Creating a routine to maintain personal financial control is the desire of all people who understand the need to better handle their money and thus achieve their dreams. And, contrary to what many people believe, it is possible to accomplish this process in a simple and practical way.
Having personal financial control is the most basic way to take care of your money. This is how you know exactly your income, your expenses, and what can be improved to have more money left over at the end of the month. Money to make a financial reserve, to invest, and to multiply your income.
1. Get rid of debt
If you have no debts, you are already on the right track to control your personal finances. But if you do, this is the first thing you need to tackle in order to have good financial control.
Overdue bills generate new costs, due to the interest that is charged, and take away the possibility to save and to better plan. After all, all the money that comes in is directed to the accounts payable, and the main goal becomes zero debt.
Trying to renegotiate or paying the debt in installments can be measures that help to solve this stage.
2. Know your income
The second most important step in making your personal financial control is to know your real income. A classic mistake is to think of your income as the amount of your salary, without taking into account all the tax deductions, health insurance, vouchers, and other benefits.
So you need to keep in mind your net salary, that is, the amount you actually receive every month, after the deductions. This is your income.
If you have other monthly receivables, such as rent from a property you own, they also go into your income. But if you received money from the sale of some property, or of any other nature, that is not going to be repeated on a fixed basis, it should not be considered part of your income.
Think of it as an "extra" that you can save or invest. This way you avoid increasing your fixed costs or even spending on superfluous things just because you received extra money.
3. Know your cost of living
When thinking about bills to pay, do a little exercise: list all the fixed costs you have, either those that have the same amount every month or those that have a small variation. For example:
- Rent;
- Electricity;
- Water;
- Telephone;
- Internet.
What is the average amount of all these bills in the month? This is your cost of living. So it is important to calculate this amount and have it clear in your mind, as a part of your income that is already committed each month.
4. Know your extra expenses
Now that you know what your income is and what fixed costs you have, it is time to identify those extra expenses and where your biggest expenses are.
To do this, write everything down! All the little everyday expenses, from the coffee in the afternoon, the dessert after lunch, the beer at the end of the workday, or that gift for a friend's birthday. This way it will be easier to remember where you spent your money and you won't have that feeling that it just "disappeared".
5. Divide your expenses by type
Once you have identified your expenses, separating them by type can help you understand which expenses are superfluous and where you are spending the most money. To do this, you can create categories. Generally, the most commonly used are:
- Housing;
- Supermarket;
- TV / Internet / Telephone;
- Transportation;
- Leisure;
- Health;
- Bars and Restaurants.
Identify what percentage of your income is spent on each category and how much in cash. That way you can have a parameter of how much you spend on average and where you are spending more than usual.
6. See where you can save money
When you separate your spending into categories, it is easier to see where you are spending too much and where it is possible to save, such as:
- Spending less on cab and transportation apps;
- Saving that cup of coffee every morning;
- Swapping the bus for a walk, when possible.
At this point, there are no rules for saving. The steps you take will depend on what you can afford and what is feasible in your case. Therefore, it is necessary that you have the sensitivity to think about each of your expenses and reflect.
7. Learn to compare prices
One of the great villains of excessive spending is the habit of not looking and comparing the prices of what you consume. Many times, the price variations between one establishment and another are extremely high.
For example, a supermarket that has good prices for cleaning products may charge very high prices for fruits and vegetables. Knowing this, it can be interesting to vary supermarkets and separate the month's purchase into small purchases. This way you also avoid stocking up on products that will not be needed or may expire.
Another catch is the large offer boards. Before you evaluate the price of a product, be aware of two things:
- The asterisks in the offer: specific conditions under which the discount is applied, such as a specific card or the purchase of X units;
- The price per Kg: a seemingly cheap soap powder may be priced much higher than a seemingly more expensive one.
As you can see in this example, the price of soap powder A seems lower, while the price of soap powder B seems higher. But if you notice that soap A is only 500g and soap B is 1 kg, you will see that buying 1 kg of the former would be much more expensive. In this case, it is more worthwhile to buy soap B.
Now, if soap A was costing less than $4.90, it would be cheaper to buy two 500g boxes than one 1kg box of soap B.
8. Rethink your wish list
Avoiding impulse buying is another excellent habit change. You can start by creating a wish list, establishing what your priorities are and analyzing the need for each good in the short and long term.
For example: if you believe you need a certain appliance, but realize that you can live well without it or that you would only use it for a short time. Or if you bought all the sports accessories and the yearly gym plan, but realized that you wouldn't have time or wouldn't be able to adapt to that activity.
Creating and analyzing your wish list can also make you realize that there is another more important need that you couldn't fulfill if you had bought the first thing you wanted.
9. Set goals for saving
This is a very important point for a good personal financial control. Saving cannot be just "a little money left over at the end of the month". It has to be a posture, a goal.
You can then set a monthly amount to save. One way to do this is, when you receive your salary, you should already separate a part of the money, preferably in a different place than the account you use for your daily expenses.
In Tesouro Direto, one of the most popular and safe investments in the market, it is possible to program monthly investments starting at R$30. Besides saving money, this is an excellent alternative to receive interest on it.
10. Get informed about investments
Learning to save and control your personal finances is the first step, but to have a peaceful financial life and achieve your dreams you need to go further. Learning about investments will teach you how to take better care of the money you save. This way you will understand where best to put your reserves for the future.
Leaving your money in Savings, for example, is the same as leaving it idle, and anyone who understands finance knows that money idle is a loss of opportunity.
Therefore, it is important to know much better possibilities and what you can do to make your money grow and multiply.
