Have you ever asked yourself: How much money do I actually spend per month? How much money do I need to be able to afford something specific and can I even afford it? How much money can and should I actually save or invest? And how do I actually become financially independent?

Yes? A good financial overview will help you answer these questions. By the way, it is also the basis for your path to financial freedom and has a positive effect on your financial well-being — because the resulting transparency and control reduces financial stress and helps you set money aside.

Get an overview of your finances

But how do you create such a financial overview? It's simple, you start by listing all your income and expenses, such as living expenses, i.e. fixed costs, but also variable costs such as leisure activities. You can do this with pen and paper, with a budget book or a financial app. Once you have written everything down, you can determine your surplus by comparing your income and expenditure, i.e. whether you have money left over every month. This overview then serves as a start to regularly track your finances, set budgets or start saving or investing.

Ideally, you should supplement your — presumably month-based — financial overview with assets, i.e. money in your call money account, fixed-term deposit account, savings account or custody account, real estate or other assets. This allows you to see all your belongings at a glance.

Budget planning

Once you've created your financial overview, you can quickly see where your money is going, what you're spending more on than you probably think and where you can save money. And you'll probably see more red withdrawals than green cash receipts. Regardless of how well you earn, this can quickly trigger an unpleasant feeling or even stress. Many feel the same way.

One way to reduce your spending or at least spend money more consciously is to set budgets. Budgets are nothing more than set limits for specific spending categories, such as restaurant visits, shopping or travel, which you can set yourself. There are many rules of thumb for both budget planning, such as the 50/30/20 rule, which can provide you with guidance. But make sure that budgets should be realistic and fit your life — because unrealistic budgets lead to non-compliance and ultimately frustration. Budgets ultimately help you control your spending and save money.

Saving and investing

If you already have money left over at the end of the month or want to get there through your budgets, the question is what do you do with the rest of the money. You probably want to save money or invest money. Using the financial overview, you can therefore determine your potential savings amount. One Hurdle to Starting Saving or Investing is often that we don't even know how much money we can set aside. You can now use the monthly savings rate known to you from the overview for major goals such as retirement planning or your pension or wishes. Of course, you can also divide them up into multiple goals.

Conclusion

So when you create your financial overview, you become your own financial planner. The overview gives you security and transparency about your financial situation and serves as a starting point for planning your financial future. Goodbye financial stress, hello healthy money mindset!

And yes, we know that it sounds easy and super annoying at the same time to create such a financial overview. But it doesn't have to be that way. Feel free to enjoy yourself — with a delicious drink or snack in a nice place. In the end, your financial overview is self-care, because it brings you many benefits and well-being.

More support is available in our app

With our financial app, you can create your financial overview. There, we offer you a budget book template to track income and expenses and determine your savings amount, and other worksheets and digital tools. (In cooler than the word budget book sounds.) This makes saving or starting investing very easy not only with appropriate financial knowledge, but also with an overview of your individual finances.

‍