Being successful with personal finance is relatively simple; spend less than you earn, save and invest (preferably in tax advantaged accounts) and have a budget to track your progress. However, trouble only tends to arise when the human nature in us comes out. Our desires for things here and now tend to trump logic and we often make choices based on our feelings and emotions vs our head logic. However, plenty of people have achieved financial freedom, and so can you! Let’s dive into a few tips to ensure you’re sticking to your financial goals.

Set yourself up for success

First of all, the more prep work you do to set up your journey towards your financial goals, the easier it’s going to be. The simplest way to start with this is to create a budget for yourself that ensures you’ve got a good picture of your money and financial situation. Figure out what you earn, what you must spend (i.e. bills) and then what you can spend. Establish a few goals for yourself as well. You can’t manage what you don’t measure! I’m personally a fan of an old fashioned Excel doc (ok now a GoogleSheet) but there are plenty of online (free) tools out there to help.

Track your progress

Make sure that you know what your financial goals are and how much you need to put aside or invest in order to meet them. If you’re saving $10,000 for a downpayment on a house 2 years from now, then start setting aside $416/month. Whether you’re trying to aggressively get out of debt or have a number in mind to save or invest, write it down and make it something you can actually achieve. Then, you should keep a note of how much you actually do put aside each week/month. There are plenty of personal finance apps that make it easy to track not only how much you save, but also what you spend, allowing you to find the room for improvement as time goes on.

Keep yourself accountable

While you might be improving your personal finances, personal doesn’t mean you have to go it alone. A lot of people will rely on family, friends, or financial advisors to make sure they’re reaching their goals. However, there are also groups like DTSS, that look at ways to make yourself more financially independent while also decreasing your reliance on banks. Sharing finance tips and tracking your goals alongside others can help you keep yourself accountable.

Note down when you fall into bad habits

Aside from making it easier for you to keep up with the good habits, it’s also important that you don’t lose track of how often you fall into bad habits. This might be when you save a little less than you wanted to, or when you spend on unplanned discretionary expenses. Keep a note of when you stumble and you can see which bad habits you need to address most of all. Otherwise, it’s too easy for you to forget them and for them to undermine you. Knowing is half the battle, and knowing when you’re likely to fail allows you to put a plan in place for next time!

Keep educating yourself

Simply put, the more financially literate you are, the easier it will be to spot good habits and bad habits and to make better choices with your money. There are free financial literacy courses you can take online, and it’s recommended that you do. We even have a few on our site! There’s never anything to lose from learning more about how your money actually works and the common mistakes to avoid with it.

Summary

While working towards your financial goals might feel limiting and like a chore right now, the more you do it, the more they will become ingrained as simple habit and, as a result, be much easier to keep up. You just have to get to that point.

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