{"id":1930,"date":"2011-05-01T02:54:32","date_gmt":"2011-05-01T02:54:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dailygouge.com\/?p=1930"},"modified":"2017-02-26T02:01:54","modified_gmt":"2017-02-26T02:01:54","slug":"confused-finances-money-management-solution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maysfinancial.local\/articles\/confused-finances-money-management-solution\/","title":{"rendered":"Confused About Money? Too Much Information? Here&#8217;s a Solution"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Do you have a hard time keeping up with your finances?\u00a0 Many of us do.\u00a0 This contributes to missed payments, overdraft and bad credit scores.\u00a0 This means <strong>thousands of dollars in extra fees and interest<\/strong><strong>.<\/strong>\u00a0 That&#8217;s money that you could be using.\u00a0 <strong>When we don&#8217;t know what&#8217;s going on with our finances we&#8217;re throwing money away and risking significant financial trouble like bankruptcy and foreclosure.<\/strong>\u00a0 Let\u2019s talk about some ways to simplify your finances and get back in control.<\/p>\n<h3>Why should we simplify our finances?<\/h3>\n<p>Research tells us that <strong>as the amount and complexity of information increases, we&#8217;re less likely to take action and make decisions.\u00a0<\/strong> This means that <strong>unless we simply our finances and make them easier to understand we\u2019ll continue to fall behind, miss opportunities and throw money away.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Research also tells us that falling behind, missing opportunities and throwing money away are the best ways to stay broke&#8230;\u00a0 <strong>Let&#8217;s get started.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>What kind of information should we have frequent and easy access to?<\/h3>\n<p>There&#8217;s a lot of financial information that we need to keep up with, here are some examples:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Cash flow (money in vs. money out)<\/li>\n<li>Account balances (savings, checking, etc.)<\/li>\n<li>Credit card balances<\/li>\n<li>Other debt balances (mortgage, car loan, etc.)<\/li>\n<li>Bill payments &amp; due dates<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Without this information we&#8217;re driving blind, wasting time and losing money.<\/strong>\u00a0 That works for the credit card companies who want you in debt for the rest of your life, but <strong>don&#8217;t you want to be debt free and financially independent someday?<\/strong>\u00a0 Having access to this information will allow us to make better decisions and move towards financial independence.<\/p>\n<h3>What can we do with this information?<\/h3>\n<p>With this information we can do a lot of things to <strong>make financial progress and take advantage of opportunities.<\/strong>\u00a0 Here are a few examples:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Prioritize debt to pay it off faster and save money in interest.<\/li>\n<li>Invest idle cash for better returns.<\/li>\n<li>Ensure account balances stay positive to avoid overdraft and other unnecessary fees.<\/li>\n<li>Setup automatic bill pay to avoid missed payments.<\/li>\n<li>Track cash flow (money in and money out) to find any unauthorized purchases or transactions.<\/li>\n<li>Compare interest rates to save money.<\/li>\n<li>Decide whether to refinance your mortgage or consolidate debt.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>You\u2019ve convinced me, how do I make it happen?<\/h3>\n<p>Our main goal is to be able to<strong> view all of our financial information in one place in a simple and easy to understand format.<\/strong>\u00a0 There are two primary ways to do this:<\/p>\n<p>1. Use financial dashboard\/aggregation software.<\/p>\n<p>2. Consolidate your finances at as few financial institutions as possible.<\/p>\n<p>Because it&#8217;s not always possible to completely combine our finances, we&#8217;ll often use both strategies.<\/p>\n<h4>Using\u00a0a financial dashboard\/aggregation software<\/h4>\n<p>This is the simplest method using <strong>free software like Mint.com.<\/strong>\u00a0 In addition to Mint there are other free and paid solutions, though I&#8217;m not too familiar with them.\u00a0 Personally, I recommend using Mint.com since <strong>it&#8217;s free, easy to use and has a free phone app so you can reach your information from anywhere.<\/strong>\u00a0 We&#8217;ll use Mint in this example.<\/p>\n<p>At Mint.com you&#8217;ll register and create a free account.\u00a0 After making an account, you will link Mint to your financial institutions.\u00a0 This allows Mint to <strong>display information from all of your financial accounts in one place.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Mint uses <strong>top-level security<\/strong> and is read-only software.\u00a0 This means it cannot make any transactions, it can only view information.\u00a0 This is good because you don&#8217;t have to worry about anyone trying to make transactions through Mint.