Staying on top of your finances plays a major role in whether you achieve your money goals. Things can get super busy fast when you have a life full of career or school, family, and personal demands on your plate. As a result, a regular review of your spending, savings, and debts can fall by the wayside.
Taking time out for your finances is vital to your financial success. Making a daily financial routine and doing a financial health check can prevent overspending and make this process easier.
10 Quick money tips for super busy people
If you feel like all the responsibilities in your life keep you from creating a budget or logging into your online financial account, even once a week, use these quick financial tips to help you improve your money management.
1. Add money reminders to your calendar
Spending time on your finances deserves to be prioritized like every other important event in your life. Consider adding recurring money check-in dates to your calendar as you set up a meeting at work or a doctor's appointment for yourself or your family.
For example, you can schedule a time to check your financial accounts daily and update your actual spending in your budget bi-weekly.
You can even schedule a time to get competitive quotes for vehicle insurance coverage quarterly and review your retirement contribution and tax withholding amounts annually. Adding reminders to your calendar is essential, especially if you are super busy!
2. Review your finances on the go with apps
It can be challenging to routinely log in to all your different bank accounts, creditor accounts, and service provider accounts to maintain a full understanding of where your money stands.
Overcome this challenge by using mobile apps like Credit Karma's money management tool. And various apps can pull together all your account balances, up coming bills, summarize the progress towards financial goals and offer the ability to pay bills right from your phone.
Also, explore signing up for text alerts from your financial institution. You'll be able to receive messages with account balances, transaction activity, and even bill due dates sent to your mobile phone when it's available.
3. Tackle major money decisions and tasks separately
Important financial tasks can take a ton of time. For instance, switching financial institutions, updating beneficiary designations, disputing charges, changing payment account information, rolling over an old retirement account, or changing your legal name after marriage. You'll definitely need more than a few minutes to get things like this done.
Although you might be tempted to procrastinate, pacing yourself and tackling these tasks separately is a better approach. Take into account how much time you’ll need for each task and aim to complete one task each or every other week.
4. Take a personal day for your finances
Whether your employer offers an official Financial Fitness Day or not, taking some personal time off to tend to your finances is well worth it. Use this time to schedule your money reminders for the next 6 months. Develop your budget, open a separate savings account or tackle those long-overdue financial tasks, all in one day.
5. Automate your finances to save time
One of the best things you can do as a super busy person is to automate your finances. Setting up direct deposit, savings transfers, and automatic bill pay can save you a ton of time every month.
However, you still need to review your finances and budget every month to ensure everything is running smoothly. The worst thing you can do is have a money block and not regularly check in with what your money is doing.
6. Pay off debt to stop being super busy with bills
One of our favorite quick financial tips is to pay off debt. When your are super busy and have multiple credit card payments on top of your monthly bills, it not only costs you more money but also more time!
Create a debt payoff plan and knock out your debt as soon as possible. Reducing bills and expenses can free up your schedule for more important things and help you save more money.
7. Pick the right budgeting method
When it comes to budgeting, it's not a one-size-fits-all. If you are super busy, then you need to find the right budgeting method that doesn't take up a ton of time. One of the simplest yet powerful budgeting methods is the 80/20 budget.
This is where you save 20% of your income, and the other 80% is used for needs and wants. So, rather than figuring out a bunch of ways to allocate your money, it simplifies it into these two categories to save you time.
8. Earn more money for less of your time
You may have heard the saying "time is money!" and it's the absolute truth. Maybe you're super busy working a second job because you aren't getting paid enough at your full-time job. If so, it's time to ask for a raise so you can start earning more money and working fewer hours.
Another option is to trade in a low part-time job for a higher-paying side-hustle. This can help free up time and help you make more money which is why it's one of the most important and quick financial tips to do!
9. Meal prep to simplify your super busy schedule
How much time do you waste trying to figure out what to make for dinner? Or how much money do you spend eating out simply because you are too exhausted to make dinner? Meal prepping not only saves you time but saves you big bucks on groceries too!
Planning out your meals for the week simplifies your life so much and prevents you from throwing out unused food you bought. It makes sticking to a budget much easier too. Here are some delicious meal ideas.
10. Switch to cash
Of course, you still need to know where your money is going but switching to cash can help you save time and money. Using cash results in less time tracking transactions in your register. Try the cash envelope method to prevent overspending. This is where you dedicate a specific amount of money to each of your budgeting categories with envelopes.
For example, you would have an envelope specifically for groceries, and that's all you are allowed to spend for the month. This method is simple and reduces impulse purchases because using cash makes you more aware of what you're spending than simply charging it on a credit card.
Simplify your finances for your super busy life
Use these quick financial tips to simplify your finances. This way, you don't avoid your money situation, and you can stay on top of your finances even though you are super busy.
Doing things such as automating your bills can free up time and prevent you from paying bills late. You can learn more about ditching debt and building wealth with our self-paced completely FREE financial courses! Also, take things to the next level and leverage our tips to simplify your home as well!