Social workers to boost family success through truths

We all need to hear difficult truths sometimes, especially when it involves detrimental banking practices.

09:53 07 July 2013

Ms. Casey spoke about the need for social workers to perhaps share difficult truths with struggling families in an effort to gain fairness and equalized ability to succeed in society. It is interesting to note that we sometimes need to tell ourselves the truth when it comes to our banking practices.

We may be overspending, paying late, or any number of things that can damage our credit rating and impact our ability to achieve beneficial financial advantages. Unless we are very honest with ourselves about our habits, we will not be able to overcome them and improve our situations. Here are a few steps to help you maximize your ability to succeed.

• Sort out everything—the first part is probably the least fun, and the most time consuming, but also the most critical for analyzing banking practices. Locate all the documents, whether electronic or paper, and collect everything together so you can write down a list of all your expenses and how frequently they occur: weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually, etc.

 

• Review costs—now that you have a comprehensive list of your expenses, compare it to your income. If you are supposed to have more left over at the end of the month than what you actually have, try to find out the cause of the depletion. Also analyze your banking expenses to see if there are any you can eliminate or combine for discounts and other reductions.

 

• Awareness—this may be a little difficult, but you will want to be more aware than normal of how you spend and other banking practices. If you tend to spend more when you shop with cash, try shopping with your debit card or vice versa. If you find yourself getting home and wondering why you purchased something, try leaving money at home and window-shopping so you don’t impulse buy, or create a list and adhere to it.