Recently, employee mental health is being greatly impacted by financial pressure. With your take-home pay, you must pay for many things: housing, food, insurance, health-related expenses, debts, utilities, and fun and entertainment exist. It’s easy to run out of money trying to pay for everything, even if you are adept at finances.

Unfortunately, clumsy spending and money mistakes are common. Here is how to manage money intelligently to get the most out of your limited bi-weekly or monthly earnings, to help ease the stress of finances each month:

Record a Realistic Budget

Budget for every dollar you have, assigning it to a category. If you want less financial stress, a budget provides a plan to build and adjust based on whether you’re thriving or struggling.

Divide Income In 4 Ways

Divide your income into needs, wants, savings, and debt repayment. Conceptually, this is where to start.

Try the 50/30/20 Budget Rule

A basic budgeting method many people use to manage their money is the 50/30/20 rule, aka 50% for your needs and debt minimums, 30% for your wants, and 20% for your savings and debt repayment above minimums. While you can adjust your percentages how you wish, be mindful of what amount is allocated where. Work your income-to-expenditure patterns according to what’s best for you.

Pay Your Monthly Bills On Time

Always pay bills on time to avoid interest and late fees. This can often be automated from your bank account. A strong payment history means you always stay on top of your payments, your services remain up to date, and your credit rating remains high and intact.

Talk to a Financial Advisor

Connect with a family office to help manage your money and ensure a plan is in place for distributing it among family members during and after your lifetime.

Your Lifestyle Matters

Drastic budget limits could be more fun and harder to keep. Consider your lifestyle and support it with smart spending.

Prioritize Debt Repayments

All the debt you have likely has an interest rate. Your free money is being taken, and you don’t have to give up. The faster you pay off debt, the less interest you pay and the more wealth you keep.

Avoid Acquiring Toxic Debt

As you’re offloading your debt, future debt you take on should not be high-interest by design. Avoid high-interest credit cards, payday loans, title loans, rent-to-own arrangements, and similar debts.

Build Your Savings

Create multiple savings accounts, such as one for emergencies, another for education, and others for specific tasks or objectives. Even if contributions to specific accounts are small, the money builds up over time. This may eventually protect you from borrowing money at a high interest rate.

Saving for Retirement

Depending on how close you are to retirement, it’s never too late or too early to start saving for this period of your life. After most of your debt is paid off, your goal is to save 15% of your gross income for retirement.

Track Your Spending

As an individual, you can easily track your spending. Download a money management app. Sync it to your bank account. This automatically tracks what you spend every month. See where you can save money.

Refinance Wherever You Can

Look at your largest debts and expenses. You can reduce interest rates on debt by applying for a debt consolidation loan. With expenses, consider refinancing your mortgage. Look for ways to keep more money for yourself.

Divert Away From Non-Essentials

Non-essentials include dining out, entertainment purchases, and even buying a coffee when you could make one at home or in the office. Saving a little here and there and reinvesting in what matters most gets you further down the path toward financial freedom.

Grow Your Wealth

If you’re sitting on money and not doing anything with it, it’s actively losing value due to inflation. It’s important to growing your wealth by investing in different assets and opening accounts with favourable interest rates.

Pay All of Your Taxes

Pay all your taxes and ensure your moves to protect or grow your money do not penalize you tax-wise. You can also reduce your tax bill by managing your money differently. This is also where a family office can come in handy.

Automate Your Financial Management

While you will want to check in regularly to ensure you’re making progress as you expect, you can automate your money management for the most part. Automate paying bills, distributing your paycheck to your savings, and investing in your investment portfolio.

Guest writer.