4 Micro-Habits That Can Improve Your Finances

You’ve probably heard that it’s hard to change your habits and takes an average of 66 days to solidify a new routine. However, some habits aren’t as hard to implement as, say, eating healthy or working out. These easy daily tasks are known as micro-habits because they don’t take up a lot of time or require you to make any big lifestyle changes, but can improve your well-being over time.

Many money-related micro-habits can improve your finances without demanding a lot of time or effort, such as rounding up your purchases and listening to finance podcasts. Here’s an overview of four beneficial financial micro-habits you can easily add to your daily routine today.

4 Beneficial Financial Micro-Habits

Educate Yourself

We all spend hours every week commuting to work, doing the dishes, and working out. Instead of zoning out while doing these mundane tasks, try listening to a financial podcast instead, such as Afford Anything or ChooseFI.

Turning on a financial podcast doesn’t require you to make any big changes to your routine, but will make a huge difference in your financial literacy over time. Knowledge is power, and learning more about investing, real estate, and retirement planning will enable you to make better money moves and get closer to achieving your financial goals.

Daily Money Check-In

Doing a money check-in every day has made it so much easier to stick to my budget. Logging into my credit card account daily and checking my balance helps keep me accountable and only takes a minute or two. If I’m beginning to overspend and trending toward going over my budget, I’m able to quickly correct the issue because I’m closely monitoring my transactions.

Before I started reviewing my accounts daily, it might’ve taken me a week or more to realize I was overdoing it, leaving me with a big credit card balance to sort out. Now I feel much more on top of my money and can meet my financial goals easily, which has greatly reduced my stress levels.

Every week, I also make sure to check my savings and investment account balances and my credit score. This gives me a bird’s eye view of my net worth and financial health to ensure I’m on the right track.

Round Up Your Purchases

Another micro-habit that can improve your finances is rounding up your purchases. Apps like Acorns and Greenlight round your purchases to the nearest dollar and automatically save or invest those extra cents, making it easy to set aside money for the future.

Although you’ll only save a small amount with each purchase, over time those round-ups can add up and boost your savings rate. And best of all, you don’t even have to think about moving money around or making trades because your round-up app will handle the process for you.

However, if you want to take a tech-free approach, you can transfer some money to your investment account whenever you buy something on sale and manage to save a few dollars. Instead of spending that extra money, you can funnel it to your brokerage account and use it to increase your net worth.

Pause Before You Purchase

Impulse purchases are a big problem for many Americans. Over 70% of adults say that most of their purchases are spontaneous. So changing your mindset from “buy now” to “pause before purchasing” can save you a lot of money!

Personal finance experts recommend that you sleep on major purchases for a night or two before you pull the trigger. But even letting things sit in your cart for 20 or 30 minutes can help cut down your spending. Slowing down the purchasing process gives you time to read reviews, compare prices to find a better deal, and ask yourself if you want or need whatever’s in your cart.

Pausing before you purchase can help you figure out if you’re buying something you genuinely need, or shopping out of boredom or sadness. This helps reduce buyer’s remorse and enables you to hold on to more of your hard-earned money.

What are some micro-habits you’ve adopted to improve your finances? Share your tips in the comments below!

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Vicky Monroe

Vicky Monroe is a freelance personal finance and lifestyle writer. When she’s not busy writing about her favorite money saving hacks or tinkering with her budget spreadsheets, she likes to travel, garden, and cook healthy vegetarian meals.