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How To Take Control of Your Finances | Nadia La Russa

How To Take Control of Your Finances & Create a Customized Budget For Yourself

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re starting to get the hang of 2020 and are thinking about setting up a budget for the rest of the year and beyond. Amazing! As a serial entrepreneur and mom of five, I know a thing or two about budgeting and managing finances. After all, a significant part of my work life consists of putting together customized accounting solutions for small-medium sized businesses, and truth be told, it really isn’t that different for personal finances.

If you’d like to learn how to put together a customized budget and take control of you and your family’s finances, please scroll down!

Tip # 1: Stop Thinking of Your Finances as Something Out of Your Control and Disconnected From Your Everyday Reality

One of the most common mindsets I’ve noticed when other people talk about their personal finances is how disconnected and out of control, they feel from them. Once they’ve received their bi-weekly pay from work and bills have been paid, whatever amount is leftover usually becomes discretionary income. Some months it’s less, other months they have more to play around with. 

The issue with this is that when we train ourselves to spend discretionary funds unconsciously, we neglect to consistently track our spending and we’re often left completely unprepared for emergency situations. If 2020 has taught us anything in regards to finances, it’s that preparation is everything.

Tip #2: Take 1 Hour To Create a Budget For Yourself and Your Family

The best way to really take control of your finances is to take one hour by yourself or with your partner and set a basic monthly budget. List out all of your bills, income, decide on an amount you want to stay within for the rest of the year, and most importantly, stick to it. Any extra income you make one month should be put into a separate Savings Account for those emergency situations. By sticking to a consistent budget, you’ll quickly train your brain to spend within your means and won’t be so scattered anymore with your spending. Trust me, you’ll love feeling in control of your finances!

Tip #3: Track Your Spending & Give Yourself a Raise

After you’ve gone ahead and created a budget, the next habit you should really be practicing is tracking your spending. By doing this, you’ll be able to identify certain expenses that you could happily do without (monthly subscriptions, for example) and start seeing your bank account grow. The next time you cancel a payment you don’t need and keep it for yourself, think of it as if you’re giving yourself a raise.

Here are some handy (and free!) apps that can help track your spending for you:

  • Charlie – this app is created with artificial intelligence and does an amazing job of helping you track your spending. To do so you’ll need to download it from your phone’s app store, connect it to your bank account and it’ll start monitoring your account for any signs of unproductive spending. This is great for anyone who is having a hard time thinking of what expense they should eliminate!
  • Mint – this app helps you store all your finances and bills in one place, giving you a good idea of what you’re working with. It’ll also calculate your spending by category so you can see your spending patterns and know what you can cut back on to be able to give yourself a raise each month.
  • Alternative method – Use a Google Sheet! You’ll be able to view it on your phone, desktop and be able to customize it as much as you want. You won’t receive any automatic alerts but manually adding in your expenses each month would be a good way of becoming aware of how much money you do spend on a monthly basis.

The great news is that you’re ready to take control of your finances and it doesn’t matter what your financial circumstances are – anyone can create a budget for themselves and track their spending. When done effectively, you’ll be able to meet your financial goals, give yourself a raise, and worry less when those inevitable life emergencies happen.

With You – 

Nadia La Russa

P.S. If you’re feeling excited about taking control of your finances but aren’t sure when to start because you’re always so busy, be sure to read this blog post I wrote on how to take control of your time. After all, we all have the same hours in the day as everyone else!

How to Keep Your Work-Life Balance When You Work from Home | Nadia La Russa

How to Keep Your Work-Life Balance When You Work from Home

If you’re lucky enough to work from home, then you already know it comes with some amazing benefits. Some of us have been doing so for a long time now and others are just joining the work from home lifestyle due to the pandemic. Regardless, here are some of the perks of working from home:

  • Enjoying a relaxed dress code
  • Sleeping in late
  • Going for a run on your lunch hour
  • Heading to the grocery store in the middle of the day and avoiding peak hours
  • Spending more time with your family and friends

If you happen to be your own boss, you’re in an even better position since you can set your own hours and pick the clients you want. While chatting with other entrepreneurs and friends who are now learning how to manage this work from home lifestyle, I’ve noticed that no one really talks about whether or not they really have a work-life balance.

As it turns out, working and living out of the same space is not as easy as it sounds. That’s because many people find it hard to shut down and disconnect from their jobs when their phone or email is just a few steps away. While you may feel like you get more work done at home, you might actually be working overtime without even realizing it. So, how can you make sure that your work-from-home job doesn’t end up consuming your life? Here are some tips on how to maintain that much-needed balance and keep your sanity:

Tip #1 – Separate Your Workspace

The problem with living and working in the same place is that it’s hard to switch off from work and focus on yourself and your family. One way to separate yourself from your work is to create a dedicated office space so you can walk out of it at the end of the day and shut the door. A spare bedroom or den makes a great home office, or your basement or garage can even serve as your base.

When you finish work, shut off your computer and turn off your phone. If you use your personal phone for work, just let any business calls or unknown calls go to voicemail. At the end of your workday, walk out of your office both mentally and physically. While it may feel wrong to ignore phone calls and emails after working hours, remember that this is exactly what your office-bound coworkers get to do each day when they leave the office.

Tip #2 – Learn To Say No

When you don’t have the distractions of chatty coworkers, lunch outings, and impromptu meetings, you tend to stay glued to your seat and wrapped up in your work. But at a certain point, you need to say no to all the meetings and the phone calls so you don’t overextend yourself.

Start by blocking your lunch hour by putting a recurring appointment for yourself on your calendar, and include a reminder so you don’t accidentally work through it. Then, make sure to decline any lunchtime meetings or phone calls, and instead propose a different time. And if your manager asks you to take on another project, or if a client wants your services when you’re already fully booked, think carefully before saying yes. If it means long nights and weekends trying to keep up with deadlines, your work-life balance will go out the window. By consciously managing your work commitments, you can start reclaiming your personal time.

Tip #3 – Remember To Take Time For Yourself

When you work in an office and start noticing flu symptoms, your manager tells you to stay home until you feel better. Whether you like it or not, you’re forced to take time off for yourself. But when you work from home, it’s tempting to just work through an illness without taking the proper time you need for rest and recuperation. People who work from home often don’t use their available sick days for this very reason. The same thing can happen with paid time off and vacation days. If your work is at your fingertips, you might slide back into bad habits and reply to some emails or make some work calls while you’re on vacation. One way to nip this in the bud is to set an out-of-office reply in your email and record an out-of-office message for your voicemail. Knowing that people are getting these automated replies should make it a little easier to put work out of your mind when you’re out sick or on vacation.

It’s up to you to maintain a healthy work-life balance when you work from home because no one else is there watching you work. So take control of your work habits and you’ll begin to get your personal time back again.

With You – 

Nadia La Russa

P.S. If you’re sitting in front of your computer and wondering what to snack on next, check out this blog post I wrote featuring some healthy foods/snacks to give you energy.