Top Tips for Spending and Managing Money Wisely

You don't have to be a personal finance expert to be good with money. Anyone can take steps to develop good money habits and achieve greater financial flexibility and freedom! It all starts with understanding how to spend money wisely and how to manage your money effectively.

What Does it Mean to Spend and Manage Your Money Wisely?

Spending wisely is more than just keeping track of your bills and having a good credit report. Spending your money wisely is a way of life! Spending less than your income while continuing to pay your bills on time and in full allows you to save for future needs. ​Aligning your spending habits with what matters most to you will help you reach your biggest money goals.

Helpful Tips for You

Are you ready to get started on your journey to saving money and spending money wisely? Here are some helpful tips to consider:

1. Track your spending—every dollar!
   Before you can manage your money wisely, you need to understand where your money goes each month. That's why tracking your spending is so important! Save your receipts and write each purchase in a notebook. You can also use a digital tool like Money Management to track and categorize your spending. Money Management will give you a very clear picture of your spending habits, which you can use to create an accurate monthly budget.
   
   
2. Look for expenses to adjust, reduce or eliminate
   As you evaluate your spending habits, identify room for change. Some questions you may want to ask yourself include:
• Do your purchasing habits match your priorities and financial goals?
• Which categories could you trim to save more money?

You can save money by listing your expenses in order of importance from "must-haves" like living expenses to "nice-to-haves" like new shoes and clothes.


3. ​​​​Give your money a purpose
   After you pay bills, if you don't have specific goals for your leftover income, you might end up spending the funds you have leftover at the end of the month rather than saving them. But by giving your money a dedicated purpose, you can use it to help you live the life you want to live!
   
   What goals do you have for your money? It could be boosting your emergency fund, upgrading your car, paying for a child's education, taking a dream vacation or even donating to the causes you care about.
   
   Once you have enough money saved to start putting it towards certain goals, open separate savings accounts and name them for each goal. These savings accounts will help you establish a plan for your extra money, including any additional income you receive through raises, bonuses or your tax refund.
   
   
4. Stay flexible
   Learning to develop a financially savvy plan to spend and manage money wisely takes practice. When you're first getting started, you'll probably need to adjust your budget and spending habits so that you can meet your goals. Stay flexible and try to make money management part of your daily routine—it's worth it!​
   

For more tips on the road to financial independence and how to spend money wisely, view our Spend & Mange Wisely Brochure here.

How We at Wright-Patt Credit Union Can Help

At WPCU, we want to help you succeed in your journey to spending wisely and give you the tools you need to spend money wisely. We have a variety of helpful tools to make the process easier, including budgeting worksheets and spreadsheets, spending tips and interactive learning modules for spending and managing your money. ​