Do you know where to start? Some of you are certain. Others are overwhelmed. One reason why people get anxious and stressed about money is because we've made it extremely complex. The jargon, lingo and technical terms create confusion and cause us to question our understanding. This is intentional by financial institutions to keep selling us financial advisor services and investment management.
The truth is we don't need them. You can create a plan and stick to it. The hardest part is taking that first step. Calm Cash is here to help you get off on the right foot with a challenge.
This is called the Find Fifty challenge. Your goal is to stash away $50 over the next 7 days in a separate account...an emergency savings or "rainy day" fund.
Why is this the challenge? Because about 40% of Americans would have to use credit or borrow money for an unexpected $400 expense. Another 12% say they would not be able to make the payment under any means. To unlock the financial freedom we all want, having the right amounts of cash set aside for life's curveballs is really important.
Some of you reading will say "I already have an emergency savings account with way more than $400 in it". And I say, that is great! But do the Find Fifty challenge anyway. Our ultimate goal is to set aside 6 months of living expenses. Why? Because life throws us challenges and unexpected events. Maybe things happen with your company and you or everyone loses their job. Think that can't happen? It actually happened to me. Google "Arthur Anderson Enron" if you want to learn more about what happened. The bottom line is life happens and you have to be prepared. So how do we Find Fifty?
Sometimes we really overcomplicate things. To complete this challenge and ultimately reach your money goals you have to either make more money or spend less money. Even better, you can do both at the same time! You will be confronted with all kinds of situations over the next 7 days where you have choices to make about how you spend your cash. So what are you going to do? Spend now or set some aside to Find Fifty and take another small step to achieving your financial goals?
Or maybe you don't want to change your spending and instead Find Fifty by earning it. There are many ways to supplement your income that don't involve turning your car into a taxi service. We will talk about ways to do that in more detail in a later posts and podcasts.
To help you with your challenge, I want to mention some apps and solutions that could be helpful. These are services I use and they are not paying or advertising for me to talk about them. If you don't have an existing emergency savings account and you want a recommendation for starting one, I will give you two companies that I like and use myself. Sallie Mae Bank has the Smarty Pig Account that let's you set goals and setup automatic transfers to set aside your savings. Their interest rates are higher than your typical banks and a great bonus is that you get a $10 reward for every friend you refer that opens an account and makes a transfer. That is free money and we like free money! Another great option is Acorns. Acorns rounds up your purchases and deposits the spare change in an account. It then gives you the opportunity to invest those savings in a simple, mobile friendly way. Those pennies add up fast and it makes setting aside your rainy day fund easy as you move about your day.
The last app I really like is called Trim. It has a bunch of different functionality but I first used it to analyze all the subscriptions that I was paying each month. It combs through your accounts that you link to find the recurring payments. It even helps you manage them by cancelling the ones you don't want. It found about $30 of recurring payments a month that I cancelled in a few clicks. They can also help you negotiate your cable bill with Comcast, your interest rate on a credit card or find you better rates on your car insurance. The website is asktrim.com to learn more.
Ok...let's Find Fifty! To find out more, listen to episode 1 of the Calm Cash Podcast.
I want to hear how it is going. Check out the Find Fifty challenge on our Instagram page @CalmCashPodcast and tell us how it is going. Here's to a happier life and a healthier wallet!