From my own experiences of teaching and leading personal financial management sessions and working with individuals on money matters, I’ve found the following four items to be true:
- Managing your personal spending for 30 consecutive days will motivate you to continue the practice and empower you to begin other aggressive actions to take control of your personal financial life.
- Your FICO credit score can be improved after only 90 days of a purposefully directed credit repair financial action plan.
- All debt can be paid off in 24 months with aggressive debt reduction lifestyle changes.
- A 1 hour introduction to investing techniques and strategies will serve as motivation to you to reduce your living expenses and increase savings.
Got 90 days to invest in improving your finances? Here's your to-do list!!
1. Create a spending plan and stick to it for 30 days.
A spending plan is just that - a plan for how you will spend every penny that is entrusted to you for the next 30 days. The plan should be created before the month begins and should be your accountability for all financial income and expenditures.
Got a commercial budgeting software package? Got a spreadsheet? Got a Big Chief tablet and a Fat #2 pencil? How you do this isn't important. Use what you got and get your spending plan started!
If you'd like a free set of Excel worksheets that I've created for this purpose let me know via email and I'll get it to you.
2. Pay your bills on time and reduce your debt load.
The two most prevalent factors that influence your FICO credit score are your payment history and the amount of debt that you owe. If you have a habit of paying your bills late, make the adjustments that are needed to pay those that report to the credit bureaus on time. Pay more than minimums to lower the amount of debt that you owe at a faster pace. No matter what your FICO credit score is, you will see it increase after 90 days by addressing these heavily weighted areas. Making payments on time right now or don't have any debts right now? You're doing great and your FICO score is most likely reflecting this. Move on to the next step.
3. Do some investing in your investment knowledge
Find a low-cost / no-cost class or seminar to introduce or reintroduce you to long-term investment strategies. It is encouraging to learn about a place of financial improvement that you could reach. Take this information and let it be your motivation to prepare you for this advanced financial management path. I've found that as I teach stock market basics groups, individuals that are not financially prepared to invest begin making plans to get there by paying down debt and earmarking funds to begin actively investing. Sit in an investing session and see if this is the case for you also!
Planning to implement one or more of these items in the next 90 days? Let me know and keep me posted on your progress!
Carolyn
