5 Financial Habits You Should Establish in Your 20's !

Between trying to find your career sweet spot, weeding out toxic relationships to get your personal life together, and finally coming around to making the down-payment for your first studio apartment — your twenties are also the time for when you’re supposed to start establishing a successful personal financial plan that won’t see you having to move back in with your parents due to unforeseen circumstances before your 30th birthday.

The truth is that sometimes, life gets in the way and throws things off-balance and while there’s no clear-cut way to avoid financial downturns, there are definitely habits you can form to help you better manage your finances and avoid any nasty surprises.

Track your expenses

The hardest thing about tracking your expenses is getting started. Not having the remotest idea of where your money is going can actually cost you thousands in unnecessary expenses.

Keeping track of your spending allows you to visualise how and where you’re spending your money and lets you identify the areas in which you can cut back on your expenditure.

This will help you better allocate where your money goes and devise a more strategic savings strategy. There are plenty of free mobile apps such as Mint and Daily Budget that you can download to help you efficiently track your spending — all you need to do is record your spending on the app and it’ll take care of all the messy calculations for you.

Start thinking about retirement

Generally speaking, you have less financial commitments in your twenties and while it seems too far down the road to even start thinking about, when you start contributing a portion of your monthly income on a regular basis, chances are that you won’t be scurrying around in a mild panic to start saving up for retirement when you’re older.

And on a side note, having something that you know you have to regularly commit towards is a good way to introduce consistency and responsibility into your spending habits and you’ll automatically balance out your monthly income and spending to accommodate these commitments – which is a good thing.

Pay for value

This essentially translates to spending money on products that bring you the best value for your dollar. Now we’re not saying that to do this, you have to go cold turkey on warehouse sales but sometimes, spending more money on quality goods and services that will withstand the test of time is more worth it than paying low prices for low-end merchandise that you’ll have to constantly replace – especially for products that you’ll be using frequently such as consumer electronics and home appliances.

Pay your bills early

For some reason, a lot of us have a tendency to consciously delay paying our bills as it gives us a false sense of being able to stretch out our paycheque. While this strategy does offer some comfort during the beginning of the month, the same can’t really be said for the end of it when you find yourself surviving on instant noodles so that you can cover your phone bill until your next paycheque arrives.

Paying your bills ahead of time allows to have more control over your finances, avoids you from having to accrue interest and gives you a better idea of how much disposable income you’re left with – allowing you to actively decide what you can afford to spend and what needs to go into your savings for the month.

Set and follow personal “rules” for yourself

Establishing certain spending “rules-of-thumb” for yourself can be a useful and effective strategy for ingraining positive money habits. Something as simple as not spending more than US$10 a day on food to only buying new clothes during the start, middle and end of the year are examples of personal budgeting rules you can impose onto yourself.

Not only do they help to simplify the decision making process when it comes to how you spend money but turning these tricks into regular habits can help you grow your wealth in the long run.