5 Ways To Boost Your Financial Wellness in 2024

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When it comes to saving money in 2024, your personal finances may need a tweak or two to help brighten your financial future. Before you pay financial planners, there may be a few ways to manage your money you can address yourself. Your financial security is paramount and making changes now will up your chances of achieving your goals later. 

5 Money Moves That Will Improve Your Financial Wellness

How you approach your personal financial choices and money moves doesn’t have to be an all-in-one endeavor. You can break down your financial life into smaller and more manageable steps you need to take to get on track. Here are five pieces of savings and investment advice to strengthen your financial wellness program in 2024. 

1. Track your spending
2. Help your money earn more
3. Invest your savings
4. Reevaluate how you pay off your debt
5. Pay yourself like an employee

1. Track Your Spending 

The first way to boost your financial wellness is to truly assess what you are spending and what you are saving. Today’s automatic payment options offer convenience, but sometimes when the the money is out of sight, out of mind, you may be shelling out more in monthly expenses than necessary. 

Tracking your spending can be as easy as creating a spreadsheet to see where there might be subscription fees you can cancel or credit card interest rates you can lower. Knowing where you stand is half the battle, but if you want to get more specific here are some highly recommended budgeting apps for 2024: 

• EveryDollar
• YNAB
• Monarch
• Mint
• Honeydue
• Goodbudget
• Fudget
• PocketGuard
• Rocket Money

2. Help Your Money Earn More 

How you save your money is almost as important as to where you save your money. If you are not taking advantage of savings products with higher yields, you are leaving money on the table. Even if it’s just your emergency fund make sure to keep it in a high-yield savings account, CD or money market account. 

Higher interest rates or compound interest lets you earn more on your money and there is no reason why you can take advantage of these easy gains and returns. Though these accounts don’t pay as much as stocks and bonds potentially do, they are low risk and what you earn is guaranteed.

3. Invest Your Savings 

High-yield savings products are great but you may have a chance to grow your wealth more quickly by investing your money in other areas. Your financial wellness can be improved greatly by investing in stocks, bonds, real estate and low-cost index funds. There are no guarantees but higher risks do come with higher rewards. 

Saving for your retirement account may also have room for improvement when it comes to investing your funds more wisely. Make sure you are maxing out your employer match for your 401(k) accounts. Doing so now will increase your financial security in retirement.

4. Reevaluate How You Pay Off Your Debt 

Before you can build you first have to dig yourself out of student loan or credit card debt. There is a chance you could negotiate your bills down. For example, you could speak with a representative from your credit card issuer to get late payment fees waived or even a lower APR. Don’t just pay your bills automatically as they may not be as set in cement as you think. 

Reanalyzing your debt is important in assessing where you have room to cut back on your monthly expenses. Here are some tips to jumpstart your reevaluation:

• Automatically set aside a percentage of your paycheck into a separate account just for debt repayment.
• Eliminate expenses that are not necessities and cut back on discretionary spending.
• Build a realistic budget that works for your current situation and your financial goals. 
• Assess the total principal balance on each debt and start paying off the ones with the highest interest first. 
• Consolidate your credit card debt if it lowers the interest you’ll pay each month. 

5. Pay Yourself Like an Employee

Paying yourself first is a great mentally to have when boosting your financial wellness. What this means is that you reverse budget so your focus is on your savings goals and not your expenses. Essentially, you treat the money you save as a check you have to write yourself. 

When you create a reverse budget like this it helps to practice the following money management habits: 

• Allocate a percentage of your paycheck into savings each month such as with the 50/30/20 budgeting rule. This means you’ll use 50% of your paycheck for needs, 30% for wants and 20% for savings. The 20% is what portion you should thinking of as paying yourself first. 
• Automate your savings so it is directly deposited into a separate account that you don’t access in less it’s an emergency. 
• The accounts you pay into can be in the form of investment accounts, retirement plans, estate plans, or IRAs.
• What you pay yourself should increase along with any pay increase you receive annually.

Final Take To GO: Financial Advice and Wellness

Boosting your financial well-being is more than just improving your credit score. Rather, it’s all of the small choices you make to form a better financial future. This is not to say you shouldn’t seek out a financial advisor or planner, but ultimately, the person most likely to help you set and achieve your financial goals is you. 

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