They always say you can have all of the book smarts you want, but when it comes to common sense, you either have it or you don’t. Well sort of along the same lines goes for getting financially ahead. You can make the right moves, but you also have to stay mentally sharp and healthy, which means you need to take care of your sanity as well. Either spending your entire life saving every penny and then splurging in retirement may not be the right move if it meant missing out being able to do enjoy your youth, while on the other hand you could spend all of your money while you’re young and not save for the future. It is tough becoming financially successful, so there are few behaviors that can help get you there.
Plan Ahead
Whether it is what you are doing this weekend or how much you’d like to have saved for retirement, you should typically be organized on a day to day basis in order to set yourself up for success. When it comes to monthly purchases you can keep an eye out for coupons and sales, so that you are not wasting money paying full price for items. When it comes to your future, the earlier you can save the better, so starting out with an aggressive plan as early as possible will ensure that you will have enough without having to pay catchup after putting it off for years.
Prepare and Unplug
While you are preparing for your upcoming purchases, you can also prepare at work so that you can get your work done and by the time it’s quitting time, you are able to shut off your mind from work and focus on your home life, which is probably even more hectic. That becomes even more necessary as the week comes to a close and the weekend begins, making sure you are able to leave work and enjoy the weekend. As the focus is now at home, you may want to turn your full attention and not be glued to your phone or computer when you are at home also.
Enjoy Life Experiences
Speaking of enjoying your life after work, it’s those life experiences that we carry with us, making sure that we check off those bucket list items before we are no longer able to, which makes it all more important to have that line between saving and spending too much, so that you are able to fully enjoy life while still putting money away for the future. Whether they are concerts, sporting events, trips with family, guy’s weekends, staying happy goes a long way.
Keep Active
Going along with staying happy is also keeping active, so that not only will you be able to live out your retirement, but that you are active and healthy enough to enjoy life experiences. Taking the dog for a walk daily, playing on a hockey beer league for fun, or working out a few times a week at the gym are all ways to stay active so you can keep your mind fresh and keep the pounds off as well so you stay in decent enough shape. As you get older and stay away from physical activity it can be hard to get back into (or you’ll find you’ll be sore in places you didn’t know you could be sore in).
Stay Out of Debt
Back talking about finances, if you really want to maximize your earnings and be able to put all of your money in the right places and save for the future, then you really want to stay out of debt and avoid throwing your money away on interest payments every month. Credit cards will be the first to get rid of, and beyond that, if you can free yourself of a car and mortgage payment, is where you will really find your financial relief.
Reduce Unnecessary Spending
You might be wondering to yourself how are you going to free up extra money when you are barely making it right now, but it takes a long look at where your money is going in order to evaluate where you can cut back on. If you take a look at last month’s credit or debit card statement you can see what all of your purchases are, and from there, take a look and circle what probably could have been avoided. Just for fun (or shock), add up to see how much you could have saved last month.
