Do you want to achieve financial freedom and never have to worry about money?
If that sounds like a fantasy, it really isn’t! We were able to pay off $25,000 in under 5 months using these personal finance tips.
Our goal in starting our blog was to share our journey into financial freedom and help others find their own freedom.
Personal finance can seem overwhelming and complicated, but it’s really not. It’s actually simple enough that I was able to break it down into 23 easy tips and tricks.
If being wealthy is on your bucket list (we prefer the term financial freedom), then these finance tips will help you get there!
We’ll go over:
- Money-saving tips
- Financial freedom tips
- Budgeting tips
- Money-making tips
Let’s get started!
Money-Saving Tips
These tips will show you the process of saving money, but we have a full “how to save money” guide you can check out for more information.
1. Commit to Saving Money
Always keep track of your miscellaneous expenses, such as party expenses, candlelight dinners, taxis, entertainment, etc. These are generally classified as your discretionary expenses because they can be minimized as they are not essential to the operation.
The savings category in your budget plan will determine how much you want to save every month. Plan in such a way that you put at least 10% to 15% of your income into your savings column. Sometimes, the figures may vary.
2. Remember Why You’re Saving
Set a financial goal.
This includes things like buying your dream house and going on a vacation.
Choosing something that is meaningful will keep you motivated. Once you have a goal in mind, you will have a fair idea of how much you need to save every month and how long it will take to achieve the goal.
3. Break Into Bits
Sometimes it becomes hard to save the same amount every month. It’s better to prioritize and divide the dream goal into short-term and long-term goals. This will help you save money depending on your priorities and you will have clarity on your savings plan.
4. Set Priorities
It is very much important to set priorities in life. This will help you to plan better in every part of your life.
When there is clarity on what is important on an immediate and urgent basis and what can be held on to for a long time, you will have focus. Setting priorities will have a great impact on the savings model you design. You can add a column in your savings manual as with low, medium, and high priority levels.
5. Save the Right Way
Look for ways to utilize a bank savings plan that can yield a good interest rate in return. Sign up for every free customer rewards program to get discounts and cash-back offers. There are a lot of ways to get hot deals that might add to your savings.
Every small effort adds to a big amount when it is about money saving. You can create your own savings manual to chase your dream with minimal effort. This can help you to save money without any crunch on expenditures.
Financial Freedom Tips
If you want to achieve financial freedom and never have to worry about money again, read these personal finance tips!
6. Spend Less Than You Earn
Spending less than you earn might seem simple and obvious yet a vast majority of people are still living paycheck to paycheck struggling to make ends meet.
If financial freedom is your goal essential you start tracking your spending with a budget and control your money.
Doing this will significantly reduce your stress, help destroy your debt, and increase your retirement savings. All things that will help you enjoy life more and feel more confident financially.
7. Starting Tomorrow is an Excuse
With anything in life, it’s important to start today and not tomorrow. Each day you are alive is a blessing and you should start taking advantage of it.
Whether you want to start an emergency fund, start paying off your debt, invest for your future, or plan a vacation there is no better time than the present.
Like most people, I am sure you don’t want to be forced to work until you die. Start making the right financial moves today so you can enjoy a happy retirement.
Time is your biggest asset when it comes to investing. Start early and contribute often.
If you need further proof of the importance of time, take a look at the chart below from Business Insider.
Found on Business Insider
8. It’s on Your Shoulders
When it comes to personal finance, unfortunately, you are on your own.
It’s important to educate yourself because far too often we are not taught enough about money from our parents or school systems.
The next step after having the knowledge is actually taking action. Only you are in charge of your financial future. Take action and keep yourself accountable.
9. The “Joneses” are Living a Lie
We all know who the Joneses are right? Time for a reality check, guys; the Joneses are fake AF.
Their huge house, new car, expensive outfit, and luxurious vacations are probably bought with credit card debt.
It’s important to not get caught up in trying to keep up with the Joneses, obviously, it’s much easier said than done.
Focus on your own life, your own goals, and stop caring about what others have.
Learn how to be happy with the things you already have because you are blessed.
10. “Personal Finance is 20% Knowledge and 80% Behavior” — Dave Ramsey
A great personal finance quote from Dave Ramsey himself is…
“Financial freedom is impossible to achieve without a combination of both knowledge and behavior.”
When both of these elements work hand in hand it’s a beautiful thing to watch!
Check out more Dave Ramsey tips if you feel inspired.
