How To Manage Your Personal Finances

Introduction

Money, money, money. It rules our world, whether we like it or not. Dealing with our personal finances requires that we learn about the good, the bad, and the ugly. Here are some tips that can help you to better manage your personal finances. Take these tips to heart and gain control of your money.

Step 1

If you are thinking about opening an account at a bank, look for the locations that offer free checking accounts. These accounts are beneficial, and can provide you with an additional 50-75 dollars to start up with when you open the account. These deals can give you a kick start to maximizing the balance in your account.

Step 2

If you are trying to improve your personal finances, consider finding a way to transfer debt to "invisible" locations. If you can pay a delinquent account off by borrowing from a friend or family member, your personal finances score will only reflect that you paid it off. If you go this route, make sure to sign something with your lender that gives them the power to take you to court should you fail to pay, for extra security.

Step 3

If a personal finances is close to its limit, consider transferring portions of the balance to a different card. Having a card that is almost maxed out is a huge blow to your FICO score. Transferring part of the balance will even up the credit you have available on your finance.

Step 4

Rebalance any investments that you may have. Stocks and bonds have had an overall good year, though cash yields are near zero. Look at your portfolio and make sure that you don't need to move anything around so that you are earning more money. You should be doing this every year to help your portfolio.

Step 5

Personal finances experts say it all the time. Pay yourself first. You should have at least 3 months worth of living expenses in an emergency savings account. From each paycheck you should have a specified amount of money that goes directly to this account before you ever even see it.

Tips

One of the things that you can do in order to effectively manage your personal finances is by being a smart shopper. Do not spend your money on cheap deals that you will not even use. The money spent on these items can be spent on more important things such as rent.

To discourage yourself from spending recklessly, start tracking all of your expenditures. This works in the same way as a food diary does for dieters. By making you more conscious of what your small slips are costing you in the long run, this strategy helps you to stop money problems at their source.

You can often find great deals if you go shopping on the infamous Black Friday. If you are truly dedicated, you can wake up at the crack of dawn to get into stores as they open up and be the first person to get the best deals, which will greatly improve your personal finances.

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