Spring Clean Your Finances

The new growth and warmer days of spring are near, and spring cleaning is a great opportunity to clean up your home, your wardrobe, your yard, and even your finances! Below we’ve listed a few items to consider to help you refresh your financial routine:

• Dust off your Budget – Your budget is your greatest tool to align your daily spending habits with your ultimate financial goals. If you haven’t been following a budget lately, spring cleaning is a great opportunity to dust off an old budget, or create a fresh one that aligns with your current goals.
• Freshen up your Goals – Speaking of your current goals, when is the last time you considered your ultimate financial goal? Whether it be to buy a home, purchase a new car, save for retirement, or take that bucket-list vacation: make sure your goals, and ultimately your budget, are setting you up for success.
• Organize an Emergency Fund – If an emergency fund is not already a part of your financial routine, then now is a great time to get one started. A fund of just $1,000 dollars that is used solely in emergencies can save you from adding those emergency purchases to credit cards. If $1,000 seems unreasonable to you, start small: if you start saving just $10/day today, it would add up to $1,000 by this summer! Malvern Bank makes this easy with automated transfers via online banking.
• Toss Out Unused Subscriptions – Cancelling those monthly subscriptions that no longer serve you is a great way to re-assign those funds to something that really does matter to you today.
• Sweep Away Bad Spending Habits – While updating your budget, take a look back through your past few months of spending. Are there any recurring expenses that don’t align with your current goals? Get rid of those expenses, and consider the habits that lead to them. You may need to update your daily routines, too!