Managing Money Day-To-Day

Your day-to-day money management skills contribute to your overall financial health.

Developing a Spending Plan

With a spending plan, you determine how you want to use every dollar of your income. A spending plan can help you:

• Stay on track toward your goals. Whatever your goal - save more, pay off debt, or make a major purchase - your spending plan is the map to help you reach it.
• Choose to spend money on the things that matter to you. With a spending plan, you assign priorities and budget money accordingly.
• Avoid overspending on things that don't really matter to you.
• Live within your means.

Here's how to get started:

• First, track your spending for a month (include bills you pay, and money you spend other than bills).
• Then categorize your spending. Categories may include savings, housing, utilities, transportation, clothing, entertainment, food - any categories that emerge when you examine your spending.
• Calculate what you're currently spending in each category as a percentage of your income.
• Then determine what you want your priorities to be, and how much of your income you want to direct to each priority.
• Use this as a guide to adjust your spending.

Use our Budgeting Worksheet to help you track your spending plan.

Keeping Good Records

Basic financial recordkeeping should include:

• A spending log that helps you keep track of the money you spend day-to-day, including cash, debit card usage and checks
• A record of all bills paid, including the payee, date, amount and method of payment. Online Bill Pay provides a consolidated record of your payments. Learn more about Online Bill Pay
• Income records, such as paycheck stubs
• Tax records, including W-2s, 1099s and deductible items such as charitable contributions
• Insurance records, including car, home, health and life insurance
• Bank account statements, either on paper or online
• Savings & investment account statements, including statements and transaction confirmations

Expanding Your Banking Relationship

Now that you're working, it's a good time to evaluate your banking relationship and make sure you're getting the most from your accounts.

• With a package account, you can combine your checking, savings and loan balances to earn benefits, including higher interest rates on deposits and discounts on loan rates. Learn more about expanding your banking relationship.
• Take advantage of automatic transfers between your checking and savings accounts to build up your savings. Automatic transfers make it easy to pay yourself first. Learn more about setting up automatic transfers through Online Banking.
• Consider investing in the stock market through an automated stock or mutual fund purchase plan. Learn more about Commerce ShareBuilder, where there are no minimum requirements to open an account and you can start with any dollar amount.
• Consider paying bills through your bank, using an online bill pay service that's connected to your checking account. Learn more about Online Bill Pay.