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Empower Personal Wealth, LLC (“EPW”) compensates Money Bliss for new leads. Money Bliss is not an investment client of Personal Capital Advisors Corporation or Empower Advisory Group, LLC.
You are looking for the best investment app to help you save money, but all of them seem too complicated. You want something that is simple, easy to use, helpful, and even better if the app is free.
Empower is an online service for tracking your finances. Before a merger, the company began in 2009, and to this day it has been growing exponentially with a user base of over two million people.
Personal Capital is now Empower.
The app works on desktop as well as mobile devices, giving users the ability to track their spending easily wherever they go.
Empower also offers a suite of tools that help you get out more information about how you are using your money so that you can make better financial decisions.
On this Empower review, we will focus on what they do well, how it works for those who use it, and where Empower could improve.
Don’t forget… here is a list of all of the budgeting apps on the market.
If you are looking for an easier way to monitor your financials and see how healthy your finances really are, then you may want to check out what Empower has to offer.
What is Empower?
Empower is an online tool for tracking your finances.
It has been called the best financial app out there, and I agree with that statement. But, I personally use it as one of the money management tools to help guide our financial decisions.
I have used Empower to track my investments for over six years now, which probably makes me a bit of an expert on this topic because I use it on a regular basis.
Overall, Empower is a financial planning and wealth management tool that users can use to manage their net worth. The product offers tools for managing investments, retirement, debt payoff, and other personal finance goals.
How does it work?
First of all, Empower is a FREE app that helps you keep track of all your accounts. It can help you to invest better and did we mention… it is free to use!
To get the most out of this app, you’ll have to link each of your financial accounts one by one so that Empower can learn how you spend money.
It takes a couple of minutes to create an account and verify your identity.
The longest step is linking accounts to the Empower app. Just make sure you do this step within 7 days to get the most out of the app.
Features of Empower
The features of Empower include the ability to visualize your overall financial picture, keep track of your investments in a dashboard, and see which companies you are invested in.
Most people associate Empower as one of the best tools to help with investing, like a stock screener and an investment calculator.
But, there are many great features available for free including:
Net Worth Planner
Retirement Planner
Fee Analyzer
Cash Flow Management
Savings Planner
Budgeting
College Savings Planner
Investment Checkup
Pros and Cons of Empower
First of all, Empower is free to use. So, you might as well test drive the system and check out if the Empower app fits what you are looking for.
Just like any of the Empower reviews will tell you, there are positives and negatives with every type of money management app available.
You just have to decide the most important features for you. As well as what you are willing to pay.
Pros of Empower:
Free portfolio management tool.
Good for new investors who want a free-to-use tool with minimal features.
Easy to use and can be accessed on multiple platforms.
Can track investments across multiple accounts.
Tracks over 23,000 securities and over 1,000 mutual funds. – check
Offers a free app for on-the-go access.
Offers in-depth analysis and investment research on stocks, bonds, and ETFs.
Cloud-based platform
Free to use!
Cons of Empower:
Sales call from staff
Wealth management service is more expensive than a traditional advisor or simply investing in index funds.
High wealth management fee
Unable to reconcile your bank statements with Empower, but since they are coming from your bank directly, they should already be in sync.
No credit health information
Budgeting Tool needs improvement
Limited transaction management and budgeting
No import option for transactions from any platform including YNAB, Quicken or Mint
Cloud-based platform
Many people report that the Empower app requires $100,000 in investment assets to be eligible. That is untrue. In fact, it works best for those who have at least $100k in some form of investments – 401k, IRA, brokerage accounts, or even cash!
Empoweris incredibly easy to use and has helpful financial planning tools.
Overall, it is one of the many great tools to help further push you to financial freedom.
Empower Pricing
While Empower is free to access personal finance tools, it does come at a small price of annoyance.
Empower is free
Empower is a free online portfolio platform that helps people save and invest their money. It offers tools to track net worth, create investment plans, compare retirement accounts, view savings goals and cash flow, and more.
This is the great part of using this app!
The downside is to make these dashboards free is they are trying to entice you to move to their wealth management services.
You do not need to invest your money with Empower to use this platform.
It is best to keep everything invested where it currently is and use their free tools to analyze and make the necessary changes.
As such, once you sign up, you will receive calls on a reoccurring basis offering you a free analysis. There is no pressure to do this. Once you have said no enough times, they will stop calling you.
For those under $1 million in investable assets, their fee is 0.89%.
As you can read in this book, there are many ways to invest yourself without paying that fee.
In fact, this is my favorite book explaining how much harder and longer you have to work by paying someone a 1% wealth management fee.
