The post How to Become Financially Stable appeared first on Penny Pinchin' Mom.

lThese are things you must due in order to improve your financial stability.

Let’s talk about financial stability. The truth is, living a financially stable lifestyle leads to all kinds of great things like great credit scores.  You have a savings pillow to fall back on during hard times.  It allows you more possibilities in everything from choice of car, home, vacation and everything in between.

The bottom line is, living a financially stable lifestyle is more important today than ever before and will continue to gain importance throughout the future. That being said, here are 3 things that you can do to improve your level of financial stability…

CREATE A BUDGET

Budgets are one thing that everyone knows they should have but few people actually do! The simple fact is, either people simply don’t want to sit down for the 2 or 3 hours it might take to make a budget or they don’t know the first place to start.

Think about all of the things that might need to be included in your spreadsheet. You will need to track your monthly income, monthly bills, debts, savings and goals.

You can use your favorite spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel, Google Docs, or any other program and make a spreadsheet that will track all of this information.

If you’re not too great with spreadsheets, don’t worry, I recently wrote a step by step guide including screenshots of steps on how to make a budget spreadsheet.

TRACK YOUR CREDIT

Your credit score is going to follow you around for your entire life. Even after you pass, what your credit report displays could put a dent in your estate! That being said, it’s always a good idea to get a copy of your credit report about every 4 months.

Doing so will help you to understand who you owe money to and, what you can do to improve upon your overall levels of debt and income. Also, it’s important to make sure that your credit report is accurate. By getting a copy of your credit report every 4 months, as soon as anything changes, you can make sure that it changes on your credit report as well.

The law requires the 3 major credit reporting agencies to provide consumers with a copy of their credit report once per year. So, you won’t have to pay for yours! Simply go to www.AnnualCreditReport.com and request your report from a different reporting agency every 4 months and you don’t pay a dime!

SECURE YOUR IDENTITY

I’ve never been to any nice houses that didn’t have alarm systems. Even in the ritzy areas, homeowners have an alarm on their house to protect the stability of their home.

Your identity is just as important as your home and, identities are stolen at similar rates to home break ins! It is important to take simple steps to protect your identity, especially when making risky purchases. For instance, any online purchase should be considered as a risky purchase but, there is a safe way to do it.

First, use a service like PayPal that provides fraud protection. Next, only enter your payment information into websites that have an active security certificate. You can tell by looking at the URL. If it starts in https://, you are on a secure page within the website. If it starts with anything else, you should not enter any payment or personal identification information.

You may also consider looking into identity theft protection services as they are pretty cheap and can save you tons!

This article was written by Joshua Rodriguez, proud owner and founder of CNA Finance and avid personal finance journalist. Join the conversation with Joshua on Google+!

The post How to Become Financially Stable appeared first on Penny Pinchin' Mom.

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