“Where you are today is the sum of every choice you’ve ever made. If you don’t like where you are, start making different choices.” With encouragement focused on perseverance and responsibility like this, Dave Ramsey’s take on personal finance has grown immensely popular among those wanting to get out of debt and build personal wealth.

The concepts of personal finance are seemingly simple, but putting those ideas into practice is often difficult for many people. That’s why you need to use tools, resources and experts to help you accomplish your goals. At INB, our mission is to make banking easy for you – thereby improving many other aspects of your life – and an essential component of that is working with you to achieve financial progress.

The road toward financial health can be slow and often chock-full of obstacles. But progress is very exciting. Here are some of the best ways to realize immediate and lasting financial progress:

1. Set small goals for immediate results. When we recognize early, positive changes in our financial situation, this can become a catalyst for the perseverance and determination needed to continue on that path. It can be thrilling to look back and see a difference in a short time frame; progress is exciting and keeps you moving forward.
2. Create systems and cultivate habits in the beginning so that they become automatic. Repetition transforms your goals into habits. When you set up a routine or a system right away, it makes it much easier to keep up with – and acting on that task or system every single day requires less discipline when it can be put on autopilot. This is true for nearly every kind of action, from daily exercise to eating meals at home versus going out to a restaurant to logging your daily expenditures in your checkbook, spreadsheet or app.
3. Invest time now to save both time and money in the future. One of the key things people do to make financial progress is to take time now in order to get back that time, and money, in the days ahead. Where it may take extra time now to set up a detailed system for your accounting, for example, you’ll be rewarded in the future when you don’t have to deal with putting out the fires that come from a disorganized system. Planning ahead can feel tedious, but it always pays off with time and cost savings.
4. Utilize the expertise of others. We rely on the expertise of others because the way they have built up that expertise has been by doing and improving and learning over a long period of time. When we can apply their knowledge to our own personal situations, we avoid a time-consuming learning curve and immediately reap the benefits of their experience.

I’ve spent the last 30 years in the personal finance field. I’m a CPA and Dave Ramsey’s tax-endorsed local provider. Let me help you by sharing my decades of experience. Call me today so we can begin creating your personal-best system for accounting and taxes for your family or business. Together, let’s start moving down the path of positive financial progress!