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Financial Wellness Month: Hands-On Learning

It’s no secret that we are facing a challenging economic climate. Consumer spending has slowed, while prices seem to only increase. Recently, Mississippi’s credit rating changed from “negative” to “stable,” showing positive signs for our state, but I know it’s still tough around many kitchen tables.

April is Financial Wellness Month, a time when the Mississippi Treasury spends a little extra time helping Mississippians focus on personal money management. That’s not to say that we have all the answers – or that “just a few tweaks” will solve a person’s money woes. There’s no silver bullet.

The truth is that many are still recovering from President Biden’s economy, which saw record-breaking inflation. Under his administration, grocery costs skyrocketed, housing prices quickly ticked up, and energy costs hit historic levels. We’re still coming down from those levels.

So, the question in recent years has really become what we do to manage our finances when it seems like there’s so much working against us? Regions Bank offers a few tips for us.

First, they recommend starting with your goals. What is important to you financially right now? Saving for retirement? Paying off debt? Keeping yourself out of further debt? Write the goals down. Prioritize them. And track your progress.

Second, they recommend reworking your budget. They explain: “Start by adding up your monthly income. Then, record how much money you plan to save each month. From there, walk through a number of spending categories — utilities, transportation, health, and wellness, etc. — and write down how much you plan to spend each month. At the end, review your monthly totals and tweak your numbers until you’re pleased with the result.” I know this sounds like common sense, but how many of us actually take the time to do this? Probably very few. Take the time to do it.

Finally, they recommend focusing on paying down the debt you hold with the highest interest rates first. That will help reduce your costs in the long run. If your debts all have similar interest rates, start with the smallest balance first and get inspired by a few early wins.

This Financial Wellness Month, I encourage you to tackle just one or two of the recommendations above. We’ll be sharing more ideas in the weeks ahead, but if you’d like to dig in faster, please visit treasury.ms.gov/FinancialEducation for more tools.