11. Income Doesn’t Determine Wealth
Whether you have a salary of $40,000, $75,000 or $100,000+ it’s more about what you do with your money than how much you make.
We know plenty of people who make a great salary but spend all their money on the luxurious things in life (cars, vacations, watches, clothing, etc) which forces them to still struggle and live paycheck to paycheck.
Of course, a higher salary can help achieve financial goals faster. But ultimately the amount you save and invest is the real determinating factor in your wealth.
Don’t forget about happiness as well. Money does not bring you happiness it’s just a tool to allow you more time to do things you enjoy in life.
Budgeting Tips
Budgeting doesn’t have to be difficult! Learning these budgeting tips (and more) is the key to simplifying the process.
12. Start With Expenses First
Before you can create a budget, you need to know what expenses you have.
These can come in the following categories:
- Mortgage/Rent
- Groceries/Food
- Insurance
- Gas/Transportation
- Car payments
- Loan payments
- Credit card payments
- Gifts
- Savings
- Etc.
List your absolute necessities as your expenses (so new clothing probably shouldn’t be included here), and you’ll be off to a good start. If some of your expenses have varying monthly amounts, do yourself a favor and overestimate those values in your average monthly budget.
13. Create an Emergency Fund Immediately
Super important and one of the first things you want to accomplish in your personal finance journey.
Life has a way of slapping you in the face when you least expect it. Things like car & home repairs, lawsuit, death in the family, medical expense, loss of a job, etc are going to happen.
Creating a monetary buffer between these unforeseen life events is critical in keeping yourself from going further into debt. A good rule of thumb is to shoot for 3-6 months of expenses, $1,000 at a minimum.
14. Don’t Get Upset
Budgeting takes time to learn! Even if you grew up in a home that taught budgeting well, grabbing the reins for yourself can still feel foreign at first.
Your main, underlying goal in budgeting is to spend less money, so anything you can do to either cut spending or total debt or increase what gets put into savings is a step in the right direction!
Make a pact to learn from any mistakes you might make, and just keep on going — your financial future is far too bright to quit!
15. Pay Your Highest Interest Debt First
It’s pretty simple, the math does not lie. When attacking your debt pay off the highest interest rate debt first (avalanche method). Over time you will save hundreds if not thousands of dollars in interest using this method.
If you are a Dave Ramsey fan you might not agree to this as he teaches the snowball method.
In all honesty, it really does not matter which method you decide to use. Some people might find the snowball more effective than the avalanche and vice versa.
Attack your debt with everything you have and always find the best return on your hard earned money.
16. You Need a Budget & Plan for Your Money
If you have been one of our savvy readers for a while you know how much we enjoy budgeting. We truly believe that without a budget achieving financial freedom is much more difficult.
A budget is a tool used to control your money and allow you to do more things you love in life.
If you like to travel as we do then travel. A budget does not prevent you from splurging on things you prioritize.
Remove as much spontaneous and compulsive spending in your life that you can.
17. Keep Your Values in Mind
Just because your well-off friend tells you that it’s absurd that you don’t have a manicure or new clothing category in your budget, doesn’t mean that you actually need one.
If your goal is simply to get some of your spendings in check, then try starting out with just 2-3 categories that you’d like to shrink, and work from there.
While many people may think that “leftover” money should be applied to a “fun” or “entertainment” category for their happy spending, you may find that you prefer to use every bit of that leftover money towards fully funding your retirement accounts, or maybe you’re saving a down payment to buy your first home.
Money-Making Tips
This section is dedicated to showing you personal finance tips for how to earn money, especially online!
18. Diversify Your Income
Have you ever thought about how you would handle the sudden loss of a job? Would your income be dried up instantly with nothing else coming in?
Setting up multiple streams of income has many positive benefits such as paying off debt quickly, flexibility to move to a different job, travel more, early retirement, etc.
Think about how long it takes to fill a pool with a single hose. Now add a couple more hoses to the mix and the time it takes is cut down significantly. The same thing goes with achieving your financial goals when you create multiple sources of income.
19. Start a Money-Making Blog
This is one of my favorite things to talk about because it has literally changed my entire life. About a year ago, Kelan quit his 9-5 job to run our blog full-time. Within this short time period, he grew our blog into a full-time income.
When we started our blog, it was just another hobby. We quickly learned that making money from blogging was a real thing!
If you’re interested in starting your own blog head over to our step by step tutorial to learn how. Using our exclusive Bluehost link, you can take advantage of discounted pricing today.
