Smart ways to ensure financial security
We all want to be secure with our finances. By being secure with our money, we have a firm foundation that helps us in all other areas of life. If we have financial trouble, this will spill out to everything we attempt. The question is how we, who are not financial experts, can go about making smart financial decisions.
Smart spending and smart saving
Everyone always tells us to save. That’s easier said than done.. We all have expenses and not all of them can simply be dismissed as frivolous. What matters is how we respond to this reality. A smart strategy is to plan and stick to a budget.
The word might sound a bit intimidating, until you realise what it actually is. As one financial expert described it: “A budget is telling your money where to go instead of wondering where it went.” This not only helps show the importance of budgeting, but also helps ground what it means for the average person. No one wants to wonder where their money went. Even if we accept we have to spend it, at the very least we want to know where it is being spent.
A budget comes down to knowing what your expenses are, how much money you will receive and how much you’ll have to spend. The overall point is to know why your figure at the end of the month is less than at the beginning. You want to know precisely where those funds went, whether it was groceries or short term investments.
Creating a budget initially might take time but can be done with multiple tools. Lifehacker has a list of useful financial tools. Most of us have a smartphone and some of the most popular apps for Android and Apple devices are easy-to-use finance apps, focused primarily on budgeting.
Appreciate and do better at your job
The ideal for most is to have a regular, salaried job, with longterm security. Yet, this is not a guarantee. A good way to maintain your job security is to be valuable to the company.
Recognise that, if you have a stable job, how lucky you are to have one. Many qualified people around the world do not, due to governmental or economic strife. If you appreciate your position, this should help you not take it for granted. This means you will want to do better.
The point isn’t to get higher pay or promotion, though these can and might be the outcome of working harder. What matters is securing yourself in your job, which means securing yourself financially.
The important part is not to be lazy or slack, just because you might not be completely in love with your work. What you should be completely in love with is job security and a steady income, which most people of the world do not have.
These are just some attitudes you can immediately take to help secure yourself, in terms of your life and finances.