If You Have $1,000 Or More In Your Bank Account, Do This ASAP!

Saving up and having $1000 in your bank account is no easy feat! Let me start off by congratulating you on your financial achievement. It’s not easy saving up that much money, believe me.

A survey conducted by GOBankingRates showed that 69% of respondents said they had less than $1,000 in a savings account. That puts you in the top 30% of people when it comes to being financially prepared. Kudos to you!

Now that you have reached this milestone, what’s next you might be wondering? Glad you asked! Here are some next steps you should take so you can reach your next financial goals once you have $1000 in the bank!

1. Start investing your spare change

Investing might sound difficult and confusing, but it’s much easier than it sounds. The number one reason people don’t invest is that they don’t know how to do it or believe it’s too complicated.

Well, I’ve got some great news for you. If you are just starting out with investing, or don’t know where exactly to start, they are apps out there that make it so much easier.

Apps like Acorns allow you to invest without having to think about it. Acorns simply round up your usual purchases to the nearest dollar and invest the rest. For example, if you buy a Starbucks drink for $4.32, Acorns rounds that up to $5 and invests $0.68 automatically for you.

You can imagine how quickly this can add up. All your purchases are automatically rounded up and the change is invested for you without having to lift a finger. All you have to do is link up your accounts and let Acorns do the rest.

2. Leave your family with $1 Million in Life Insurance

The thing about life insurance that nobody thinks about it until it’s too late. Have you ever taken a second to think about how your family will manage financially, once you’re gone?

I know it’s a bit of a morbid topic, but it’s very important to think about.

You’re probably wondering how much life insurance actually costs, and how difficult it is to set it up. Well, it’s much cheaper and easier than you think. All you need is 5 minutes and as little as $12 a month!

Using a company called Ladder, you can set up a life insurance policy in less than 5 minutes. You can always change or cancel your plan at any time. The security and peace of mind knowing that your family will be well taken care of is priceless.

Definitely take a second and check it out!

3. Pay Off Your Credit Cards

Now that you’ve got a solid emergency fund in the bank, the next obvious step would be to attack your credit card debts. The thing is, credit cards have insanely high-interest rates. Those credit cards are literally burning a hole through your pocket. What can you do instead? Pay them off, entirely!

By using Credible, you can get up to $100,000 to pay off all your credit cards and consolidate them to one low-interest loan. Not only will this save you hundreds of dollars on your monthly payments, but you’ll also save thousands on interest alone.

You get to pick the loan with the best terms you want and that best suits your needs. Once you pay off all those credit cards, cut them up and throw them in the trash. Think of it as a turning point for yourself.

The best part is, it’s completely free to check online and it won’t hurt your credit score either. Definitely give this a shot.

4. Track your finances and retirement goals

Let’s kick this one off with a quote. “What gets measured gets improved ~ Peter Drucker.” What does simply means is that, if you want to improve your finances, better start keeping track of it.

Gone are the days when you needed to fire up Excel just to keep track of your finances. Services like Personal Capital do just that, automatically, and completely free.

What gets measured gets improved! Time to keep track of your finances

Tweet

With Personal Capital, you simply connect to your accounts and it does the rest. It will give you an overview of your spending, your savings, and also helps keeps track of your bills.

Another fantastic tool is that it allows you to plan for retirement by setting retirement goals. It’ll give you solid recommendations based on your goals and savings rates, and helps you stay on course. To top it off, it’s completely free!

5. Own a piece of Google, Tesla, or other companies

Like I mentioned earlier, investing in companies is not as complicated and confusing as it sounds. It also doesn’t need that much money to get started either.

For as little as $1, you could own a piece of the largest of most successful companies in the world buying fractional shares. This simply means buying a piece of a share, making it super cheap and easy to start investing.

See, it really doesn’t take much to get started. There is a reason why wealthy people invest in companies. This is what they mean by making your money work for you.

A lot of people use Robinhood to get started with investing and to own a piece of these billion-dollar companies. Do you know what the best part is? If these companies profit, you do too! Being that you are now a shareholder, some companies send you a check as a way to share profits in the form of dividends. That’s more money in your pocket!

Make your money work for you by investing it!

Tweet

Oh, and did I mention that by signing up with Robinhood to you also get a free stock with up to $210? That’s right, just by simply signing up, you could end up $200 richer.

6. Stay out of debt by managing your bills

Have you ever found it difficult to juggle all your monthly bills and expenses? Or have you ever accidentally forgot to pay your bill on time, only to incur late charges? You Are Not Alone. I’ve definitely done this, but there is a way to avoid it.

There is a handy little app called Truebill that takes away to hassle of managing all those monthly due dates and monthly premiums. Not only can It help you keep track of your bills, but it has really awesome features too:

• Truebill can negotiate your bills: That’s right, Truebill has a feature called Lower My Bills. When you use this feature, Truebill will work with your service providers to help negotiate your bills lower.

• Truebill gives you a financial picture of your accounts: Instead of going back and forth between checking accounts, savings accounts, and investment accounts, Truebill allows you to look at your entire Financial picture in one place.

• Truebill can monitor your subscriptions: Truebill is able to scan through your accounts and flying any that are recurring subscriptions. This is especially useful if you have a subscription that you forgot about.

• Truebill monitors service outages: If you have an internet or cable outage, Truebill keeps an eye out for those. When those happen, Truebill can help you request credits from your service provider.

Truebill is free to download and has a free version. To get access to all the premium features listed above costs you as little as $3 per month. Not bad considering that this app might end up saving you thousands of dollars within the first year or two of using it.

A definite must-have.

Final thoughts

Everything on this list is, once you have $1000 in the bank, should be a starting point to better your finances. Reaching financial freedom doesn’t happen overnight, so it will take patience, a positive attitude, and perseverance to achieve it!

To finish off, here are some points to always remember:

1. Create a budget: Don’t let money control you, you control it. You tell your money where to go and what to do. This is where having a budget comes in. It will help you know exactly how much money is coming in, and exactly how much money is going out.
2. Maintain your emergency fund: The thing about emergencies is that you can’t stop them. You can however be better prepared for them! Having $1,000 set aside for emergencies is the first step, now you need to have 3-6 months worth set aside for emergencies! Work towards that next.
3. Start generating a side income: Just having one income from your day job will not get you to financial freedom alone. You will need to work on generating multiple streams of income so you don’t rely on just having one.

Just keep focusing on improving your finances and reaching your financial goals. It’s going to take time, but future you will thank you!

Get started now! 🙂

Like it? Pin it!