10 Money Management Tips & Tricks

Everyone has their own personal finance journey, with their own trials and success stories. However, there are tons of money management tips that can help everyone out. Whether you’re young and brand new to managing money, or you’re a seasoned veteran, there are useful tidbits for everyone here! As with everything in personal finance, experiment with what you learn. If a tip is useful to you, then be sure to use it. Some of these tips and tricks also have alternatives. If you like the alternative better, then use that instead. Personal finance is all about finding what works for you and using it to get yourself to wherever you want to be. Now, let’s get into the 10 money management tips and tricks for everyone!

10 money management tips and tricks

1. Set Goals And Prioritize

For many people, the first thing they need to do is set good financial goals, so that they have something to work towards. Having good goals to follow will help you stay productive, keep you on the right track, and can make sure you handle economic downturns appropriately. Of course, with your goals, you also want to make priorities.

Everyone has different goals, and people certainly prioritize things in completely opposite ways at times. For example, one person may want to reach a point where they can work fewer hours or not at all. Alternatively, another person may just want to keep increasing their income, especially if they prefer a more luxurious lifestyle. I’m not saying one of the other is “right” – just be sure you know what you want. The better you understand what you want, the easier it will be to get there.

2. Stick To A Budget

Budgets are a must if you want to be in control of your finances. I know that is a harsh stance, but it is true for the overwhelming majority of people. You need a budget if you want to reach any significant financial goal. For a complete guide to budgeting, check out the one I created. If you want a beginner-friendly budgeting guide, I wrote one just for that here. If you are interested in an advanced budgeting style, check out zero-based budgeting – it’s a personal favorite of mine, albeit a little more intensive.

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3. Prepare For The Unexpected

You can’t plan for absolutely everything that may come your way. However, you can prepare for it if you make the effort. Everyone should create an emergency fund and put it in a high-yield savings account, like the one Axos has. At first, save up a month worth of expenses for your fund. That means, if you spend $2500 each month, your starting emergency fund should be that much. Then, work your way into having an emergency fund worth six months of expenses. It may be hard, but it will be well worth it. Having that as a backup will ensure you don’t have to take on extra debt. Also, when something bad happens, it will give you the cushion you need to recover.

4. Use Retirement Accounts To Mitigate Taxes

Taxes can be completely brutal. These days, taxes can often be the single highest expenses for many households – especially for high earners. Now, I don’t recommend evading taxes. That is illegal and unethical. However, there are ways to minimize your tax impact. Be sure to make use of a 401k and a Roth IRA. If your employer matches contributions, do your best to meet it. If possible, max our your Roth IRA. Both of these have different types of tax benefits, which I go over in my article on retirement planning. The key point is simple though – they can save you a lot of money in the long run.

5. Stay Realistic (To Help With Consistency)

It’s important to always be realistic when you’re talking about your personal finances. This ranges from the goals you set to the budget you create. It should be something you can actually do and hope to achieve. If it’s a goal, it should have a reasonable timeline or be a reasonable amount (to save or invest). If it’s a budget, it should be a budget you can actually follow. There is no point in creating a budget that you have no hope of following.

6. Set A Day To Pay Off Credit Cards, Bills, And Manage Your Finances

Set aside one day, at the beginning or end of each month, to take care of your finances. That’s really all it takes to keep everything in order. Pay your credit cards off – in fact, don’t carry a balance on them. Credit cards can be useful, but you should never go into debt with them. Also, use the day to pay bills and do general financial management like tweaking your budget. With personal finance it’s important to keep it as simple and easy as possible. The simpler your finances, the easier it will be to manage it, stay consistent, and reach all of your goals.

7. Don’t Forget To Spoil Yourself

I’ve gone over my opinion on spoiling yourself before. While I am an advocate for budgeting and admonish excessive spending, spending a little is perfectly reasonable. If you never spend money on yourself for anything fun, you’ll end up enjoying your free time less. As that happens, you’ll be more discouraged about your finances and become far more likely to break and go on outlandish shopping sprees.

Do yourself a favor – spend, just in moderation. A common trick that I’m a fan of is to simply wait seven days. When you see something you want, or decide you want it, have a probationary period of seven days. At the end of the seven days, if you still want it, it’s okay to purchase it – if it’s within your budget. If you still want it, but it’s outside of your budget, you may just have to save for it.

8. Invest – On A Schedule (Don’t Time The Market)

If you’re brand new to investing, check out my guide to get you started. It’s important to stay simple (again, as always) and be consistent. The best way to stay consistent is to schedule investments and just have them deposit automatically. That way investing doesn’t require any significant upkeep or monitoring from you, and you can just reap the benefits over the years. Be wary of trying to time the market for the “perfect” time to invest. More often than not, you’ll end up missing out. Over the long run, if you just keep investing on a consistent schedule, you’ll see huge growth.

9. Augment Your Income With A Side Hustle

Starting a side hustle is easily one of the best ways to increase your income. If you need ideas for lucrative side hustles, I’ve made a list of several. Alternatively, if you’re ready to take a side hustle full-time, check out my article on that exciting venture! Saving and investing is clearly important, but if you can level up your income with something you enjoy – well, it’s a must!

If you haven’t started a side hustle yet, take my challenge here.

side hustle

10. Always Know The Difference Between Your Needs And Your Wants

This tip is more about clarity. You need to set your goals, we’ve established that. When it comes to goals and expenses, you also have to establish which are needs and which are wants. If it is a need, there is no way for you to drop it. Meanwhile, if it is a want, you CAN drop it if you must. Not all wants are equal, but making sure you’re aware of this division will help you set priorities properly.

Conclusion

If you have any tips or tricks of your own, let us know in the comments! Hopefully you enjoyed the tips listed here and are already thinking of ways you can use some of them.

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