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Hi everyone! Today we have a guest post from Greg at Club Thrifty.Greg Johnson is a personal finance and frugal travel expert who leveraged his online business to quit his 9-5 job, spend more time with his family, and travel the world. He is the co-owner of the popular blog Club Thrifty, where he teaches others how to spend less and travel more.
Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned money maven, proper money management is the key to financial success. The cornerstone of that success lays in tracking your funds.
Relax. Tracking your finances doesn’t have to be such a pain.
In fact, there are several inexpensive and free tools that can help you get the job done like a pro. Check out these 5 personal finance tools to get started right away.
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Personal Capital
Personal Capital offers several free financial tools that we have used for years. We love them and highly recommend them.
Personal Capital’s suite of wealth management tools allows you to do everything from setting up a monthly budget to tracking your investments to planning your retirement.
The best part of the whole deal is that these tools are completely free.
Personal Capital’s notable features include:
- A monthly spending tracker that provides you with a daily, weekly, or yearly view of how you spend your money. This is one of my favorite features because it makes it easy to see if you’re overspending. Personal Capital is that friend who tells you, “Hey buddy, you better watch it. You could be doing so much better if you weren’t eating out so much.”
- A net worth tracker that gives you the exact picture of your assets and debts to keep you moving in the right direction.
- A Retirement Planner to help you plan for a financially comfortable retirement.
- AES-256 Bank Level Encryption. Personal Capital has layers of high-level encryption that protect you from identity theft and the loss of your money.
Personal Capital also offers wealth management services to investors for a fee. However, you are under no obligation to sign up…and you can still use the tools for free.
For a program that has so many features, Personal Capital is also very user-friendly.
If your financial situation is complicated and involves investments, college funds, retirements accounts, business accounts, and the like, I highly recommend Personal Capital.
Check out Personal Capital here.
YNAB
YNAB stands for You Need A Budget.
Unlike Personal Capital, YNAB does just two things, but it does them very well.
It allows you to:
- Create guilt-free budgets
- Track your spending so you know where every dollar you earn is going
So, what is a guilt-free budget?
The people at YNAB understand that life happens. And, when life happens, sometimes that means that budgets need to be adjusted.
YNAB is a tool that allows you to adjust your budget while giving you room to take steps towards your financial goals.
YNAB is free to try for 34 days. Then, it’s $6.99 per month to use it.
When it comes to budgeting software, in my opinion, the $6.99/month you will pay is well worth it.
Everydollar
Everydollar is a simple personal finance tool that runs on the principle that every single dollar you earn needs to be assigned a “job.” In essence, it helps you create a plan for every dollar you earn.
So, money for your car payment goes into one “envelope.” Money for the mortgage goes in another. If you go over budget in one category, you need to “borrow” money from another.
This type of system prevents money from getting “lost.” It also gives you a clear picture of how much you’re spending on bills and what you have left over once everything is paid.
Using Everydollar is free, and it is available to Android and Apple users as an app. You can also sign into your Everydollar account online and use it on your desktop.
If your financial situation is fairly simple or you are new to budgeting, Everydollar is an excellent choice for getting started.
Mint
Mint is an oldie that has stood the test of time.
Once you have signed up for Mint and connected all of your accounts, you can create a budget, track your spending, and even stay on top of your bills all from within the Mint app.
You can use Mint on a desktop, as well, and sync it with your mobile device.
Mint’s features include:
- A credit score tracker to help you stay on top of your credit. This app even helps you stay on top of it with personalized advice to further improve your score.
- Preset budget categories that apply to almost everyone including grocery, rent/mortgage, gasoline, and phone bills. You can also create and name your own custom categories.
- A color-coded system that alerts you when you have gone over or under your budget for a particular category.
Since Mint is free to use, it’s also an excellent choice.
Robinhood
Making a budget and paying off debt is straightforward. When it comes to talking about investing, however, it is common to get blank stares.
Investing doesn’t have to be hard, especially when you have the right tools.
When you invest with Robinhood, there are no commissions or minimum deposit requirements like there are at places like E-trade or Scottrade. Additionally, you can create a personalized news feed of investment stocks you are interested in so you can keep track of their market activity. Best of all, you learn to trade simply by trading.
No fluff. No bells and whistles. Just an opportunity for you to invest as little or as much as you want no matter where you are in the world.
Robinhood securely stores your information with multiple layers of encryption. It is also a member of SIPC which means that your money is protected up to $500,000.
Robinhood is available for both Android and Apple users.
Learn more about Robinhood here.
Closing Thoughts
Taking charge of your money doesn’t have to be complicated. Thankfully, there is a myriad of tools you can take advantage of.
So, what money management tool do you use or thinking about trying?
