Jeffrey Campbell - February 2021

Jeffrey Campbell - February 2021

www.MayfieldHeightsCPA.com (440) 720-0959

February 2021

Save Your Money With These Useful Budgeting Tricks

Saving money can be a challenge at any time, but last year made sticking with a savings plan especially difficult. However, this is a new year, and it’s the perfect time to start budgeting. Plus, with Tax Day on the horizon, it’s wise to start looking over your finances sooner rather than later. The first step to build your savings is to create and maintain a budget, which I know is easier said than done. Many people start using one, but after a couple months, they forget to update it with their current expenses. If you can find a budgeting system that works for you, this is a sure way to become an adamant saver. To help you get started, here are a few tips I’ve found very useful for devising a plan. Before you begin making your budget, find out where your money is coming from (income) and going to (expenses). Spend some time looking through your pay stubs, bank statements, and any other financial documentation you may have. Depending on how many documents you have and how far back you need to go, this can take a couple days. To make it easier, plan a weekend where you can focus solely on gathering all your financial information. Once you have this information at hand, calculate your monthly income. When you know your total after-tax income, you can calculate your total monthly expenses. These will include mortgage or rent, auto payments, electricity, food, insurance, medical expenses, and any other expenses, such as entertainment or a gym membership. Your total income minus your total expenses (if it’s in the positive) will show you what you’re able to put into your savings.

This familiar method is widely used to understand personal cash flow. Though this number reveals what you can save without effort, the challenge is to increase that number by reducing your expenses. To stay on track and ensure you are saving, one useful method is creating a weekly budget by tracking your typical weekly expenses. I’ll admit, it can be challenging at first. Withdraw your budgeted spending amount at the beginning of the week and limit yourself to using only that money to make purchases. Then, reduce that amount every week by $10, which will force you to think about where you can start cutting costs. While difficult, once you get used to this method, you’ll have far more money to put toward your savings. If you’re struggling to keep track of your finances, I recommend using a reliable budgeting app. Spending Tracker and Goodbudget are both easy to use and allow you to plug in your income and expenses to track where your money is going and how much you spend on different categories. Goodbudget even allows you to keep track of everything straight from your phone, iPad, laptop, or any preferred device, which makes updating and understanding your finances a little easier. Finding a budget plan that works for you might take some time, but you won’t regret the effort you put into it. You’ll be able to see which expenses you can cut, and it’ll feel great to see your savings grow. — Jeffrey Campbell

(440) 720-0959

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The Truth About Dark Chocolate

As you give and get chocolate for Valentine’s Day (or jump on post-holiday chocolate sales), you’ll probably hear that dark chocolate is healthy for you. Before you decide to incorporate dark chocolate into your daily diet, you should ask yourself what that means. Can dark chocolate really be “healthy”?

However, the amount of flavanols found in a typical 1-ounce piece of 80% dark chocolate is very small. Alice H. Lichtenstein, a Gershoff professor of nutrition science and policy at Tufts University in Boston, says, “Dark chocolate has more flavanols than other types of chocolate; the >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4

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