This year, instead of trying to set yourself a rigorous written budget or manually save 10% (or more) of your income, you need to take advantage of the various tools available to you. You can delegate willpower and meet your financial goals with a lot less effort.
Here are five free financial tools that can help you meet all of your money-related resolutions.
Personal Capital (Budgeting on Steroids)
Personal capital is free software that will track your net worth, investments, income, and expenses. Basically, you can see everything you want to know in regards to your finances, all with a few clicks.
To get started with Personal Capital all you need to do is link up your various banking and investment accounts and their app will track everything for you.
You can sign up here.
Capital One 360 (Breakdown the Savings Goals and Automate)
Capital One 360 is hands down my favorite online bank. With Capital One 360 you can create multiple saving accounts and nickname them for each of your financial goals. (I have several.) After that you can link up your savings account to your normal checking account and automate your savings goals.
You can sign up with Capital One 360 here.
Betterment (Retirement Savings)
If you’ve yet to start saving for retirement your first step should be checking in with the HR department and signing up for your 401k. However, if you’re employer doesn’t offer a retirement plan you need to set one up for yourself, Betterment can help!
With Betterment it’s extremely easy to set up IRA’s and other investment accounts. The process only takes a few minutes and based on your risk profile Betterment will automatically invest your monthly contributions into low cost ETFs. If you’re new to investing this will take all of the guess work out of the process.
You can sign up for Betterment here.
Loyal3 (Taxable Investments)
Loyal3 is a company I decided to check out last year and that I now truly love. Loyal3 offers FEE-FREE investments! No more paying $10 every time you want to buy or sell a stock. There are seriously no transaction fees whatsoever.
The downside though, is that there are currently only a limited number of stocks to choose from. However, if you’re working with a small budget you can buy partial shares for as little as $10, making this an excellent option.
Click here to sign up for Loyal3.com.
Credit Karma (Free Credit Scores)
Lastly, it’s always a good idea to check your credit score at least quarterly. Consider signing up with Credit Karma to monitor your credit and get a free credit score as the year progresses.
If you utilize the tools that are available to you and automate important parts of your finances you won’t have to worry about willpower and will be on track to accomplish your financial goals this year.
Lastly, there are a couple of other good free resources you should consider. The Flexible Retirement Planner is a great tool that nobody has ever heard of. This isn’t because of its quality, its because the company running it simply hasn’t promoted it. Also consider Portfolio Visualizer. Both software packages are totally free, you just have to go to the webpages and download the software packages onto your computer.