1 is A | 2 is B

Today I made three personal finance related decisions today that not only made me feel better about my money but will end up making me more money years from now. What’s even cooler is the whole experience only took me an hour or two.

1. I called my bank to reduce my loan rate and credit card rate.
   This was really easy. I Called the number on the back of my credit card and asked them to lower my interest rate. I did the same for my auto loan interest rate. If they gave me a hard time I was planning on telling them that I was getting very competitive offers elsewhere but didn’t want to move my money and wanted to continue doing business with them. Luckily I didn’t have to use that story.
   I also learned when I was on the phone with them that I can call back every 6 months to reduce my rates. Now I’m keeping track of that and plan on calling back regularly. Why? Because according to a loan calculator that quick call saved me over $200 on my car loan, plus what I saved on my credit car interest payments (sadly I’m still paying it down).
2. I set up a net worth calculator
   I’ve never been a big fan of budgets. They never seem to work for me because I have trouble guessing what the correct amount for each category should be. Money is a bit more fluid than that. So I never really got started with one. The net worth calculator is my stepping stone into tracking my money. The simple dollar has a great tutorial on how to set one up. Now I can see twice a month that my assets are growing and my debt is shrinking…and at exactly what rate. It is a very motivating tool for saving.
   Indirectly this also helped me in two ways. One of the assets that I listed on the net worth calculator is my car. Even though it is not paid for entirely yet, it has a blue book value that can be claimed as an asset because that is approximately what it can be sold for tomorrow if needed. That’s a number I’d never considered before when thinking about my net worth.
   The second way it helped me was to start a single spreadsheet where I can track my money. A lot of people use quicken or other software to track their money, but like budgets they just never fit my needs and thus I never stuck to using them — big waste of time. Now that my net worth is being tracked in a spreadsheet I’ve been tracking other things on worksheets in that spreadsheet as well: my monthly bills, my monthly investing, my quarterly credit reports, when I’ve reduced my interest rates (see 1 above), even my day to day spending. It’s really helped me get a handle on my money and has given me a lot of comfort and confidence in what’s going on with my money.
3. I keep track of every dollar I spend on my car.
   I keep a notebook in my glove box with a pen and make a note of every dollar I spend on my car. Mostly it’s a summary of gas receipts and car washes. I thought of this because today I was getting my regular maintenance on my car and updating and reviewing this book while I waited (and later keeping a copy of the receipt in there). So why do this? A book like this will increase the resale value of the vehicle because it is a history of how well you took care of the car. It also gives you a quick check on your fuel millage. If you see your mpg going down you can catch a problem early on before it does significant damage to your vehicle. I also used the time to review expiration dates on my registration and insurance policy as well as my maintenance history to make sure everything is in order. I guess it is similar for me to the spreadsheet in 2 above in that it provides comfort and confidence in the fact that my car is on track to a long life.

At the end of the day I really had a sense that I was in a better place financially than the day before. I was amazed at how easy it was and recommend these simple hacks if you are looking for ways to start getting control of your money.

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