You can't feel good and look good without knowing your financial situation. Since my age demographic is made up of mostly Millennials, I wanted to start adding personal finance advice on my blog for that reason. I've always been into money and experimenting with ways to earn money, from washing neighbors cars for $5 since I started walking or going to Smart & Final. Buying bulk boxes of candy and selling them at school for $1. Taking care of your money and cash flow is something they don't teach you in high school or even college matter of fact. I went to college for accounting and this never once came up in any of my classes. So having to go through interviews to get your first job out of college, you kind of realize you better know where your money is going. What's the point of working your face off and grinding to end up with no money? So let's get you guys set up with the basics to know that will get you going in the right direction, and this will work for your business as well if you have one.
1 - Where is all your income coming from?
I want to keep everything simple, I hate complexity. So how much do you make? You need to know where all your income comes from.
If you work for somebody, then this is pretty simple you probably only have one source of income unless you have a side hustle. If your a freelancer this can be multiple clients which you have to track. But this can also come from interest income to stock dividends. Make a list of every source of your income.
2 - Account for all of your costs/expenses!
Now make a list of all your costs & expenses. The fixed costs such as rent/mortgage, cell phone, car payment, insurances to savings. Now to the variable costs that can vary every month as utilities, cable, groceries, shopping. Then the ones you can call luxuries like Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, Uber, Amazon, etc...
*Before you start saving, I definitely recommend having at least three months of emergency savings to cover an life emergency, if possible under your circumstance.
3 - Always make your income & expenses = 0 & look for things you don't need to cut so you can save/grow it.
Like I said you want to know EXACTLY where everything is coming and going so making sure you have nothing left over means you're doing it right. With that being said the key is to do what makes you happy, but sometimes you have to make sacrifices. For example, if you want Netflix & Spotify try splitting it with someone since each of those memberships costs around $10 per month as I'm writing this. That way you can have an extra $10 per month to add into savings or to invest into a stock app as Stash or Stockpile.
If I knew this while in high school, it would have saved me some headaches. So even if you are getting an allowance or in college start now and don't put learning on to use a budget on the back burner. Hope this helped and always DM me on Instagram or email contact@allenrobateau.com. Please give me feedback on if you guys want more posts on finance and topics you want me to cover.
Good post!!
ReplyDeleteThanks Larry. Appreciate it!
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