The first month of a new year is always a powerful time to think of the year that has passed and make new resolutions on how to improve your life for the better. This year may be a little different because 2020 was an unusual year. The pandemic that swept through the United States caused many businesses to collapse and the prosperous economy to decline, especially in service-based industries–like the transportation industry, the hospitality industry, and the food service industry–that require a steady stream of customers to frequent their businesses.
If you experienced financial setbacks last year, now would be a good time to figure out some strategies to improve your financial flow. Here are a few suggestions to consider for rebooting your financial situation in 2021:
Pay Down Your Debt
You’re not alone if you had to lean on your credit cards to make up for lost income because of reduced working hours or because your employer went out of business. Many people experienced this issue. But because of it, you may have accumulated debt.
A heavy debt burden can lead to chronic stress, which not only causes you to worry all the time about how you’re going to cover your basic living expenses but can also lead to health complications.
One way of paying down your debt more efficiently than paying your credit card invoices one at a time is to get a consolidated loan to pay off all your credit cards completely.
A consolidated loan offers many advantages compared to paying each of your creditors separately. For instance, a consolidated loan will lower your monthly payment not only because it will give you more time to repay your loan but also because it will allow you to pay at a lower interest rate since you’ll be switching from variable interest rate credit cards to a fixed interest rate loan.
Create Your Own Curriculum to Learn Personal Finance
Few people learn about personal finance when they are growing up. Money is a topic that is seldom discussed in homes and rarely taught in school. As a result, most people learn about money through experience.
While many people may develop a talent for making money by learning how to become good employees or learning how to become good at a side hustle, learning how to get good at keeping money is not something most people learn from experience.
While there are plenty of role models on how to make money in business and plenty of in-house corporate training opportunities on how to become a more productive employee, there are few role models and educational opportunities on how to get good at keeping money.
This dearth of education at home, at school, and in the workplace on how to keep more of the money you make is probably the reason why you never learned this essential life skill.
Fortunately, there are many online and offline resources available for you to catch up on your knowledge of personal finance. While it is always helpful to take a class in it, it is unnecessary if you don’t have the time or enough money for the tuition because you can always learn the most important financial concepts on your own at little or no cost whenever you have some free time.
Online, you can learn more about money by listening to personal finance podcasts and reading personal finance blogs, and offline, you can learn more about money by reading financial magazines, newspapers, and books. Many bestselling personal finance books break it all down for you. You can learn about everything from creating a budget and generating income to using credit cards and personal loans for bad credit appropriately with a little time and research.
Practice What You Learn About Money Management
It’s not enough to learn how to manage your money better, you also have to practice many of the ideas you learn. Learning how to manage your money well is like learning how to drive a car. It’s not enough just to study how to drive a car because it’s necessary to get behind the wheel to complete your education. It requires patience and persistence and practice to master anything, including the art of learning how to take better care of your money. If you stick with it long enough, you might even get to a point where people talk about you being good with money.
