STEPHEN & MICHELLE SMALENBERGER, EA & CFP ®

Maybe you feel like you’re living paycheck to paycheck or that you’re just spending too much.  Here’s some ways that you can get this under control.

1. What am I spending today?

• Take your past credit card or bank account statements and add up your expenses for the month.  The goal is that your expenses are less than your income. This may seem obvious but in the beginning this may be what you find about your spending.  And this can be for people who are earning six figures and their expenses have just gotten out of control.

2.   Categorize expenses:

• Understand if an expense is fixed or one that you change month to month
• You may confirm your suspicions that you are overspending in certain categories
• Sometimes until you see it you can’t make changes

3.   Set Goals

• Start to decide how much you want to spend in categories and then make changes if you aren’t doing as you hoped you would.

This is a quick 3-step process to find out what you’re spending and make changes where you find they’re necessary!