The Benefits of Using Technology to Help Manage Your Money
Using technology to manage financial tasks can reduce the amount you spend, save you time, and eliminate some of the most tedious tasks. Software, apps, and other tools have wide-ranging capabilities, reducing the stress that comes with money management.
1. Automate Tasks
The simplest financial tasks are sometimes a waste of time — technology can handle the task for you. For instance, you can set up regular payments to pay your credit card every month and avoid expensive late fees. You can even set up automation to pay your balance in full, whenever that’s possible.
2. Set Up Reminders
For bills you are unable to automate (or those you would prefer to manage yourself), you can set reminders to ensure that you are never a day late. Similarly, you can set reminders to tell you to check your account balances on a regular basis. This will help you quickly notice if anything is amiss.
3. Manage Your Finances Wherever You Are
If you have a busy lifestyle, it can be difficult to stay on top of your finances. You need to be able to manage your money wherever you are. Furthermore, it’s inconvenient to head to a bank every time you need to manage a payment. Download the app for your bank or, if you have accounts in different institutions, one that aggregates all your accounts in one place. Either way, you’ll be able to send money, request payments and refunds, and view transactions.
4. Create an Accurate Budget
Creating a budget is essential if you want to avoid overspending and increase your savings. The problem is that it’s difficult to know where to allocate your money when you’re working out a budget with just a pen and paper. Online budget tools and apps can look at your income and track your transactions to help you work out an accurate budget. Some will even designate funds to different categories, ensuring you never spend too much on a certain activity.
5. Compare Prices
You likely compare prices for major purchases, but you can save even more by comparison shopping smaller purchases as well. For instance, you can use a tool to find out where to buy the cheapest prescription medication. Even if you only have a few prescriptions, this can add up to large savings over the long term. There are also apps for comparing the prices of groceries, consumer goods, insurance, and even gasoline.
6. Go Paperless
It is easier to keep track of your finances when documents are in digital form. You can search to find any information you need instantly, rather than ransacking your house to find the paper you want. Plus, you’ll receive all communication immediately. In fact, some financial institutions now charge to send paper documents, meaning if you opt to go paperless, you’ll cut out another monthly cost.
7. Track Investments
Technology can help you diversify your portfolio or ensure that your investments are paying off. There are apps to track your preferred shares, notify you of new investment opportunities, and even to invest your money for you.
8. Avoid Financial Mistakes
Sometimes, it’s a challenge to distinguish a valid financial opportunity from a fraudulent one. Luckily, there are tools available to improve your understanding of all things financial with tips and information. Other tools will even protect your money from scams, comply with the terms of a contract to ensure you are never subject to a fine, or even check if a product is right for you.
9. Record Your Receipts
There are numerous reasons why you should save your receipts —to keep track of purchases, check costs against your credit card bill, or to claim work expenses or other tax-deductible expenses. However, receipts take up space and quickly fade, often making them illegible. You could take pictures of each receipt and save it to your phone or computer, but a better option is to use an app designed just for storing copies of your receipts.
10. Gather Coupons You’ll Use
With physical coupons, you need to cut each one out, save them, and try to remember what you have and when they’ll expire — this is far from ideal. Coupon apps take out the hard work, allowing you to collect coupons you’ll actually use and save them to your phone.
Some of these benefits will be more applicable to you than others. However, whatever your financial situation and whatever your aims for the future, you can definitely find some ways to take advantage of technology.
There’s no better time of the year than around the midpoint, June and July, to evaluate your finances and see where you stand with your budgeting, retirement contributions and other money-related matters.
This discussion will explore why you should perform a midyear financial review and how to go about doing so.
Oh almost 4got, have you done a mid year Financial Checkup?
The Timing Is Just Right
Why the middle of the year? The main reason is that it is the midpoint, which gives ample time to make any adjustments that need to be made. You need to determine if you are entirely on pace to complete the financial goals you set at the start of the year. Maybe your financial situation has changed in some manner (perhaps you're earning more or less than the beginning of the year). There's plenty of time left in the year to make the changes you need to get back on track for achieving those goals.
Another reason is that it's summer! Everyone thinks about a vacation in the summer, just like we think about turkey in November and roses in February. Maybe you can't afford a vacation this summer, but it is a great time to start thinking about the possibility of one next year and start planning, while the thoughts of warm, sandy beaches are fresh in your head.
Check Your Budget Against Your Goals
One of the first places to check in your midyear evaluation is your budget. If you don't have one in place, you might use this as a reminder to get started with tracking your spending. It’s good to have some sort of budget in place to protect you from overspending. If you already have one, you'll want to assess whether it is helping or hurting your chances of achieving your financial goals. You may not monitor your spending with a fine-toothed comb all year, so taking a quick look at where you are with your financial goals is a great way to see how effective your budget is performing.
If you're not on pace to reach these goals, then it is an excellent strategy to make adjustments with your budget that will better ensure success by the end of the year.
How Are Your Retirement Contributions Looking?
Before you commit to a new budget (if needed), don’t forget to take a look at your retirement contributions. You should do your best to maximize these investments, especially if your employer matches your contributions. It may not seem so important now, but the more you can dedicate towards your retirement future, the less you’ll have to struggle and play “catch-up” in the later stages of your career.
According to IRS , the most you can contribute to a 401(k) in 2019 is $19,000, or $25,000 for people 50 and over. It’s great to come close to this number, but if that isn’t possible with your earnings, you should at least have a goal set for how much you hope to contribute in a year.
I know it's hard to finance 80 years of living on 40 years of working. Get a side hustle, otherwise you'll work 'till you
die.
Start Thinking About The Holidays
The holidays are less than six months away! While that may seem like plenty of time to save, it always comes quicker than we think. This is a great point to start thinking about what you’ll spend during the holidays and making any changes to your budgets to accommodate this period of heavy shopping and spending.
Even if it is just a few dollars a week or a small monthly deposit, putting aside some money for the holidays will help you give yourself the gift of a debt-free holiday season. At the very least, you'll alleviate some of the pressure on your credit accounts.
Don't forget your vacation time, now is the time for most folks to plan their vacation.
Prepare For Your Performance Review
Another reason that the middle of the year is so timely for this financial checkup is that it coincides with the time that many employers hold employee performance reviews. These one-on-one meetings are an excellent time to talk salary and maybe see a raise. By assessing your finances, you'll have a better idea of what size raise would really help you reach your goals.
You may want to hop on the internet and research salaries for your position. Are you making a competitive wage compared to the rest of the industry? If not, you may be able to use this information to leverage higher pay.
Set New Financial Goals
A lot of individuals wait for the turn of a new year to set goals. It just feels like the right time to have a fresh start and make new plans. However, creating some six-month goals is also a great idea, especially if your current financial objectives aren't panning out the way you hoped.
You shouldn't feel locked into the goals you set at the beginning of the year. Don't be afraid to abandon them and start fresh midyear. After all, a lot can change in six months, and your original goals may just not be relevant anymore. Perhaps, you're well ahead of completing all of your financial goals, and you need to set some new ones to challenge yourself to save even more!
Take an in-depth look at your financial picture and think about where you hope to be by the close of the year. What sort of goals can you set and achieve, for the next six months, that help you reach that end-of-the-year financial position?
Conclusions
Taking the time to stop and explore your finances during the middle of the year is a safe and smart strategy. Use technology to assist you. Not only does it help you make wiser financial decisions throughout the remainder of the year, but you’ll also be able to assess the progress you’ve made towards achieving your financial goals, objectives and make the necessary adjustments. Or, start fresh with some completely new, half-year goals!
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