Just as Spring is a good time to give our home a good spring clean, it’s also a great opportunity to take some time to revisit your finances and do some tidying up if required.

Having systems in place to keep on top of your finances helps you stay in control and more likely to achieve your financial goals.

I strongly recommend having a Spending Plan in place as your first step. A Spending Plan is created once you identify your financial goals, and lets you still have a life whilst meeting everyday commitments including debt repayment and saving for short and long term goals.

Once a Spending Plan is in place you’ll be able to identify what I call a Freedom Payment. This is the amount you have identified as being unallocated once you have allowed for everything else such as expenses, debt repayments, savings etc, and is used to accelerate either your debt repayment strategy or build your emergency fund or savings much quicker so you can then concentrate on increasing your net worth.

In conjunction with your Spending Plan I recommend undertaking a Debt Power Payoff Plan to accelerate your debt repayment. I took a client through this recently and showed her how to pay off $30K in credit card debt in under 2 years using the Freedom Payment she identified.

With these 2 strategies in place, it’s now time to set a date with yourself – a Money Date! Allocate a time each week or fortnight where you sit down and get up close and personal with your money, and review your spending habits over the past week. You can then make changes quickly if necessary to ensure you stay on track. As any small business owner knows, track and measure are two surefire ways to financial success and there is no reason why this strategy can’t work with your personal finances as well! Use this time to not only review your spending but also to check bank statements, pay bills, review your goals and check yourself if you have blown out your Spending Plan

Now, for a few housekeeping tasks to kick you off, firstly clean out your wallet of any old receipts no longer required, and keep your wallet clean. Old spending attracts old energy so try to keep your wallet as uncluttered as possible.

Next, file all those bank statements that are piling up on your desk or in a drawer. The more organised your paperwork is the more easily you’ll be able to stay focussed on improving your financial wellbeing.

Create a file or folder where you store all your bills ready to be paid when due. This will prevent unnecessary late fees being charged due to ‘forgetting’ to pay a bill when it is due.

That should all keep you organised!

If you’re not sure where to start with creating a Spending Plan check out my Finding Your Money Treasure Home Study Program, 10 Steps To Finding Money You Never Knew You Had. Available for the low investment of $97 where you’ll be taken step by step through the process of creating one http://shewealth.com.au/finding-your-money-treasure-home-study-program-2/