End the Year Right With Better Budget Management

As you wrap up 2024 and get ready to make changes for better habits next year, this season offers the perfect time to review your personal or household budget so that you can end the year on a solid financial note and set yourself up for a successful 2025.

Evaluating your budget before the year ends can help set you up for better financial management next year.

Revising projections

Have you gone a bit astray from your budgeted spending this year? You’re not alone. The closing months of 2024 could present a good time to make a few tweaks so that you don’t start the next new year in hefty debt. Look into revising budgeted categories so that you can get back on track for the next couple months and still have money to spend on holiday gifts and celebrations. Consider adding into the year-end budget a designated holiday category so that you can start your shopping with a spending strategy that can help prevent you from accruing a stressful holiday debt to deal with in January. While reviewing and revising the budget, add a few specific categories for holiday gifts, and don’t forget about funds you may also need for food, travel, décor, office contributions, and charitable giving.

Creating a savings strategy

Failed to save again this year? High prices and unexpected expenses can make sticking to a savings plan very challenging for the average person or household. It’s not too late to start a savings plan now so that you have something to anchor you when the new year begins. Giving your budget a thorough review can help you find categories to cut or reduce in order to redirect those funds into a savings.

Tracking expenses

It is virtually impossible to stick to a budget without some degree of expense tracking. Keeping track of each expenditure and expense category is important so that you don’t overspend, overdraw your checking account, or amass a large debt. Online personal accounting and bookkeeping services make it easy to keep track of expenses for later account reconciling. Checkeeper, used for on-demand check printing by both businesses and individuals, offers an online registry that automatically records and stores the details of each check created, and a full list of checks, or partial list of checks created within a specified time frame, can be pulled up, printed, or downloaded at any time, from any location.

Reducing debt

If you know you’re likely to spend a lot over the next couple months, it may be helpful to eliminate a debt you already carry. If you have a small, lingering debt that you can knock out, you will be glad you did later on when the holiday charge bills start to arrive. If your debt is already consolidated—and not small—paying down a larger share now, before the holidays fully arrive, can ease some of the payment burden later on, and it can also force you to stay on budget, as making larger debt payments now means you’ll have less available cash than usual to tempt you into overspending.

Committing to better habits next year

There’s no more fitting time than the start of a new year to commit to better financial management habits. Consider some future steps you can take:

· Develop a better system for keeping records and tracking expenses.

· Establish a savings, or increase your contributions to the one you have.

· Build an emergency fund for unexpected events and large repairs.

· Commit to reconciling your accounts each month so that bank statements, check registries, credit card accounts, online payment accounts, and other financial statements match up with spending and savings records so that your money is always accounted for.

· Consider online services that make personal money management simpler. They can be used for: budgeting, tracking expenses, printing and recording checks, paying bills, and keeping track of incoming and outgoing money.

Checkeeper assists with personal finance as well as with business finance

Individuals use Checkeeper to help streamline the bill-paying and to keep automated records for later review and analysis. Checkeeper integrates with several widely-used accounting and bookkeeping software services, and it offers a simplified bill-to-check conversion option for users who use compatible services. Import your unpaid bill into your Checkeeper account to have a check payment automatically created with all the necessary fields populated for you. Access your account from anywhere to have check payments printed and mailed for you for personal expenses, including: rent, utilities, debts, loans, bills, and even holiday gifting.