In order to simplify your personal finances, you must identify your financial ugly ducklings and turn them into financial swans.  What I mean by this is if you want to simplify your financial life so you can manage your finances better you must identify your bad financial habits which I refer to as your ugly ducklings and take action to turn this bad financial habits into a positive financial situation or what I refer to as financial swan.

Here are some ugly ducks you can turn into swans which will help you simplify your personal finances:

No financial goals – You have no long-term or short-term personal finance goals.  If you establish goals you can simplify your personal finances quicker.

Not living on a budget - You do not set a monthly or annual budget.  You are just spending money without setting limits.  Establish a budget will enable you to reach your financial goals you set and help you take control of your finances. Gazelle budget is a simple solution to help establish a monthly budget.

Not planning for the unexpected – You do not have an emergency plan in place in case of an emergency.  Establishing an emergency fund is like the goose that laid the golden egg when you are finances are in a bind due to an unexpected situation.

Not planning – You have not planned for the expected things that you know will happen in your life.  Read this to find out what you can plan for.  Establishing a plan for those expected financial situations will take the pressure off of you and your finances because you have planned for them in advance.

No estate plan – You have no plan in place to handle your assets upon your death.  Read this if you do not believe you need a will.  You do not know when it will occur but you can plan for it.  Establishing a plan prior to your death is much easier on your family.  You may not see the benefit but your family will definitely benefit and save some money in the process.

Too many credit cards – You have more than 3 credit cards with balances on them and you do not have plan in place to reduce your debt.  Read this to make sure you are practicing safe credit card usage. Reducing the number of cards you carry and the outstanding balances on them will simplify your personal finance.  This is one ugly duckling that you must turn into a swan rather quickly.  If not it can get uglier rather quickly.

Not automating – You are still not using online banking, still cashing your payroll checks, or mailing you bill payments.  Establish online banking which will enable you to pay your bills on line.  Setup automatic deposit of your payroll checks to simplify your finance and save you time.

Too much paper – Is your mailbox screaming for relieve because you receive so much mail?  Go paperless is more convenient  and will save you time.

Forgetting due dates – Do you seem to forget the due dates of your bills or just forget to put the bill in the mailbox.  Setting up your bills on your credit card or bill pay service will help you eliminate forgetting to pay your bill on time as well as save you from paying those late fees.

Living beyond your means - Trying to keep up with the your co-workers, neighbors and friends is causing you some financial stress but having the latest or newest whatever is more important.   Stop trying to keep up.  It will reduce your stress and enable you to live a healthier and wealthier financial lifestyle.  It will trust me.

ACTION STEP

Take some time to review your current financial situation and identify your financial ugly ducklings and take action by turning the ugly duckling into a financial swan.  Just like a duckling will not turn into a swan over night is the same with your personal finances.  You must take one step at a time but if you take action I am sure your ugly duck will turn into a swan quicker than you planned.

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Its the end of the year, we are all planning for the new year deciding what we want to accomplish next year. You are probably looking at your budget if you have one and looking to see how you can do a better job of sticking to your budget. If you don’t have a budget you are probably saying to yourself, I need to budget but I can not stick to one.  In a recent post Simple Financial Tips – Budget Busters, I discussed some common budget busters, which may help with your budget planning as well as help you stick to your budget.

Sticking to your budget is important but the way that its designed may be preventing you from sticking to it.  Maybe you have designed your budget to tight.  Maybe you have designed it to loose or baggy.  Maybe you have designed it just right.  So how is your budget designed:

Tight

This budget has no room for error.  If you make one simple miscalculation such as buy four apples instead of three, use one extra gallon of water, or one extra kilowatt of electricity your budget is shot.  You have put so much pressure on your budget it can not breathe.  You have your fingers crossed at the beginning of each month hoping that your budget does not pop.

Loose

Your budget allows you a lot of freedom.  Its kind of loose and baggy.  There is a lot of room for error just in case you do plan to overspend one month it will not impact your budget.  But it does cause you to overspend in some area since you just pool all of your money in to one large category.   It enables you to hide your overspending in some categories since its loosely maintained.  But you will never break your budget since it loosely maintained.

