5 Steps To Increase Your Financial Confidence

When you find yourself in the red and you already painted a bleak future for your finances, your financial confidence might already be shot. It is hard to get back up on track if your moral is already low. This usually happens when you see that you are way in over your head with debts and expenses and your income sources cannot quite cover your obligations.

There are a lot of reasons for having financial problems and this differs from one person to another. One might have taken a bigger than needed mortgage loan and now majority of their income is tied up with the house. There are also some consumers who cannot seem to get a grip on their credit card use and end up month after month in debt with all the uncontrollable shopping.

One person’s financial challenges will never be the same with another because apart from the current problem, all the decisions that led to that situation will be different. It might be possible that both have problems with a big mortgage loan but one family had to get it because they have many kids while another just wanted to show off to friends and family.

But according to USAToday.com, one of the top financial problems for American consumers is the fact that they are having a hard time making ends meet. The household budget is a tough nut to crack and getting their cash flow steady seems to be a struggle. This might sound like a simple problem but if you struggle with the basics then you might have a hard time with other budgeting necessities.

Having a low financial confidence is similar with how you feel when you are playing your favorite sport. When you seem like you cannot do anything right and seem to be on the way to losing a match, your morale goes down. Especially so when you really lose a game because your confidence can go way down and have a hard time to pick it back up again in time for the next game.

Growing your financial morale

If you are suffering from a low confidence with your finances, here are a few things you might want to look into to help pick it back up again.

• List down your financial goals. You need to list down smart financial goals in order to have a direction with your finances. This gives you a target to aim for and it makes it easy to assess your progress and know if you are still on track. Without goals to aim for, you might seem like a ship in sea without rudders which makes it hard to reach a specific destination. If you have a low morale, getting back on track and looking at your financial goals might help to jolt you and make you realize that there are things bigger than you.
• Build up your courage. Courage comes after committing to change not before and you need a lot of it to get out of a slump. You need to man up and face your problems head on because if you postpone it for another day, it will just compound with whatever struggles that creeps up in the future. If you have a problem with your card payment, talk to your lender and try to find out how you can work out a payment program because if you just hide from them, your payments will increase every month with all the fees and charges that is added to it.
• Make small steps. You are not expected to be able to instantly pay for all your debts and raise your financial confidence through the roof in one day. Unless you win the lottery, you would need to work day in and day out to reach your goals whether it involves paying off your debts or saving up enough money to make a downpayment on a house. CNN.com explains that a little bit of work can go a long way in getting to your target destination.Put one foot in front of the other and the next thing you know, you are running.  
• Repeat best practices. One way to get your confidence up is to get small victories and you can do this by going back to what works with your finances. If cooking and planning your family meals help you save some funds every month then continue doing that. If carpooling and using your car on weekends only gets you to save on transportation cost them keep at it. Keep doing what works and improve on the ones that did not produce desired results along the way.
• Listen and learn from other people. Take advantage of the wisdom of older people because there is a big chance that they already experienced what you are going through and would know how to handle financially challenging situations. This can be your parents or even professors you looked up to in college. It can even be officemates or friends who can give you quality pieces of money advice. You can also look to get tips from financial gurus by looking them up online or you can get a financial adviser. It might set you back a little but the cost can be justified with how well you can plan in reaching your goals.

Payment strategies that can help increase confidence

If the primary reason for your lack of confidence is debt, here are a few things that you can look into help you regain back your financial morale.

• Debt consolidation can give you more control. It is frustrating to miss out on some payments because you cannot seem to stay on top of things and this is where debt consolidation comes in to help. If you cannot stay on top of multiple payments every month, you can choose to combine them under one account. You only have to remember one due date, one interest rate and one payment amount every month.
• Use debt snowball payment. Paying off the smallest balance first gives some sort of small victory and builds up momentum that snowballs into the rest of the payment challenges. This is a great way to build up your confidence as you slowly cross out those debt amounts.
• Look into auto debit payments. Time is one of the most important resource you have because unlike money where you can earn what you have lost, you can never get back time that already past by. That is why if you can automate your payments, grab the chance so you can allot your time for family or self improvement. This also goes well with debt consolidation because you only automate a few accounts which is easier to manage.
• Positive reinforcement helps. You might want to look into small rewards from time to time to help keep you going. But you need to be careful with this and not use the opportunity to buy things that are out of reach. You need to consider your budget and not buy expensive clothes only because you were able to lower down your electricity bill at home. You might go for ice cream or spending a weekend in the park to relax.

Your financial confidence can play a crucial role with how you approach your money management. If your confidence is too low, you might not pay any attention anymore to paying your bills on time and get into delinquency or default. You need to get it back up so you can reach your financial goals.