Earning, saving, and spending money are pretty much universal concepts that everyone gets stressed about. Learning to manage your finances is a learning curve for many of us. Most of us associate finance management with anxiety, thinking of it like a recurring dream that haunts us when it’s time to pay the rent and bills. Sometimes stress-free accounts are what we need to liberate ourselves.
Money problems are also one of the main reasons people feel stuck in jobs they don’t love. Not being able to relate to the ‘do what you love’ quotes, we soon start to realize that ‘early to bed, early to rise’ might not guarantee health or wealth if we don’t use time and money wisely.
All of these factors leave us feeling like we’re in a somewhat bittersweet relationship with money. A love-hate relationship is way too common. We chase the money, but also fear it. We continuously work towards it, but we also wish we didn’t have to.
Although we can’t change our finances overnight, we can try changing our perspective to help us feel better about money.
Here are our top tips for managing finances better and viewing money in a different, more positive light (no matter how much you make).
1. Manage your finances the smart way: Tailor your lifestyle to suit your income
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.” – Charles Dickens
The number 1 rule of basic financial planning: For instance, work with what you currently make, prioritizing peace of mind and happiness over luxury. To manage your finances better doesn’t mean settling for less and not working towards the financial future you want. But if you are content every step of the way, money might not have so much control over your life.
2. Keep money from slipping out of your hands
“Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Time and money are deemed similar in the way we use and misuse them. As with managing time, if you manage money well, you will discover you have more than you thought you did.
3. Simple tip to manage your finances: Less is more if you want it to be
“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.”
– Seneca
If you can afford rent and food easily, try to celebrate that more often. However, if you keep dreaming about a more luxurious life, you might affect the happiness you can afford right now.
Be ambitious instead. Instead of dreaming of a better future, try to actually work towards it. Be patient and stress-free accounts will bless you!
4. Money does not reflect who you are
“It’s good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it’s good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven’t lost the things that money can’t buy.”
– George Lorimer
The fact of life is that money comes and goes. What stays is who you are. But in both cases, you need to work towards it constantly to manage your finances. So while you work on your finance management skills to attain the financial future you wish to have, make sure you also work on who you are and who you want to become.
If you really suck at the money bit, remember that stress-free accounts are real. Help is just around the corner!
5. Don’t let money rob you of your joy
“Let him who would enjoy a good future waste none of his present.”
– Roger Babson
The truth is, however much you spend your time stressing over how to manage your finances, stress alone cannot change your circumstances. So while it’s important to make a feasible plan in order to acquire and manage your finances, overthinking it will just ruin your present.
We might all be in different boats, but we’re struggling to sail in the same mighty, unpredictable ocean. So hold on tight to the boat of good finance management, and let your worries drift away!
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