South of the border, our neighbours have dedicated an entire month to the importance of establishing and maintaining healthy financial habits by proclaiming April Financial Awareness Month. We thought we’d help spread the word by sharing some of our suggestions of how you can get more familiar with your finances.

Know Your Numbers
The first thing you need to do when you decide it’s time to get your financial house in order is to learn about its foundation.

To do this, you will need to know your numbers.  You’ll need to know what’s coming in each month and what’s going out each month (non-fixed expenses).

We encourage you to sit down, pull out your statements, and add your numbers up.  You’ll be shocked at how much you spend on non-essential items. For an easy to use template to track your spending, visit smartcookies.com.

Organize Your Debt and Build Up a Safety Net
Next, make a list of your debts owing, ranking from highest to lowest interest rate. Develop a plan on how to pay that money back, starting from the top of the list. For some of us, this meant taking on part-time jobs and contract work, or cutting out non-essentials from our spending plan, and for others it meant using the equity in our home.

Once you are debt-free, build yourself a cushion of at least four to six months salary. And make sure you are investing your money in a tax-free savings account. You work hard for your money; make sure it is working for you.

Fix Your Fico
FICO scores, the credit scores most lenders use to determine your credit risk, range from 300 to 900. The higher your FICO score, the lower risk you are considered to be to a creditor — and the less interest you’ll pay.

Most importantly, you should review your credit report and know your credit score.  Requesting a copy of your credit report for personal use does not affect your credit score. To order a copy of your credit score, visit transunion.ca or equifax.ca.

To keep your score high you should be making monthly payments on time, aim to have long-term credit in your name and keep your total balance owed to 35 per cent or less of your total credit available.

For more money saving tips, pick up a copy of our book Smart Cookies Guide to Making More Dough on sale in bookstores.  You can email questions or comments to smartcookies@metronews.ca.  

– Tune in Monday nights at 10:30 p.m. EST/PST on the W Network and be sure to visit
smartcookies.com for more tips.