5 Money Decisions to Make TODAY

Let’s talk about money. If you’re like the average American, you probably don’t spend much time focusing on your finances.

To help you out, here are a couple of decisions you need to make about your money. None of these decisions are extremely difficult, and most of them can be done in a matter of hours.

Make a Budget

To get started, you need to know how much money you have coming in and where the money is going. Your budget is basically your roadmap for your money. Without a budget, you could be wasting hundreds of dollars every year.

If you want to make a budget, it’s as easy as downloading an app and putting in your info. Download Mint, add your bank information, and then you can easily have a budget in minutes.

The best part of Mint is it will show you the areas where you spend your money. You can see how much you’re spending on food, eating out, gas, and much more. If you want to find the areas where you’re spending way too much, this is the quickest way to do it.

Make Spending Changes

After you’ve created a budget, now you actually need to do something about your spending. Making a budget is a good start, and it might have revealed some serious spending problems.

Now you’ve seen where your money is going, you need to trim down certain areas. One of the most common is money spent on eating out. To save money, cook at home or take your lunch to work. You’ll be surprised at how much money you can save every month.

Build an Emergency Fund

You never know what kind of curves are going to pop up tomorrow. You need to be prepared for anything. Imagine you were on the way to work tomorrow, and your car broke down. It’s not a fun thought. Would you have the money you need to repair your car and not miss work?

The best way to do that is to build an emergency fund. If you have the money set aside to pay for whatever pills or expenses pop up, then you won’t have to use a credit card or take out a loan.

Having a savings built up can help give you the money to protect yourself against whatever happens. Every family is different, some families need a larger emergency fund, but it’s a good idea to have at least $1,000 set aside.

It might take you a while to build up the emergency fund, but you need to make the decision today to start saving. Even if you can only put $50 aside every month, it’s a good start.

Invest your Money

You shouldn’t store all of your money in a savings account. You should also let your money do some work for you.

If you’re just starting investing, it can be terrifying investing your money. You probably think about the dozens of ways things could go wrong or how you could lose your money.

Thankfully, you don’t have to go at it alone. There are two good options. You can hire a financial advisor, who will set up your investments for you.

The other choice is to go with a robo-advisor. With sites like Betterment, you don’t have to manage your investments. Getting started is simple, all you have to do is create a profile, set your financial goals, and then start contributing.

The robo-advisors will manage your money based on your financial goals and investment tolerances. Unless you want to be hands-on with your investments, this is a very simple way to start your portfolio.

Buy Life Insurance

One important money decision is buying life insurance. It might seem kind of morbid, but life insurance is a long-term investment which will protect your loved ones.

Thanks to companies like Haven Life, you can easily buy life insurance today. They specialize in no exam life insurance coverage. Buying a plan through Haven Life is one of the quickest ways to get insurance coverage at an affordable price.

Because you don’t have a crystal ball, you should buy life insurance today.