Beginner’s Guide to Frugality.
If your goal is to become frugal and improve your finances, that may seem like a difficult thing to start working toward. After all, there are so many aspects of finance, and so many factors that influence how good or bad your finances are. But you can achieve your goal, and it may not be as difficult as you think! Here’s How to Improve Your Finances- for Frugal Newbies!
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Being frugal is a great way to improve your financial situation! On top of that, it’s actually pretty easy to learn how to be frugal! The hard part is just making frugality a habit. But trust me, when you start to see how much it improves your finances, you’ll be happy to keep being frugal!
How to Improve Your Finances- for Frugal Newbies
1. Associate with the Right People
While the saying “You can judge a man by the company he keeps” isn’t totally true, it is true that who you hang out with affects how you act. So if you want to improve your finances, you’ll want to spend time with people who are also improving their money situation, or who already have good finances. That doesn’t mean you have to get rid of all your current friends if they’re struggling financially. That’d be a pretty shallow thing to do! Just see if you can make some new friends. There are plenty of forums online that are full of people working hard to improve their finances. Becoming friends with some of those people can be very motivational and helpful!
2. Budget
Without a budget, you’ll find it hard to improve your finances. There are many different ways to make a budget, ranging from very simple to somewhat complex, but the main thing you need to do is find a way to track your income and expenses. If you have more expenses than income, that’s something you need to change.
3. Pay Off Debt
It’s hard to have a truly good financial situation if you owe someone else thousands of dollars. So you’ll definitely want to pay off your debt as soon as possible. Pay more than the minimum payment if you can, and never miss a payment!
4. Coupon
Some people think that couponing is a waste of time. If you want to improve your finances, you’ll have to ignore them. Couponing is an easy way to save money on everything, from food and clothes to big electronics or vacations! And with all the coupon apps available nowadays, you don’t even have to sit down and clip coupons for most stores! You could even forgo ahead of time couponing altogether and just save money after making purchases via rebate apps like iBotta!
5. Make an Emergency Fund
It’d be horrible to be halfway through the year, doing great with your goal, then have an unexpected expense or income change derail everything. To avoid this, make an emergency fund if you don’t have one, and fill it with the amount of money you’d need to survive for at least 3 months, just in case.
6. Curb Spending
Sometimes people who dream of being rich spend a lot of money because they think that’s what rich people do. In fact, many rich people are very frugal. So if you hope to be rich, or just want to have stable finances, you’ll also want to curb your spending and practice frugality by making some things (like household cleaners and beauty products) yourself.
7. Increase Your Streams of Income
One of the best ways to improve your finances fast is to work more, at least for a short while. Some people choose to get two jobs so that they can live off the income of one job and save the income from the second. Others start a small side hustle, like an Etsy shop, or create a passive income source, like an eBook. However you get your extra money, put it toward paying off debt, saving, and/or investing and you’ll greatly improve your money situation!
So far, what has helped you improve your finances the most?
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