This year, I have felt a determination to get in control of my life in a way that I haven’t experienced before. I’ve always had a “she’s got her head screwed on” appearance from the outside looking in – but the reality is that I have a very messy brain. I flit from one thing to another. One idea to the next. This is a slight mental weakness when it comes to having an organised life.

I’m not sure what brought it on. Perhaps it’s because I’m turning 30 in June. Perhaps it’s because I have a proper ‘big girl job’ now and I am feeling more profeshional (lol). All that really matters is that I’ve had this little brainwave and things are going really well.

I want to pass this on, to help other people who are craving that feeling of having their shit together, and being a little more in control of their life.

This first post in the series is about finances.

Get in Control of your Finances

This first post in my ‘getting my shit together’ series just had to be about finances, because until this year it’s been a big weakness. Credit card debt, old defaults on payments that are only just dropping off my credit score, the looming doom of the tax return that I hadn’t quite put enough to one side to pay. Finances suck (when you aren’t in control of them).

Ultimately, this trigger of the impending tax bill in Jan 2025 is what set me on the path to reclaiming control. I’m sharing this with you in the hope that you won’t need a scary crisis to force you to get your shit together too.

Step One: Spending

I’m not going to write a blog like this and then just say “cut back on your spending”, because that would be wildly unhelpful and dumb.

Instead, I encourage you to take steps to understand your spending. You’re going to have to be brave here, because if your finances are messy you probably don’t want to lift the hood and examine what’s going on underneath. You have to though. In order to take positive steps, your personal finances need to be demystifyed and understood.

Go through your bank statement, categorise what you have actually spent over the last month, and pop these categories and the values in a spreasheet. Some banks, or banking apps, will also have a spending tracker that will help you do this – you’ll just need to review the categories and shuffle anything incorrect around. I bank with Barclays, and they have a relatively accurate spending tracker.

A lot of people will tell you to do this the other way around, and advise that you create lists based on what your predicted spending will be. For me, this doesn’t work. If your spending and finances are disordered then taking a cold, hard and honest look at where your money has gone will likely be the action you need. You’re also fairly likely to find some ‘easy wins’ – like subscriptions you underuse and can happily cancel.

Once you’ve understood your spending, this is where the budget tracker comes in. I’m going to paste a video below that I found really useful.

Step Two: High Interest Debt

For me, this step came had to come alongside a mindset shift.

Once you have taken a look at your spending and identified areas that you may be able to pull back on, the temptation is to throw everything at your savings. However, I promise you, that this is not worth doing until your high interest debt (loans, credit cards) are under control.

This is simply because the interest on your high interest debt will always be greater than the interest on your savings. To build the healthiest financial future, you need to push your money towards your debt, before you pump it towards your savings.

Step Three: Learn About Investing.

Banks give us a pretty poor ROI on our savings. If you’ve cleared your debt and are wanting to start building a better financial future, you should start educating yourself on investing. Personally, I started investing in my Stocks and Shares ISA this year, and I wish I had known how easy it was – I’d have done it sooner.

I also, and have done for a while, invested in Premium Bonds (available to you if you live in the UK). Premium Bonds have no set return on investment and instead you get entered into a prize draw. For me, these have yielded a better interest rate than my typical savings in the bank. I use this for my tax return money – something that I can lock away for a reasonable amount of time, but still have easy access to when I have a bill to pay.

Here’s a video that I found really useful about learning how to get into investing in the stock market.

Step Four: Stay Committed

Building a healthy relationship with money and gaining financial control is a long journey, but as soon as you start taking even the smallest of baby steps in the right direction, you sincerely start to feel better. Surrounding myself with healthy habits and inspirational stories has been a huge help, so to end this post I’ll point you in the direction of some other resources that I have found really useful.

Here’s another YouTube channel that I have found interesting and inspirational, from mindset to money, it’s another resource to seek motivational and useful information.

Good luck on your money journey, I’m rooting for you. xo