How to Fix your Finances | Book Review

Budgeting is one of the first steps to learning how to fix your finances and as a budgeter and financial enthusiast, I love nothing more than acquiring knowledge from those with the know-how. Bola Sol is a mathematics and finance graduate who is passionate about getting women together to discuss money matters. She is the acclaimed writer of ‘How to save it, fix your finances‘ book in which she shares her knowledge on money from changing your money mindset, budgeting too investing and wellness.

Regular readers will know that I share tips on how to fix your finances both here on the blog (category: Money) and on my YouTube Channel (Budget with A July Dreamer). Everyday I am connecting with women who are financial savvy and I am enjoying learning from them as well as sharing some of my ‘know-how’ with budgeting and investing. I recently shared a post and video on Emergency Funds and how to build one for your family because emergency funds should be custom made for your particular needs.

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor, what I share in this blog is my own opinion.

How to Fix your Finances

Since reading ‘Black Girl Finance‘, I have been obsessed with finding fellow black women who write about money because there doesn’t seem to be many of the in the financial world. So stumbling upon ‘how to fix your finances aka how to save it’ by Bola Sol was just short of amazing, I can not wait to read all of her books. I want to mention that whilst the topics mentioned in her book those who are financially equipped (knowledge wise) will think of this as a great refresher, I did and loved reading someone’s take on the issues of budgeting, saving, debt and the like.

Each section in the book is clearly written and explained and what I loved is this book is only a 125 pages which made for the quickest read ever but I still re-read it for good measure. I always find that when I re-read books that I enjoyed, little nuggets of knowledge stay in my mind longer than would have if I only read the book once. So as not to spoil this book for others, I will share high level information for each of the 7 sections in her book and recommend sharing this book with anyone from 10/12 and older and for those who are not money savvy but are willing to learn.

Mindset

The mindset section always speaks the unspoken truth and gives us reminders to not speak ill to ourselves, instead of say ‘I am not good with money’ change it to something like, ‘I am learning to manage my finances better’. Other mindsets that we often posses especially those of African and Caribbean heritage is ‘its rude to talk about money’ because no one talks about it so we develop this phobia towards money and never learn from young how to manage it best.

Budget

Everyone manages their income differently, I, like many others prefer to have a budget to make sure we are telling money where it needs to go and not the other way round. There are different ways one can budget and you don’t need to stick to just one. I follow a ‘zero-based budget‘ which just means every single one of my pennies has a job in my budget whether its paying the mortgage or going into the fun pot. I also follow the 50-30-20 rule of managing my money where by 50% goes towards my living needs (mortgage, utilities), 30% towards my wants (holiday, Netflix) and 20% goes towards my savings (for those with debt, it would go towards debt).

Saving

When it comes to saving, people often struggle with this but following the 50-30-20 rule or just budgeting in general will help you see where you can save some money. In most cases if there is no money in the budget it is time to downsize or find a side hustle that can help you bring in more income. This is my personal take on saving but Bola teaches you how you can save from cash back schemes to discounts and much more. Because I budget, I know how much I can afford to save and every single month, I pay myself first before any other bills are paid.

Debt

As someone who has been in debt before and felt like the world’s biggest failure, I know how people feel when they are in debt. It can be such a struggle to get out of it but I managed to and so can you. I personally followed the Snowball method of paying off debt whereby you pay off the smallest first and so on. Others follow the Avalanche Method which calls for paying off the highest interest first. Bola in her book she breaks down types of debt and shares some debt reduction strategies that you can implement to become debt free.

Credit

The most common type of credit that many people are familiar with is credit cards, loans and the like. Obviously we all know that if you are in debt, it becomes harder for you to get good credit and you will need to work hard to repair your credit score to be in the lenders good books again. Bola discusses a lot about the pros and cons of credit cards, I think a lot of people could do with being educated about using credit cards and also improving their credit scores.

Invest

When it comes to investing, I know a bit but I am always eager to learn from others, Bola covers investing from investing on yourself to investing in the stock market and diversifying your investment portfolio. I personally invest in the stock market via mutual funds, single stocks and real estate. I have still got a long way to go but it truly pays to be knowledge or at least gather some knowledge on investing for your future.

Wellness

I love that Bola included a section on wellness, after the year we’ve all had we could all do with taking care of ourselves, protecting our peace and focusing on things that matter to us. Money can be such a stressor especially when you don’t know how to manage best what you have or when it is always short no matter where you pinch. Make sure to take a minute to just breath, go outside for some fresh air and come back to it once your brain cells have been rejuvenated.

I really enjoyed reading Bola’s book on how to fix your finances and recommend it highly for those wanting to brush up on personal finance management or don’t know where to start when it comes to managing money.