Financial Goals – Page 2

Today I will be visiting my alma mater, Spelman College, to sit in on a class taught by the smartest woman I have ever met, Dr. Michelle S. Hite (seriously, she is probably one of the top ten people who have significantly impacted my life). Just thinking about Spelman puts me back in an academic frame of mind, so for today class, I will be teaching Budgeting 101. In my opinion, budgeting is like using common sense, everyone should do it but not everyone does. The importance of making and sticking to a budget is the freedom of knowing exactly how you spend, what money can be spent elsewhere, and where you overspend. So grab a pen and paper and let’s get started:

LIST YOUR SOURCES OF INCOME
CREATE A LIST OF YOUR MONTHLY EXPENSES

Fixed (Mortgage/Rent, Car Payments, Insurance, Emergency Fund)
Variable (Utilities, Groceries, Gas, Food, Entertainment)

REARRANGE YOUR LIST IN ORDER OF PRIORITIES

This is the time for you to really think about what’s important. Shelter, Food, Utilities, and Gas are at the top of my list. Although I hate to do it, I can live without costly entertainment.
ASSIGN A BUDGET TO EACH EXPENSE
WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING YOU SPEND YOUR MONEY ON (for 2 weeks)

Do not leave anything out in this step. If you spend $1.00 at the vending machine, $3.00 for Girl Scout cookies, and $7.00 for parking downtown when meeting friends for drinks, you already splurged $11.00 on random spending that you probably don’t even consider when mentally reviewing your spending for the day. Writing EVERYTHING out will help you see exactly what, where, and how you spend your dineros.
CUT OUT IMPULSE SPENDING

My friend and Rah Tiffany (hey girl) put herself in a mental shopping rehab back when we were in college. At first, my friends and I thought she was crazy, but in fact she was making the best financial decision as a then single black female addicted to retail (thanks Kanye). She went almost 40 days without random impulse shopping. Following suit, I did the same. I reviewed my spending habits from the previous step that revealed my mindless exhaustion of funds at the mall. I would get up, go to the mall, see something I thought I couldn’t live without, buy it, then after working so hard at shopping I would go for lunch, go back to shopping and finally come home. Now looking back, I have to ask myself, did I really need those shoes, that purse, that book, that phone case, or that expensive lunch….NOPE, I did not. Then I thought to myself, wow, I could have taken that money and put it in my bucket list fund. Trust…skydiving will be more memorable than that cute shirt I purchased sometime last season.
PAY FOR EVERYTHING IN CASH

This tip makes its way into almost every post I write. This is a must for financial empowerment!!!
REVIEW YOUR BUDGET MONTHLY

Things change. Financial situations change. Keeping your list up to date is the only way to ensure that your budget is working for you.

Good Luck and Enjoy!

CLICK HERE FOR YOUR BUDGET WORKSHEET

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There is a large part of the population who do not check their finances daily. At any given moment, these people do not know how much is in their checking account, savings account, and the balance on their credit card(s). I used to be the opposite. I used to check my financial records every day like clockwork until one day I didn’t. I began to check my finances less and less often until the day I received a letter telling me that my credit card had been declined for a recent purchase. Insert rapid heartbeat here!!! My mind started racing and I began to think to myself- wait, aren’t you paying for everything in cash now, when was the last time you swiped your card, and the kicker, do you even shop at the store where your card was declined? This is probably the exact moment when panic and logic set in. That’s right; Miss She Makes Cents herself, has become a victim of identity theft. Apparently, someone copied my credit card number onto a fake card and went on a shopping spree. At the moment, no one knows exactly how they got my number, which makes this process even more frustrating. Thank goodness my credit card company eventually declined the card due to suspicious charges, but at that point, the thieves had already done their damage. If I had been in the practice of checking my finances daily, then I would have caught the charges and recognized them as fraudulent before the credit card company. Here are a few tips to make sure that the likelihood of this happening to you is much lower.

Check your financial holdings DAILY.
Pay for things in cash. This one is two-fold. It will reduce the chance of someone using your card for one’s own pleasure but it will also cut the chance of you swiping your credit card on impulse.
Contact your bank and/or credit card company to set up alerts. These alerts can let you know when your card has been swiped over a certain amount that you can decide for each card.
Destroy all expired or inactive cards. Chop them up because your name and information is still tied to that card. In the wrong hands, thieves immediately know your full name and with whom you bank. Experienced crooks can use this preliminary information to dig deeper until they gather all the information they need to steal your money and information to open a new card.
Actually open and review your monthly statements.
Contact your financial provider if you are unsure about anything on your statement. Better safe than sorry.

Have you ever been the victim of identity theft?

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Tag: Financial Goals

Budgeting 101- How to Make a Budget

Reduce Your Chances of Credit Card Theft