Your Ultimate Guide To Doing A Financial Cleanse

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How are your finances? No matter how you feel you’re doing, everyone could use a little financial sprucing, don’t you think? With New Year’s resolutions in full swing, you’d be crazy not to take the time to look at your money. How are you spending and saving, and how could you improve? We’re about to tell you how to clean out all the junk in your accounts with a four-week financial cleanse. It’ll be fun! Well, hopefully reading about it will be.

Week 1: Assess.

Take the first week of your cleanse just to pay attention to how you’re spending and saving. Download a budgeting app like Mint that will track every dollar that goes in and out of your accounts and will categorize your purchases into visually friendly charts. Make notes of where you can cut back on spending and unnecessary purchases that you prioritized throughout the week when you maybe shouldn’t have.

Week 2: Take a good, hard look at your miscellaneous purchases and subscriptions.

After analyzing your habits and picking out any non-essential purchases, challenge yourself to cut out one expense you’ve been making that you could definitely live without each week. Think coffee runs and nail polish changes at the salon. If you’re feeling ambitious, cut out a few things or reduce the frequency of purchases, like getting a monthly blowout instead of a weekly blowout.

Week 3: Create a long-term financial goal.

You’re almost set up for financial success, but now it’s time to look at the bigger picture. What’s your big financial goal that you think you could achieve in a year’s time? Do you want to save $500? How about starting an investment portfolio? You’ll need to push money aside for most financial goals, so gear up to…

Week 4: Physically plan a new budget.

With your new proposed cuts to miscellaneous items and your big financial goal in mind, take the time to write out a new monthly budget. You can freestyle it or you can use a free budgeting sheet to get you through the thick of your expenses. What’s important is that you take what you’ve learned through assessing your spending and your choice to cut back on unnecessary stuff and bring those lessons into your new budget.