Starting your financial journey in 4 easy steps

Think back to January 1^st, 2010.  Were you one of the millions of people who had a New Year’s Resolution?  Now think back to January 1^st, 2011…did you have a resolution that year too? And if so, was it the same one that you had the previous year?  It’s no secret that starting a new habit is difficult, and beginning to manage your money is no different.   But fear not, I’m here to help you in that area J.  Here are four easy steps to help you get from I.D.E.A. to action in creating new financial habits:

• Identify areas needing improvement.  Sit down and write a list of all your bad money habits.  This is just a brainstorming session, so write down everything you can think of, from your daily fast food stop to your product junky-ism.  Ask someone close to you who knows your financial habits for help in creating your list.  The goal here is to lay everything out so you can start to see patterns in your behavior so you can begin to change.
• Decide which to focus on.  If you are anything like me when I got started, you’ve got a pretty long list!  To keep yourself from getting overwhelmed, try to condense your list into 3 or 4 categories.  For example, if you wrote down that you forget to pay bills (and get charged late fees) or if you always get charged overdraft fees from the bank, a good category for those items would be “organization problem.”   If you list includes things like regular  fast food stops or excessive ATM fees from using whatever machine is the closest to you, a good category may be “paying for convenience.”  Once you narrow your list down to categories, pick 1 or 2 of these categories to be your focus area(s) for your financial journey. 
• Educate yourself.  Now that you have decided what you’re going to work on, it is time to focus on how you’re going to get it done.  Set financial goals based on the areas you have chosen to focus on, and find resources to help you on your journey.  Search for websites, blogs, or books with tips on managing money.  Download sample budgets spreadsheets, budget recipe ideas, or even a smartphone app to track your spending or find the best local deals.  Depending on what your needs are, you may want to meet with a professional—such as a financial counselor or a life coach—to help you create some specific goals and an action plan to achieve them. 
• Action!  Now comes the hard part…take everything you learned from the previous step and use it to set your plan in action!  Making a lifestyle change takes time and repetition, so even if you may make some mistakes along the way, keep at it! Once you’ve achieved your initial goals, go back to your list, create some goals related to the other categories you need to work on, and find resources to help you achieve them!