Table of Contents
Don't let your finances spiral out of control! Our guide to personal financial planning tips for beginners covers the top 5 important tips you need to know to secure your financial future.
When starting out with personal financial planning, beginners forget to keep a track of financial expenditures. It is the most crucial part of managing our personal finances. It helps us monitor where our money goes and unveils our spending habits.
Unfortunately, some of us could be impulsive buyers, which may lead us to splurge on things we may not even need.
Although we are lucky, we have myriad ways to monitor our expenses and take hold of any possible overspending.
We can do this personal finance management while maintaining our lifestyle.
Alternatively, some of us may even prefer a more hands-on approach, whereby we may tend to record each transaction as it occurs, whereas the rest of us may prefer to create a spreadsheet to get a bigger picture view of the monthly expenses as a whole.
Personal finance apps are also available at our disposal to streamline the procedure of maintaining a record of our budget, making finance tracking and managing our personal finances easier.
This article has covered tried and tested financial planning for beginners, personal finance for women and more.
No matter our expense tracking strategy, there is a method that suits everyone's personal finance management needs. Here are three easy ways we can keep track of our expenses and stay on top of our finances:
1. Tracking our spending
If we really want to be active with our finances, we should note each financial transaction whenever we make it.
When we maintain a log of our spending, we will be more aware of how often we spend, and it may encourage us to think carefully about every purchase we make.
If it is too cumbersome to carry around a notebook and pen, we can use one of the best money management apps, Goodbudget or Jupiter, to keep track of all our expenses in real-time through our phones.
In this digital envelope system, each transaction is manually entered into a digital "envelope" that indicates its intended purpose.
2. Analyse after the fact
Some of us might want to keep track of our expenses, budgets, and personal financial management using Excel spreadsheets. We should log our expenditures, income, and savings goals regularly (once a week or once a month).
We may take a weekly or monthly approach as it is more laissez-faire than the first approach, but it still requires discipline on our part.
Getting started with our budget can be made easier by taking advantage of free online resources, such as downloadable budget templates. We can gradually build this habit by adding a calendar event or a reminder as we get into the routine.
3. Streamline processes by automating them
The Goodbudget or Jupiter app mentioned above does all the logging for us, but most budgeting and expense tracker apps don't.
In case we forget to log our purchases or feel comfortable letting go, using an app that syncs with our bank and credit card accounts can be of immense benefit.
Depending on the bank's processing time, there may be a slight delay in the app showing our purchases, savings transfers, and bill payments.
However, it will eventually display those data after fetching them. Many programs allow us to track our net worth by linking it with retirement and/or investment accounts.
4. Personal finance apps: Some of the best money management apps
Many apps can also categorize our spending. So when we think we have budgeted for everything but forget about one-time purchases from time to time, this tool will help us.
Having automatic linking encourages us to categorize every expense and consider the whole picture (not just the transactions we are most aware of).
The Mint app links to users' accounts and automatically categorizes our expenses based on the information in our accounts. The Mint app is easily one of the best for tracking our money because it not only offers simple budgeting tools but also reminds us when it is time to pay our bills, sends us customized alerts when we are going over budget and lets us monitor our credit scores.
With the Money Manager app, we can manage our finances seamlessly, and it is the best financial management app in India. Over 10 million people have downloaded this app in over seven languages.
With this app, we'll not only be able to track our finances automatically, but we'll also be able to categorize them and get a personal loan if necessary!
5. Reviewing our accounts
It is important to review our expenses regularly to maintain effective financial management. We should check our finances at least every 15 days to be on top of our finances.
By doing this, we can tell if there are any unexpected expenses we need to factor into our budget. It is also possible to make changes to our financial goals accordingly.
Why should we use a personal financial planning app?
Even though we can manually track our spending, it is not an effective way to keep track of our expenses; it can lead to errors.
It is a time-consuming and cumbersome process that takes much time.
Wouldn't it be better if there was another option? How about an app handling everything for us and providing us with timely reminders, suggestions and other financial benefits?
Conclusion
It's only we who can decide how to manage our money. The preference of some may be to log each transaction manually, while others may prefer an app that syncs with their accounts and tracks expenses automatically.
We should schedule a routine time to evaluate our financial progress and keep an eye on our spending, regardless of which route we choose. Personal finance management is crucial in the present era, and we must always pay attention to it.
