Welp MagazineThe new year is always a good opportunity to take a close look at your finances, find ways to make improvements and plan ahead for the future. Additionally, January 2023 is a smart time to do this with the cost-of-living crisis continuing to be a major issue affecting many people. January is a great month for making positive changes and will hopefully help you to improve your financial well-being over the next 12 months and beyond.
Review Your Finances
The first step to take will be to take a look back through your financial records of the year just gone. You should look at how much money you made that year after taxes and then work out how much you spent. You should take a look at any major expenses that you had and try to get a sense of where most of your money goes each month as well as what you do with money that is left over.
Create a Budget
The next step to take will be to create a new budget for the year ahead. You should go through all of your regular monthly expenses and find ways to make savings – even something small like taking your own coffee out in the morning instead of buying one can make a huge difference over the course of the year. It is helpful to structure your monthly spending so that you can avoid overspending. You can designate a percentage into key areas, such as essential spending, savings, debt clearance and non-essential spending.
Find Ways to Access More Money
Of course, one of the best ways to improve your situation is to make more money. There are lots of options here no matter your current situation whether this is picking up shift work, starting freelance work or even asking for a raise. If you are retired and own your own property, you could look into an equity release mortgage which will allow you to access the money that is tied up in the home. Equity release is a good option if you want to make improvements to the house, go on a luxury holiday or simply improve your standard of living.
Find the Best Savings Accounts
It is also important that you have savings and you will want to make sure that you are getting the best interest rates on these savings. Rates have been gradually increasing, so it is likely that there is a better option than what you are currently getting. It is not too hard to switch and this could make a big difference to your savings over the long term. If you are able to put the money away for a few years, you can get much higher interest rates than easy-access accounts.
Hopefully, the advice in this post will help you to take control of your finances in 2023 and improve your financial well-being.