20. Become a Freelancer
If you want to make some extra money on the side to put into an emergency fund or to use to pay off debt, then freelancing is a great way to make money right now.
It does require time as you’re trading your services for money, but you get money quickly.
Here are our favorite freelancing gigs:
21. Make Money Easily (Without Experience)
Here are some easy ways to make money, even if you don’t have experience.
Adding just one of these into your lifestyle can help you make extra money.
BONUS Personal Finance Tips and Tricks
22. Learn how to live Frugally and Happily
One of the best-performing articles we have written on our site is 13 Frugal Living Habits That Will Help You Save Money.
The reason this article has done so well is that we show you real-life examples of how to live more frugally. One of the quickest ways to change your financial future is to cut your monthly expenses back as much as possible, which is one of the personal finance tips we mentioned above.
This will free up money to pay off debt, invest, purchase a new car, or even travel more.
It’s important to understand your spending habits are controllable. Your happiness is completely in your hands!
23. Stick With the Fundamentals
You don’t have to drive yourself crazy thinking of NEW ways to achieve financial independence.
Stick with the fundamentals, or the basics.
That’s what Warren Buffett did and it made him a fortune.
Follow the path that has a proven success rate. Why? There’s more of a likelihood that you can be successful as well.
Conclusion
You should be well on your way to financial independence after reading this article.
Whether you’re a college student, stay-at-home mom, or anyone else looking for personal finance tips, this article covered advice that applies to you.
We went over:
- Money-saving tips
- Financial freedom tips
- Budgeting tips
- Money-making tips
Did we miss any important finance tips and tricks? Let us know in the comments below.
These are the “pilars” of common sense regarding personal finance. They are so simple and utilizing just two are three will drastically improve your finances. You quote David Ramsey, I agree with many of his teachings, and then go againts one of his steps. In my opinion best way to go. Take what works for you and disregard what does not.
Absolutely! Find what works and stick to it to meet your goals.
Thanks for the post. Love all these tips and am using them in my life.
That’s great to hear!
Wonderful job! You have explained personal finance in few sentences so nicely. Cool infographic, really informational. Thanks! And yes, budgeting and creating multiple sources of income are the best ones I like and would love to implement.
Thanks for stopping by Harry! Glad you enjoyed our article.
I could not resist commenting. Very well written!
Thanks Bennie. Glad you enjoyed it!
Hello there! Do you usse Twitter? I’d like to follow you iif that would be okay.
I’m undoubtedly enjoying your blog and look forwartd too new posts.
Yup you can find us right here Twitter.com/TheSavvyCouple
I will take this tips for my financial freedom
I have found so many people get caught up on #9. I think in most budgets, we could find areas to cut spending.. It just takes some creativity, and a willingness to make sacrifices to build wealth. We just have to change our thinking.
Great article, that’s a lot of useful tips, I personally like the one about it being on your shoulders, so many blame others instead of going out and acquiring knowledge about personal finance, which nowadays anyone can do for free on the internet. I also liked the part about actually using that knowledge, at the end of the day it doesn’t matter if you read 100s of personal finance blogs if you don’t incorporate any of the lessons.
Thank you for the post!
RIGHT?! I feel the same way when I read articles about dieting and losing weight. Unless I actually put the tips into action I am not going to lose weight. Same goes with personal finance and building wealth. Glad we could be here for you. Let us know if you have any other questions.
I now live on $10,224 a year (I’m on in public assistance.) For a while in the past, I put 10% of what I received then in a savings account. Of course, in this “income” class, the unforeseen expenses like car repairs – poor people generally having cheap, ratty vehicles which break down often – eat up such savings in a flash. But you know what? It made me feel good to save money, just as it makes me feel good to pay property taxes. Saving money and paying taxes means that, poor or not, you’re not at the bottom. It gives a teetering self-esteem an invaluable boost.
Needless to say, your advice to keep track of my miscellaneous expenses such as party expenses, candlelight dinners, taxis, entertainment, etc., made me laugh out loud, as did the $40,000 as the lowest yearly income 🙂 My budget lists the essentials for every month (on a six-month insert in my checkbook, to plan ahead), and with that, I live quite well.
That said, without energy assistance for heating in the winter (I’m four feet south of Canada in rural Minnesota) and some help from family I wouldn’t be able to make it. In this day and age, frugality only goes so far… I still haven’t be able to find realistic input on how to eat a healthy diet on very little money, say, $200/month max., keeping in mind that I’m not fit to tend a garden or livestock.