It’s  a whole new money month and you are ready to start over fresh with a clean slate of spending, saving, and investing. 

 

It’s time to  set up a money date to keep the sparks in your relationship with money and stay fully informed about its whereabouts. 🙂

 

Use these 5 tips to fully optimize your money for the month ahead. Thank me later.

1. Look Through Last Month’s Money 

How much did you spend?

How much did you save? 

How much did you overspend?

Where could you save more?

Where could you invest more?

Go through each question and answer it with your bank account(s) pulled up.

One of my favorite things to do is to download my transactions so that I can divide them up by category. This lets you see your spending in certain areas so you can dig deeper into the evaluation. 

Look over your accounts to make sure that nothing is out of place. Look for incorrect numbers, double payments, etc.. so that you can get it handled before it really becomes a problem with your bank account.

If you underspent (yay) move that money towards savings or debt payoff.

If you overspent, note it and see where you need to reign in your spending. 

This is a crucial step in catching bad habits and bringing things in the dark to the light. evaluation really does help you see yourself better. 

Next  see what’s going on with your debt, your credit score, and investment accounts if you haven’t in a while. These are a great way to motivate you to keep up the good work or keep going strong.

2.Set or Reset Money Goals

 

Money goals are a huge part of your money journey and should be inspected regularly for best results. 

 

If you have been slacking on your goal, this is the time to figure out why. What expense needs to be moved around?  What side hustle do you need to start to get back on track?

 

To ensure you are meeting your money goals with the least amount of effort -automate your savings. That means taking some time to set up the goals to pull directly from your checking account or bank during one money date and letting it do it’s thing.

 

This easy method has helped me payoff debt and optimally fill up sink funds, and reach all of my travel goals. 

 

Review your goals and make sure you are making plans to get on track and stay on track. 

3.Look Ahead for Birthdays, Events, Sessions, and Plans 

 

Pull out your calendar and see what is happening for the month ahead. 

 

Additionally, go ahead and confirm with friends and family about events or plans they may want to have with you this month. Include regularly scheduled events like brunch or Sunday dinner with family. 

 

All of these plans should be within your budget or in your weekly sink funds. I like to do this ahead of time for the entire year with my Money Calendar which you can get within the ReEducated Money Bundle or any Money Session. 

 

It’s such an easy way to organize your year and then create sink funds to meet the monthly needs.After that all you need to do each month is add the additional events and rework your budget to fit those in.

 

Another great benefit of looking ahead is that if something  is outside your budget you have a month or so to gig work or hustle to pull in the money. 

 

This prevents you from overspending by planning ahead of time, which we will talk about next. 

4. Plan Out Your Month to The Last Penny

Last penny planning is so key in handling your money. This makes sure every penny is strategically spent instead of haphazardly.

 

This does not have to take forever or get too detailed.

 

Once you have removed your investments, savings, bills, and debt payments the leftover money is the only thing that needs to be planned out.

 

I say plan this spending because you can optimize the leftover funds to go to more debt, more fun, or more investing. Your leftover money is not just spending money when you have financial achievements you want to reach. 

 

A great habit to start is to use your paycheck just to pay your bills and exhilarate your investing, savings, debt payments. While additional income from part time work, side hustles, and product/service sales go towards your fun money or even more investing. This is a concept to slowly add to your money life, one little money step at time.

 

More than anything, plan your money so that you know where it’s going before it’s in your account. This gives you full control of your money instead of it having control over you!

5. Get Your Mindset Right For The Month Ahead.

What obstacles will you have with your money this month?

What about temptations based on locations, friendships, or free time? 

Prepare for them ahead of time by planning out what you will do when they come up and fixing the problem before it happens. 

• Remove the credit card from the online account 
• Go another way from work 
• Know exactly what you will tell a friend who is insistent

A little bit of preparation goes a long way. 

Additionally, take some time to review some money truths so you act accordingly throughout the month. 

• Value brings money
• There is enough money for everyone
• Money has blessed me and I can bless others with it 
• I am grateful and can still can want more 
• Making money is easy 
• A budget is a plan for your money- stick to the plan 
• My money life is designed by me and my choices
• Investing is taking care of future me or future generations of me
• Poor people sell time and rich people buy time 
• Time is more valuable than money, you can always make more

My Last Two Cents:

Use these 5 steps 12 times a year and see how much more optimized and aligned you are with your money. 

Building these easy money habits will help you have a thriving money management relationship that pays you dividends in your future.  

Remember the little money steps count, so take it a step at a time.

–ReEducated Rizzy <3