Just Right Perfect Fit

This budget is perfectly maintained.  It fits just right in all categories.  There are no worries if you overspend in one category because you have a planned for it.  You are not pulling your hair out at the end of the month wondering where you money was spent or your fingers are not crossed hoping that you use the allocated amount of water and electricity for the end of month.  This budget allows you to relax and not stress.

Take Action Step

Now its time for you to review how your current budget is structured and decide if you have a tight, loose, or just right fitting budget.  Then be honest with yourself and make some adjustments where needed.  By doing this it will help you stick to your budget and stay on course.

Remember take one step at a time to simplify your personal finances so you can live the financial lifestyle you desire.

If you would like learn more tips to help you simplify your personal finances make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

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Do you want to live a simple financial lifestyle? If so having a budget is key to creating a simple financial lifestyle. But many times we fail to budget because _________ (you fill in the blank) excuse. This week’s edition of Simple Weekend Reading features some recent articles I have read that I believe can help you with budgeting so you can simplify your personal finances.

I don’t have time. Is your reason for not having a budget? Brian at My Next Bucks offers How To Build a Kick Ass Budget in 15 Minutes. I believe we all have at least 15 minutes we can spare to create a budget.

I don’t need a budget. Is that your excuse? Jason at One Money Design offers Budgeting 101 which explains why and how to create a budget.

I don’t know what a budget should look like. Is that your excuse? Money Funk to the rescue. She posted 7 Free Printable Budget Worksheets. These budget worksheets can get you started and they are free.

Even if you do create a budget you must be realistic. To help Laura from Green Panda posted on Five Nickel Live Within Your Own Means, Not the Means of Others. Make sure your budget is something you can live with.

Is your spending habits causing your budget problems. Maybe this is the problem. Are your Credit Cards Weapons Of Mass Financial Destruction? posted by Financial Samurai.

I don’t know what budgeting system to use. Wojciech at Fiscal Fizzle offers his take on the YNAB 3 vs. Mvelopes (First Reactions) budgeting systems.

Still not sure which budget software to use. Fiscal Greek offers You Need a Budget (YNAB) 3.0 Personal Finance Software Review.

Hope these articles will help you create your budget so you can develop the simple financial lifestyle that you desire.

If you would like learn more tips to help you simplify your personal finances make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

Have you decided not to create a monthly budget because every time you create one you always bust it.  Creating a personal budget is important to your personal financial health.  Sticking to your personal budget can be challenging but it is key to living a simple financial lifestyle.  You are  probably asking what do I need to do to stick to my budget.   You must avoid these budget busters in order to stick to your monthly budget.

Here are this week’s tips to help you simplify your personal finances by helping you avoid these personal financial budget busters:

Splurge or unplanned purchase – we all do it but we must limit it or at least budget for it.  If you know you have a tendency to buy things at the spur of the moment instead of planning just put it in your budget.  Hopefully you are not buying high ticket items every month.  If you are you may need to look at your spending.

Medical cost – Unplanned medical expenses are usually something you really can not plan for.  But you can have medical insurance in place.  Having adequate medical insurance and a reasonable deductible or co-payment will lessen the impact of those unplanned medical expenses.

Unplanned repair bills – just like medical expenses you can not always predict when they will occur.  To lessen the impact on you budget have preventive maintenance done on you car, home and any other thing that could break.  You can schedule these out and prepare for them in your budget.  Many  times even if you do preventive maintenance things will still need repairing.  This is why you should have an emergency fund in place so your monthly budget is not impacted.

Eating out – this is where I could use some work.  Its so easy to just go out to eat instead of planning ahead and have dinner at home.  Try limiting the times you go to dinner each week.

Increase insurance expenses - we can not control how much our insurance premiums will increase each year.  But what you can do so your premium does not bust your budget is review your insurance policies each year to make sure your coverage is appropriate.  You may want to even shop for another insurance providers if the increase is significant.

By avoiding these budget busters you can hopefully create a budget and stick to it.  What are your budget busters and how do you avoid them?

ACTION STEP

Take action by reviewing your spending and think about what is causing you not to stick to your monthly budget.

If you liked these tips and want to learn more, make sure you subscribe to simple financial lifestyle email newsletter and subscribe to RSS feed for blog updates.

Til next week take one step at a time to simplify your personal financial life.