The key to sticking to your budget is having strong financial systems. My money system consists of two parts, first is the actual flow of cash in and out of my accounts determined by my budget. I've designed this so that I can take advantage of credit card rewards, automate savings transfers and avoid unnecessary fees. The second part includes the tools I use to make sticking to that budget easy and seamless.
Here is what the first part of my financial system looks like:
Here are all the tools I use to simplify my budget and make sure I stick to my financial goals. The best part is, they are all free to use!
Mint
I use Mint for all my budgeting needs. I link all my accounts–checking, saving and investing to Mint and it shows my financial picture all in one place. It's my primary app for tracking expenses, analyzing my spending, creating my budget and monitoring my credit score. I have a Mint widget set up on my phone's home screen that lists all my transactions. Each day I check my transactions
to make sure they are correctly labeled so that my remaining budget totals are accurate
to know that bills have been paid and
that there are no surprise transactions on my accounts
Each week Mint emails me a spending summary. It takes 2 minutes to glance over; the email also notifies you if there are any issues you need to take care of. Mint will also email you when they notice unusual spending which can be helpful but not a feature I rely on myself.
At the end of each month, I check my budget in the app and make sure its still in line with my priorities and readjust as needed if not. I also check for my net worth (particularly which direction its moving) and account balances. Mint also updates my credit score every three months.
Prism Prism is my one stop shop for bill pay. I use the app to pay bills and manage my cash flow. Prism allows you to schedule all your bill payments from one place, tells you your current balance so you don't overdraft and allows you to track when you get paid so you manage cash flow. It makes bill pay super easy particularly for someone like me who has many accounts with many different companies and doesn't want to log it each one.
Personal Capital
Personal Capital is a lot like Mint in that it allows you to track and analyze expenses however I only use Personal Capital to track my investments. I also use it to analyze performance and ensure my portfolio is meeting my goals. Unlike Mint, I can manually connect investment accounts to Personal Capital and quite a few of my investment accounts don't sync with Mint. This way I can be sure my entire investment portfolio is accounted for.
Personal Capital also offers great tools for analyzing your portfolio and calculating if you are on track for retirement. It will tell you down to the dollar amount you need to adjust your portfolio. I’ve also used Personal Capital to teach myself about portfolio diversification. If you'd like to give it a try, use my referral link and get $20 to start.
FileThis
I use FileThis as my virtual file cabinet. You can connect up to 6 bank accounts to FileThis for free. FileThis automatically downloads your monthly statements and saves them to place of your choosing (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc). Most banks only keep the last 12 to 18 months of statements available online. This way I always have what I need when I need it. I don't check my statements unless I need to check a discrepancy in my bill but when I do need to I can simply find the folder in my Google Drive in seconds instead of having to log in to the site and click through a million screens. Give FileThis a try using my referral link and I can connect an extra account for free.
Are there other money apps you love? Let me know!
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