Money is at the forefront of many of our minds, more so than ever this year. It is very easy to feel out of control with it and like it’s a never ending cycle of earning and spending. Do not fear though, with a few easy steps it is possible to start to feel more in control of your finances.

1) Learn to really value having money in the bank

We all have top values that drive our motivation and attention. For example my top 5 are business, personal growth, freedom, fun and love. You will notice that your money is most spent in accordance to your values, using my example most of my money is spent on my business, seminars, books, travel, going out and clothes to go out in! The way to ensure having money is important to you, that you really value it, is to look at your top 6 values as write down how having money will help you experience them more. This will give you that drive to really want to master your finances so that you can achieve your top values on a regular basis. If you don’t value money you will have no desire to be careful with it or to create more of it.


2) Pay Your Self First

As soon as we get paid more often than not we pay others before we pay our selves, by this I mean all our bills go out. Make it your intention to put yourself before them and prioritise building up a savings account. The day your money comes in I recommend setting up a direct debit into a savings account to start saving a little each week/month. Now I know a lot of you are screaming out “if only I could afford to” or “I will when I have some more money”, but the thing is how will you know when you will ever be ready to start this? When we have money in our accounts it is very easy just to spend it, the more money people earn the more they spend. Just because someone is earning £60K a year doesn’t mean they have a lot of money in their accounts. Just start off by saving a little, even if it is just £20 a month. If it automatically goes out of your account when you get paid you will very soon start not to notice it and adjust your spending accordingly. Before you know it you won’t even miss it, and then when you start earning a little more you can raise it slightly. I bet if I gave you £50 you would find things to spend it on, but what if you were to hide it away – would you really miss it?

The process of saving, seeing your account grow and the knowledge you are putting some money away will instantly make you feel better about your finances, it will make you feel in control of them and will give you the feeling of security that you have some emergency money tucked away.

3) Budget

A very simple way of taking on control of your money is to write down all of your outgoings each month, your rent, bills, travel, food money etc Be realistic. Then look at what you have coming in. If it is more than your outgoings, fantastic – how much can you save of it? How much of it can you set aside for fun things? If your income is less than your outgoings then where can you make cutbacks? What can you do to save on certain things? Once you know your weekly budget for food, going out etc then take that out in cash and leave your cards at home. Paying by cash gets you thinking more before you spend and it will stop any impulse buys.

4) Prioritise your day

If you work for yourself or are commission driven then it’s a good idea to make a list of everything you do in a day and then work through it to see which activities are actually helping to bring in money and which are not so important. Prioritise the money making activities and see if you can delegate any of the other tasks. Make sure you do as many actions as possible towards bringing in more money. Time flies by so quickly it’s very easy to get caught up in tasks that are not going to bring any profit in at all.