1. Clean Out Your Wallet! Spend a few minutes emptying your wallet of old receipts and other junk.
2. Set up a $5 Jar. Now I am advocate of saving your coins (because you are using cash- right?) But I love this idea too! When you get $5 bills tuck them away into your money jar (piggy bank). Great way to save money and have fun doing it! You can even put a picture of your goal on the jar to motivate you!
3. Use a money tracking program – Enter your receipts in your (free!) personal money tracking system on www.mint.com. When you know how much money you have and where it has to go, then you can plan to spend (budget = planned spending)!
4. Give yourself a ‘reward’ each month for keeping track of your money, can be a massage, special dinner – whatever, it doesn’t have to be expensive but it is a symbol for you sticking to your plan!
5. Stop getting flyers or e-mails from your favorite shopping places – this will discourage you from impulse buying – remember even if it’s 40% off – it’s still 60% more than you had planned to spend.
6. Are paying too high of fees (or unnecessary fees) for your debit or credit card? Make the call to your bank and find out what you are paying!
7. Be physically active. You can actually improve your mental fitness by working on physical fitness.
8. Set monthly personal goals. When you track your money goals in smaller chunks, it will feel less intensive – and do-able!
9. Take some time to catch up. Do you write a to-do list every day? Do you get everything done? Take a few minutes to write down what you need to accomplish – either that day or that week and then do one of the to-do’s!
10. How are you at managing your time? Time is more valuable than money. Pull out your calendar to see how you’ve been spending your time over the past few weeks. Make a list of what you need more time for and what you should be spending less time on.
Bonus tip: Have fun with money – make it a game, money is a means to an end to get what you want… so like I always say… What do you want? Go for it!