A financial planner reveals the 2 easiest ways to improve your finances

Certified financial planner Lauren Lyons Cole talks about the importance of tracking your finances. The following is a transcript of the video.

The best way to save more money is actually pretty easy. All you need to do is start tracking your money. So without even changing your behavior, if you just start to watch it and pay attention to where your money goes every month, you'd be amazed at how likely you are to pull back on spending.

So many times it's like you know we're going out to dinner or were deciding to go on a trip with friends and we're not really thinking about it. When you start tracking that every single day it forces you to think about it and in my experience watching clients in New York City once they start tracking it they tend to start pulling back on the amount of money they're spending. By default you end up saving more.

The easiest way to put your finances in a better situation, rather than trying to cut back on spending, is definitely to earn more money. You might be able to pick up an extra job or create some sort of side hustle that will bring in extra money using skill sets you're not using during the week at your current job.

If you want to make more money where you're at today, it could be as simple as just scheduling some time with your boss, your manager, and saying, "Listen, here's my long-term goal. Here's where I'd like to be." You don't have to make it about finances but if it's about improving your own career over time and adding more value to the company you'll end up being able to negotiate for more salary.

If you're at a company, and I definitely see this, where they're a little bit resistant to paying you more money, that could be a time where it's important to start shopping your skills around and looking for a place. You know often the biggest salary bump you'll get is when you trade jobs so you might need to start sending out resumes.