Want to save money this year? Here’s advice from a local expert<\/p>\n
Did you make a New Year\u2019s resolution to tighten up your budget?<\/p>\n
5 EYEWITNESS NEWS sat down with a financial advisor on New Year\u2019s Day for practical advice on saving money and building wealth in 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first thing people should always make sure they have is a cash reserve,\u201d said Bjorn Amundson of Quarry Hill Advisors in St. Paul. \u201cI always recommend you have three to six months of your spending in a cash reserve. Normally, it\u2019s best to be in a high-yield account, so you\u2019re getting some interest on your cash reserve as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then, he recommends looking at the biggest changes you can make with your finances.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people think that the way to wealth is to cut out the $6 coffee or something but I\u2019m more the philosophy of looking at, what are the big things in your budget that really move the needle? What are the really big things you can change so you can have a nice amount of free cash flow? Sometimes that means a different apartment, sometimes that means paying off a car or paying off a credit card,\u201d Amundson said.<\/p>\n
Amundson also suggests setting up two checking accounts.<\/p>\n
\u201cHave your \u2018core\u2019 checking account that all of your essentials are going to come out of, so that would be your rent, your heating bill, maybe your life insurance payment. And then have that account shoot a certain amount into your \u2018spending\u2019 account every month,\u201d Amundson explained. \u201cA lot of the time when you have the \u2018spend\u2019 account separate, you\u2019re going to start to notice those little things that are sucking up money from you. If that \u2018spend\u2019 account is building up a little bit, well, you can go on vacation. But if it\u2019s drawing down, then you better not go out to eat and you better start getting a little bit tighter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amundson also recommends slashing unnecessary subscriptions and negotiating phone or internet plans.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had a lot of luck switching internet providers. If you switch between them every couple of years, you can normally get a new introductory rate that way,\u201d said Amundson.<\/p>\n
He also suggests writing down your net worth every month, including your checking account, savings account, 401k and home equity, and then tracking your net worth over the course of the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo by next year, you can look back and see all the progress you\u2019ve made, and it really is encouraging,\u201d Amundson said.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFor Related Stories:\u00a0Alex Jokich<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Budget<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Money<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0New Year’s<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Want to save money this year? Here’s advice from a local expert Did you make a New Year\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[186693,150,28,2066,184525,147,530],"class_list":{"0":"post-383006","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-alex-jokich","9":"tag-budget","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-money","12":"tag-new-years","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}