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If you want to improve your finances, you need to improve your time management skills. It truly is that simple.
Well, almost. You of course still need to take the time you find with your better time management skills and use it to do things that will improve your finances.
Now, I know what you are thinking, “But I don’t have time to waste–my days are packed.”
Trust me, mine are too. But I have learned that I waste more time than I think I do–especially if I don’t keep a close eye on exactly what I am spending my time on.
Every year I like to read a book or two on time management or take a course on it. It never fails that when I do, I find I have slipped into some time wasting traps once again and when I eliminate them life gets a little less frazzled and oddly enough we end up spending less money.
Why Wise Time Management and Saving Money Go Hand in Hand
When we run short on time we are often guilty of doing the easy instead of the simple.
We grab take out because it is easy instead of keeping simple, quick dinner ingredients on hand. We spend our money and try to track it later because it is easy instead of taking just a minute or so to log our expenses into a simple budgeting app or in a notebook. We use our debit (or worse yet, credit) cards because it is easy instead of making the quick run to the ATM machine or bank for cash to fill our cash envelopes for the week.
When there is breathing space in our day we are more able to see that money saving tasks really are not that hard or time consuming.
Good time management can also help those who are currently struggling financially to finally take the time to:
Research, create and implement a budget
Here are 3 great books to read for learning how to manage and budget money effectively
Here are articles on both paper budgets and budget apps
- Why This Family Loves The You Need A Budget App
- Paper budget printable and directions on how to track expenses
- Free printable budget forms
Research and implement ways to save money on groceries
- 10 Ways Thrifty People Save Money On Groceries
- One Way To Save MORE Money At Aldi That You Are Probably Overlooking
- 3 Simple Don’ts and Do’s of Grocery Shopping On A Budget
Research and implement coupons and rebate apps
- 6 Apps That Will Save You Money At The Grocery Store (most work for other stores too)
- Step By Step Guide To Using Ibotta
- 20 Websites For Saving Money On Clothing
Research and begin a side job that can provide the income needed to pay down debt or reach another financial goal
- 6 Ways To Turn Your Laptop Into A Money Making Machine
- 4 of The Best Websites For Earning Cash In Your Spare Time
- When You Need A Bigger Shovel: How To Earn Money Money Each Month
Two reasonably priced courses that can help you manage your time well
I have personally taken both Make Over Your Mornings and Make Over Your Evenings. They have helped me tweak my morning and evening routines in simple, yet effective steps.
The Make Over Your Evenings course helped me free up 25 minutes every morning simply by moving some no-brainer tasks into a time of day when I really wasn’t doing much. Okay–I was being a couch potato during that time and now instead complete a few no-brainer tasks that open up my mornings to do more complicated things while my brain is fresh.
The Make Over Your Mornings course helped me come up with a morning plan that included fun things that make me want to get up early.
Both courses have helped me find more time in my day to do the tasks that need to be done to keep us on track financially as well as the time I need to work on my blog, which has become a good, steady source of income for our family.
Both Make Over Your Evenings and Make Over Your Mornings are 14 day video driven courses. They are designed to be done in 15 minutes a day with a 5 minute video, a 5 minute reading and 5 minutes of filling out worksheets related to the course. Of course, you can do them at a faster rate or a slower rate once you have access to the course and you can even go in again and again to retake the course as many times as you want.
For a list of 52 different websites, apps, and stores our thrifty family uses to help us keep our expenses low, click here to visit our Thrifty Tools Resource Page.
Available in paperback and Kindle on Amazon–get your copy here!
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Simplifying as much of our lives as possible has made all the difference for me! And I also highly recommend the Make Over Your Morning Course. I got a lot out of it (and love that she didn’t try to make me get up early!). 🙂
I love that in the evening one she didn’t suggest that I take that much time away from being a couch potato. Just 20 or 30 minutes doing things that make my morning run so much more smoothly!