How To Manage Your Money Successfully

As a person in general I’m a huge fan of lists, spreadsheets, and general organisation. An organised life helps me to have an organised mind. As someone who loves to plan their money, I wanted to share some tips on how to manage your money successfully by going over how I manage my own money. Staying on top of my spending, money in and expenses is important to me and something I spend time most days looking into. I’d rather spend 5-10 mins a day keeping track of everything than spiraling and getting to the end of the month with no money and no idea where my money has gone.

If you’re wondering how to manage your money here are some of the things I use that I swear by. When I first started my financial journey I didn’t use all of these methods, and it’s taken time to build in the habits. So don’t worry if it takes you some time to experiment with tools and building up your habits.

Take stock of your situation

If you’re looking at how to manage your money successfully, the first thing you need to do is take stock of your current financial situation. Look at all of your incomings, to begin with. For some of you, it might just be from your main employment, but it may also include freelance work, a second job, a side hustle, etc. But only include regular incomings as opposed to things you do every so often like selling items on eBay.

Then keep track of all of your fixed expenses and standing orders that come out each month. You’ll want to take stock of everything from rent/ mortgage, household bills, and council tax through to car insurance, gym memberships, and streaming services. Everything that comes out of your account automatically. Before we moved into our house I took stock of our money situation so I could work out the best way to manage our money. I’ll revisit our situation anytime we have any new outgoings, or if my wages were to change.

How to manage your money- Use spreadsheets to keep on track

Once you know your situation make use of spreadsheets to keep track of your spending and to help manage your money. I love to use Google Sheets just because I can then access it on my phone and on the go. But you may want to just use a static spreadsheet if you only look at your money on your laptop.

When thinking of how to manage your money you’re best to have a few different tabs on your spreadsheet. It’s always worthwhile having a list of all of your regular outgoings including things like what it is, what day of the month it comes out, and when your contract is over. Knowing when you’re out of contract means you’ll know when to start searching around for any better deals.

A budget tracker

Next up you’ll want to have a budget tracker. You’ll want to do separate budget trackers each month (or perhaps each week if you’re paid weekly). In your budget tracker, you can separate out your expenses and assign how much money you have for each area. I like to split mine between fixed (mortgage, bills, etc), savings, and personal spending. My fixed expenses will stay the same each month, and I like to keep my savings the same each month. But it’s the personal spending area which can change. As restaurants are starting to open up again I’ll probably allocate more money to eating out over the next month or two.

Alongside your planned budget, you can then track your actual spending. I like to note down my actual spends every day or every few days if I’m not spending much. This means I can identify very quickly if I’m coming close to using up my budget in a particular area.

Knowing how much money you have and where you’re spending it is important information to know.

How to manage your money- Utilise money-saving apps

In a digital age, the chances are when you’re thinking about how to manage your money you’ll want to have some apps to use. I use my Monzo bank app a lot for managing my money as I can split my budgeted money out into pots to avoid overspending. And I can also track which areas I’m spending money on. This helps me manage my money, savings and spending. But I’ve done enough posts about Monzo that you can read how it’s helped me budget and save, why I love their savings accounts, and the best features of the online account. Whatever banking app you get, get one that can offer you something, or add value to your financial journey.

To help manage your money you can start roundups and you can use IFITT in conjunction with Monzo and set up savings challenges like the 1p challenge. Apps like Plum tracks your spending habits and saves money for you depending on your habits. If it finds you have more money left over at the start of the month, for example, it will save more money then.

These are just some of the ways I manage my money. But how do you manage your money?

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