<\/p>\n<p>Once setup, you\u2019ll be able to <strong>get updated snapshots of your financial situation, stay informed and make better decisions with your money.\u00a0<\/strong> Imagine the ability to view all of your bank accounts at one time on a single computer screen, that&#8217;s what Mint.com gives you.<\/p>\n<h4>Consolidating your finances<\/h4>\n<p>This is the most time intensive option, but has potentially more benefits down the road.\u00a0 This option is not possible for everyone depending on their situation.<\/p>\n<p>The goal here is to <strong>transfer your accounts to the fewest institutions as possible.<\/strong>\u00a0 For example, you&#8217;d transfer your savings, checking, credit card accounts and other accounts to one bank.\u00a0 For insurance you&#8217;d try to combine your life insurance and property insurance at one company (hopefully getting a discount in the process).\u00a0 For investments, you&#8217;d try to combine your investment and retirement accounts at the same company.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Having more of your financial information in one place makes transfers and other business much more convenient.\u00a0<\/strong> You&#8217;ll also typically receive better customer service because the representative can see your other accounts, offer suggestions and offer quicker solutions to problems.<\/p>\n<p>In terms of having all information in one place, this isn&#8217;t as effective as Mint because most people can&#8217;t combine all aspects of their financial life.\u00a0 This means that you likely won&#8217;t have all you data on one screen yet unless you use Mint, but by having your accounts in few locations <strong>you&#8217;ll have\u00a0 more control and an easier time making things happen.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h4>Choosing which institution to stick with<\/h4>\n<p>If you belong to multiple institutions, you may have some trouble deciding which to transfer your accounts to.\u00a0 <strong>You should stick with whatever institutions gives you the most useful benefits, charges the lowest fees, has the best customer service, etc.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re eligible, I highly recommend <a title=\"USAA\" href=\"https:\/\/www.usaa.com\/inet\/pages\/why_choose_usaa_main\" target=\"_blank\">USAA (<\/a>they&#8217;re not available for everyone).\u00a0 We use USAA for banking, investing, insurance&#8230;everything.\u00a0 What I&#8217;m getting at is that you should choose a bank that you love.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Consolidating your finances isn&#8217;t always possible and may not make sense to do it right away for many reasons<\/strong>, but it&#8217;s something to consider in the future.\u00a0 <strong>Do thorough research before making any changes<\/strong> to make sure you&#8217;ve planned well and don&#8217;t end up worse off than you started.<\/p>\n<h3>Here&#8217;s to a simpler finances and a brighter future<\/h3>\n<p>At the very least use Mint.com or something like it to <strong>gain a complete understanding of your financial life.<\/strong>\u00a0 That information alone is worth tens of thousands of dollars down the road.\u00a0 Whether it <strong>saves you money<\/strong> in fees and interest, <strong>prevents you from overdrawn<\/strong> accounts or simply<strong> saves you time<\/strong>, you owe it to yourself and your family to <strong>simplify your finances.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>By immersing yourself in your financial data you&#8217;ll <strong>become more aware of your habits, find opportunities and take bigger steps towards improving your financial situation.<\/strong>\u00a0 As you see your account balances grow and debt levels sink you&#8217;ll gain more confidence and progress even faster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do you have a hard time keeping up with your finances?  This contributes to missed payments, overdraft and bad credit scores.  When we don&#8217;t know what&#8217;s going on with our finances we&#8217;re throwing money away and risking significant financial trouble like bankruptcy and foreclosure.  Let\u2019s talk about some ways to simplify your finances and get back in control.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3994,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maysfinancial.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1930"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maysfinancial.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maysfinancial.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maysfinancial.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maysfinancial.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maysfinancial.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maysfinancial.local\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maysfinancial.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maysfinancial.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maysfinancial.local\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}