a new way of looking at money
Money is a tool, and a tool is only as useful as the skill of its user.
The first big step in taking control of your money is knowing what to do with it.
“A place for everything, and everything in it’s place.” - Benjamin Franklin
You’ve probably heard that you need to give your money a job. In fact, money can be a hard worker, even yours! With the right tools and skills, money can have more than one job.
With Simple Home Finances, you can simultaneously pay down debts, plan for retirement, and save up for your dream beach house all without missing a bill.
When you set up your Spending Plan you can: allocate the planned dollar amount for your spending categories, enter the due date (weekday or calendar date), always be on time with payments, and ensure you aren’t spending over your income.
Now you start the Plan - Do - Review cycle.
Plan
You shouldn’t build a house without a blueprint, and you shouldn’t build your finances without a plan.
A lot of budgeting software will show you what you’ve spent and use that data to tell you what you should spend. The problem for most of us is that we weren’t optimizing our spending in the first place. Cutting out certain expenses after the fact is taking the long road and can be considerably more work when it comes to reaching financial goals.
Learning from mistakes is good, preventing them is better.
“It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.” - Eleanor Roosevelt
Would you rather run a race 12 times a year, getting a little better each time, or follow a proper training plan for a race and win it the first time?
Our system allows you to get up and running quicker by giving you the tools to plan for your spending for the coming weeks, months, quarters, and years.
Most of us know what we spend on our bills (the rent, mortgage, utilities, credit cards, etc.) But we tend to fall short on the jumbled, day-to-day expenses adding up. We allow you to plan for those miscellaneous expenses and help keep you from over-spending.
Each week when you update your expenses on the spending plans, you have an opportunity to adjust for unexpected costs, all the while ensuring you stay in the black.
In this system anything can be changed at any time, you are in control, you are the manager.
Do
How much do you really spend in a given week? Get ready to find out
If your money is working for you, that makes you the boss.
Now that you’ve got a plan to help you pay off debt, save for college, pay the bills, and whatever else you can dream of, it’s time to put it in action.
“If you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you’re going to keep getting what you’ve been getting.”
— Author unknown
In our system, you will be able to see which areas you are over-spending on and then adjust accordingly. The idea isn’t just to get out of debt quick (although you certainly can and should!) but to refocus our spending psychology for life-long financial health.
You may be surprised with where your money has been going initially. As you refine the process, you’ll probably find you can afford more than you thought.
As you learn you will get better and should be able to accomplish your financial goals in about 10 minutes a week.
Review
Check yourself so you don’t wreck yourself
The final stage of our cycle is where most budget programs would begin: Review.
We’ve discussed why it’s generally a bad idea to begin your plan by looking to the past. However, as each person is unique, so is their spending. And just as we didn’t become who we are overnight, we don’t reach our goals overnight either.
Our tool gives you the option to save your history at the end of the month before you start a new month of your plan. Using this, you can look back and see how you did. Did you go a little overboard on tacos? How much money would you have saved if you had spent your taco budget on groceries instead? Could you be contributing a little more toward your goal of buying a new car in cash?
“Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.” - Warren Buffet
You are given full visibility as your goals and debts are tied to your Spending Plan. As you review and tweak your plan, any changes are compared with available income. Each time you make an adjustment, you’re closer to finding your right balance for financial freedom.
We want you to foster good habits, and our software calculates exactly how much you’re putting towards each area of spending (including savings and debts) to give you a road map on your journey to financial well being.