Have you ever thought about what you want your financial future to look like? If not it’s ok. You can do it now. Take a few minutes to think about how you envision your financial future. Do you want to be rich or just comfortable enough to not have to stress over your bills every month? Either way it’s going to take a plan to get there. If you have a ton of debt or you’re not making the income you would like to, don’t let that discourage you. There are always going to be factors that seem to be working against you but if you let that stop you you’ll never get to your goals. I’ve met a ton of people who say things like ” Oh, I have bad credit.” and will laugh it off and that’s it. Instead they should be saying “Oh, I have bad credit but I’m actively working on improving it.”

It might be hard at first but putting a plan in place with some attainable steps makes things much easier. Here are a few tips that will hopefully help you along the way:

• Write down your goals. Take an actual pen and paper and write them down rather than typing them on your phone or computer.
• Look up online budgeting tools that keep track of what you make, spend and give you advice on places you can reduce expenses and increase savings. Mint.com is a popular one.
• Pay off your high interest debts. Check out the previous post where I discuss ways to pay down debt here
• Look into ways to generate additional income for yourself as well as new ways to save money. Check out our post on this here. Also take a look at The Penny Hoarder for even more creative ways to do both of these.

If you want to do your budgeting with a pen and paper the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) has a great article filled with advice and worksheets you can fill out. You can check it out here.

Now’s the time! Let’s get started.