s going out (and from and to whom) any moment of any given day.

To manage your money every day, you’ll want to:

• Develop Plans for Your Money – What you do today with your money has everything to do with the plans you’ve created for the money you have. If you are not planning for big expenditures, you may overspend, or you might even miss opportunities that you would have taken otherwise.

• Track Your Spending – Even if you spend a buck on a candy bar at the checkout, you need to track what you spend your money on. If you make it a habit to track every single day, it makes it easier than having to do data entry later after the fact. Use apps to help you automatically track your spending.

• Track Your Income – It’s also important to track what is coming in on a daily basis. Don’t worry. This is not hard if you’re using a good online bank that offers the ability to categorize your income as it comes in. When you habituate glancing at the results once a day to stay up to date, it becomes easy.

• Know Your Income Streams – Most wealthy people have about seven income streams on average. Knowing how each of your streams is working out, whether investments or something else daily, is imperative. What you track grows.

• Create a Realistic Monthly Budget – If you are having issues sticking to your plans, redo your budget. If it’s not realistic, you won’t stick to it. Make your budget work for you by using real numbers and deciding what to do based on reality. For example, if you work until 9 pm, the idea that you’re going to cook from scratch every day is a pipe dream.

• Pay Your Bills on Time Every Time – Paying your bills late accounts for billions of dollars in income to corporations that charge these fees. Don’t give them more of your hard-earned money for nothing. Instead, set up automatic payments and then double-check by using text alerts when the money comes out of your account so you don’t ever miss a payment.

• Kept Consumer Dept Reasonable – The fewer payments you need to make, the less work you’ll have to do keeping track. Consumer debt has a place, but it should be used to buy appreciating assets over depreciating assets and kept to a minimum.

• Track and Manage Recurring Payments – Everyone has recurring payments set up these days, but it’s important to be mindful of them and not just ignore the money coming out. Please pay attention to it coming out of your account so you can check whether you really need that item or not based on how you feel about the payment in comparison to the value you receive.

• Save For Emergencies – Having fast cash available in case of an emergency, whether something tragic or an exciting opportunity, is a great way to cut down on decision paralysis. Try to have at least six to nine months of emergency money available in cash at all times.

• Build Your Future Long-Term Savings and Investments – Using many automation methods, start investing in your long-term future using automatic payments or benefits to clubs or cards, or jobs.

When you know what you have coming in and going out, it’s a lot easier to make judgment calls when opportunity knocks. Paying close attention every day to your expenditures and keeping track of savings as you plan for your future will ensure your success in the future.