4 ways to improve your personal finance now

Ideally, improving your personal finance is a big picture project. You’ll sit down and determine exactly how much money is coming in and going out, make a list of your short, medium and long-term financial goals, and make a budget. However, sometimes you just need a quick start, either because you have a lot of anxiety about your money and don’t want to look at it or you’re just struggling with procrastination for some other reason. One quick but big step can help change the way you think about your financial situation and make it easier to move forward.

Open an emergency savings account

Have you ever heard that you need an emergency fund that is easily liquidated in case you face any unexpected expenses, such as medical co-payments? Whether you did or not, you probably thought of this as something that you can set up at some point when you have a large amount of money that you can deposit into an account at one time. In fact, you can start with any minimum to open a savings account with your existing bank. You may be able to do this online. Even if you start with just $25, you now have a place to store a small amount of money every time you pay, and the fund will grow.

Save money on your debt

Are you paying off credit card or other debt? Save money by knowing how you can lower your payments. If you have a credit card balance, you can try calling the company and asking if they will lower the interest rate. Some companies will agree if you are a strong customer. Alternately, you can search for a card with a balance transfer offer. Some cards offer 0% interest on balance transfers for a short period, such as six months. This could be a great way to pay off your card quickly. Also check if you can refinance student loans with NaviRefi. Your monthly payments may be lower, and you can put the savings into your emergency account.

give up one thing

Here’s another small gesture that will help you save: give up one thing. Maybe it’s a ready-to-use daily coffee, maybe it’s in-app purchases, or maybe it’s a streaming service that you don’t get much use of. Whatever the case, pledge to take this money and transfer it into your savings until you reach your emergency financing goal.

start investing

If you’re not already subscribed to your company’s retirement plan, do the paperwork now. But there are other ways you can invest as well, even if you don’t know much at all about the subject. You can create an online brokerage account. This doesn’t take much time or money as you may need less than $100 to get started, and you can let the robo advisor choose a wallet for you based on some information collected about you. Unless you are really planning to get into the stock market, in most cases the best thing to do once you have some money parked somewhere is to leave it alone for a while.