Today’s times are growing increasingly troubled, especially so with the specter of COVID-19 still hanging upon all of our heads alongside the economic effects that the pandemic has, and still is, inflicting upon the entirety of the world economy. And as a student whose economic capabilities are semi-stable at best and shaky at worst, I can definitely relate to the plight of my fellow students across the world as they deal with the pandemic and its economic effects, especially those folks dealing with student debt.

This is all troublesome enough already, but fortunately, there are solutions to deal with all these, and it mostly involves investment. Not in the stock investment kind of way, but more so time and monetary investment and finding the dividing line between wants and needs.

FIGURE OUT WHERE THE MONEY’S GOING

First things first, we need to clear up the financial fog as soon as possible.

What exactly does this entail? Why? It involves taking note of your expenditures, every action, and every purchase that causes the green line to dip downward. Clearing up the fog surrounding your finances also means finding out just how much money you make and finding out what causes the line to go up and up.

All this needs to be done so you can calculate whether or not your financials trend toward the green or, worse, the red. If you ever find yourself in the latter category, don’t worry! There’s a solution.

EXPENDITURE CUTS

And it involves expenditure cuts, and in my case? Lots of expenditure cuts.

This goes right after you figure out just how much you make and spend. If you’re in the green, congratulations! You don’t need the rest of this that much, though if you plan on increasing how much money you can save, it still would be best that you cut down on some expenditures regardless.

But if you’re in the red, however, cutting down expenditures turns from an option into a necessity. I, for one, had to cut down on my prolific online shopping habits to clean up my finances, along with so many other cuts to spending, resulting in my finances being restored from a shaky red line into a stable green one.

SMART INVESTMENTS

And now that you’re in the green, what do you do to keep yourself in the green? Or get even higher?

Why? You invest your time and money well, of course.

Well-placed investments of your money, be it in the textbook definition of stock investment kind or the purchase investment kind, will allow you to slowly but surely push the trend of your monetary gains upward and upward. Anything that causes you to gain in the long term will be a smart investment of your money.

And there you have it, a couple of tips and tricks for getting your people and your finances out of the red and into that glorious green. And all of these are especially important to know about now that the pandemic’s still raging and all the other notable events in the world are happening.