Even if you don’t like where you are financially, you can change your situation around in just six months with proper planning. In a recent YouTube video, frugal living expert Austin Williams broke down what you need to do each month to get on the path to wealth in just half a year.
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Here’s what he said to do.
The first month revolves around awareness and assessment.
“Our goal is to understand our current financial situation,” Williams said. “This first month is all about seeing where you are at financially — your income, your expenses and where your money is going — because you can’t fix what you don’t see.”
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The first task to complete this month is to write down all of your sources of income on a spreadsheet. The next is to track all of your spending.
“Write down every penny that you spend for 30 days,” Williams said.
Note the category of each expense — such as housing or groceries — and whether it is a fixed expense that is the same every month or a variable expense.
“By the end of this month, you should have a clear picture with what’s going on with your money,” Williams said. “And once you can see it, then you can start to fix it.”
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The second month in Williams’ plan is all about budgeting.
“Our goal is to create a sustainable budget,” he said. “Now that we’ve recorded our income and tracked our expenses, we can work on making some changes.”
First, identify areas where you can cut back on your spending. Look at the categories you may be spending more on than you anticipated, and identify expenses that seem wasteful.
“Trim the fat and cut out waste,” Williams said.
Once you’ve done this, you can build your ideal budget.
“In this step, we’re going to give every dollar a purpose,” Williams said.
Look at your total income and see how you can best distribute it between spending, short-term saving and long-term saving.
“The goal of this month isn’t to be perfect and just suddenly have a flawless budget, but it’s to start being more intentional with your money so you don’t overspend and you have some money left over at the end of the month,” Williams said. “By the end of this month, you should have created a budget that eliminates a lot of waste and allows you to spend less than you earn.”
The third month is about structuring your financial system.
“Our goal is to make your money easier to manage through automation and organization,” Williams said. “This third month is all about creating a simple, repeatable system that allows you to have order in your finances.”
First, organize your banking system. This means having separate accounts for spending and saving, and can be as simple as just having two accounts — a checking and savings account. Next, automate as much as possible.
“You might want to set up automatic payments on bills like your rent, utilities or subscriptions so you never miss a payment,” Williams said. “Also, you might want to automate your savings, allowing you to transfer money directly to your savings account on a specific day. … Doing all this just makes everything easier and a bit more efficient.”
The third task for this month is to create a weekly money ritual.
“Once a week, take 10 or 15 minutes just to check in on your finances,” Williams said. “This could be reviewing your bank balances, looking at your recent transactions [and] adjusting your budget if needed.”
By this point in your financial journey, you should have established a budget that allows you to have money left over each month.
“This month is all about using that extra money intentionally in your life, and the best place to start is using it to pay off high-interest debt,” Williams said.
The first thing to do this month is to list out all of your debts, including the amount owed, the minimum payment and the interest rate. Next, choose your payoff strategy. You can choose the snowball method, which involves paying off the smallest debt first while continuing to make the minimum payments on your other debts.
“The benefits of doing this is that it gives you quick wins and keeps you motivated,” Williams said.
The other method is the avalanche method, where you pay off the debt with the highest interest rate first while making the minimum payments on the other debts.
“The benefit of this method is it saves you the most money,” Williams said. “Pick whatever method best fits your personality.”
Once you’ve selected your debt repayment method, start executing on your plan. Organize your debts by amount owed or interest rate, and start funneling money each month toward paying down the debt you have chosen to start with.
“You’re not going to pay off all your debt in this month, but the goal is to simply create a plan that sets you on the path to becoming debt-free,” Williams said.
Once you’ve set yourself up for financial success, it’s time to start growing your wealth.
“At this point in our journey, we have created much more order in our finances and are living in a much more sustainable way,” Williams said. “As you gain more stability in your financial life, you can focus on getting your money to work for you. … Your money is going to grow much quicker investing than it will by just sitting in a savings account.”
The first thing to do this month is to learn the basics of investing.
“In order to get started with investing, there are three main things that you should know,” Williams said. “The first thing is called compound interest, which means getting interest on the principal and interest on the interest in the market. Generally, investments don’t grow in a linear way, but they grow in an exponential way. The more time you have invested, the larger the returns.
“The second thing that you should know when it comes to investing is something called index investing, which is an investment that tracks a market index like the S&P 500,” Williams continued. “Unlike a stock that is a share of a single company, an index fund is a basket of stocks that tracks a market index.
“The third and final thing that you should know about investing are the different types of investment accounts,” he said.
Investment accounts include 401(k) plans, 403(b) plans, IRAs and brokerage accounts. Williams recommended researching the different accounts available to you and then opening one that makes sense for you.
“You can do this simply by going to one of the big brokerages like Fidelity, Vanguard and Charles Schwab,” Williams said. “Once you do that, the third and final thing that I want you to do this month is make your first investment.”
Because investing does always come with risks and the potential to lose money, Williams recommended starting with a small amount and investing more as you become more comfortable.
By month six, you’re probably not rich yet, but you’re on your way to getting there.
“This final month is all about setting goals so your journey doesn’t stop here,” Williams said.
The first thing to do this month is to set clear, measurable goals. This can be things such as paying off $2,000 worth of credit card debt in three months or saving a six-month emergency fund in a year.
“Take some time to list your goals, the time length you’re going to give yourself to complete your goal and what it means to have achieved that goal,” Williams said.
The second thing to do this month is take action.
“Simply take action on your goals and don’t let your dreams be dreams,” Williams said. “And that is my six-month plan. And if you follow it to the end, I can almost guarantee that you will be in a much better financial situation than when you started.”
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: How To Get Rich in 6 Months Starting With $0, According to Austin Williams