However, for a small percentage of people, this may be a more cost-effective way of receiving professional advice, as it eliminates hidden costs from this type of service.
Empower Tools
Empower is a financial management platform that provides tools to help individuals manage their personal finances. The platform offers tools for portfolio tracking, performance analysis, and retirement planning. The company also provides its users with educational resources on financial topics.
Under their free dashboard, these are the tools you can use for free.
Net Worth Calculator
This simple tool will keep track of your net worth. Very simple and always available.
Know where you stand, by downloading the free app to see your true net worth in real-time.
Understanding your personal financial statement is important.
Savings Planner
One of the most asked questions is how much I need to save for:
Retirement
Emergency Fund
To Pay Down Debt
Calculate how much to save each year with a 70% chance of reaching your retirement goals. Learn how much you are currently savings and how much you need to start saving.
Cash Flow
Cash flow is the amount of cash available for expenses at a certain time. This term used in personal finance describes the rate at which one’s income and expenses change over time.
The Cash Flow tool is easy to use because Empower automatically tracks deposits and spending. The time saver feature allows users to see their cash flow, balance sheet, net worth, asset allocation over a period of time.
Cash flow is a budgeting tool that offers limited information on spending. It provides a second check when using another program that gives you more details like Quicken or Simplfi.
Retirement Planner
This is the #1 reason I recommend Empower especially if you are looking to stay away from a financial planner.
Trying to figure out how much you need for retirement by yourself seems like picking a random number from the sky.
The retirement planner is used by millions of people to figure out how on track they are for retirement. Plus get tips on what they can do to improve their chances of success.
Budgeting
Budgeting is a method of allocating financial resources by identifying and evaluating needs, prioritizing them in order to meet goals, and monitoring the achievement of those goals.
Empower includes a budgeting section to help you set monthly spending targets and track your spending. They automatically import the information from linked accounts such as checking, savings, and credit card statements.
Using their free online financial dashboard, allows you to track your spending and investments. There are interactive charts, graphs, pie-charts, and even widgets. All to make sure your budgeting is on track.
Investment Checkup
This portfolio analysis is the process of measuring performance and risk in order to develop a strategy for capital allocation. The goal of portfolio analysis is to improve return on investment, which can be achieved by increasing return on assets, decreasing the risk of losses, or reducing the variance.
The Empower app lets you explore your entire portfolio visually. It also provides asset allocation tools and tax optimization tools to help manage a person’s financial life.
Fee Analyzer
A fee analyzer helps people to determine the annual fees they are paying in their retirement plan.
401K Analyzer also calculates how much your retirement is costing you and provides a breakdown of any hidden fees that may be present within mutual funds with which it has been linked. This Retirement Planner tool uses assumptions about account holdings and investment behavior for calculating expenses against an estimated portfolio value.
Consequently, these fees add up over time and will drastically put a drag on your portfolio and reduce your retirement savings.
Empower Dashboard is Free
Just remember, you do not need to hire an advisor to use the platform.
Empower is a free tool for individual investors.
Empower provides users with access to all of the above-mentioned advanced tools for free. In addition, they offer free financial advice through their blog and social media pages.
It allows users to track their investments and get a personalized financial plan. The service also offers apps for iOS and Android devices, which makes it easy to manage finances on the go.
Empower Wealth Management Review of Services
In addition to offering free financial tools, Empower provides wealth management services.
You get to work one-on-one with an advisor who will give you personalized advice based on your situation.
They help you to invest, save money and track your financial goals.
Their advisors start by determining your risk tolerance and goals in order to construct the best personal financial plan for you.
If you are interested in getting a better understanding of your financial situation, Empower is an excellent option. It gives users the tools to understand their investments, budgets, and cash flow all with one app.
All it requires is that you sign up for free without any obligations or commitments from them whatsoever. You do not have to agree to use their wealth management program.
Personally, I cannot comment on an Empower advisor review as I have not used this service personally.
Empower Investment Strategy
The Empower investment strategy is a simple way to invest your money for the long-term.
This means that you will be able to retire and live a comfortable life without any concern about how you will be able to live.
They employ the tactic called Smart Weighting because they invest equally across all sectors and industries, which can provide diverse returns with minimal risk. The best part of this strategy is it’s easy to use as Empower has created an interface that makes portfolio management simple for users on any device or platform.
Empower’s software is able to identify tax-loss harvesting opportunities (opportunities where the investor sells an investment after it has fallen in value and pays fewer taxes than if the sale had occurred earlier) than investing on their own.
In addition, Empower invests passively for cost efficiency which means that they don’t take any active management into account.
The best part about Empower and one of the key areas I prefer, is they include socially responsible investments as well as an investment strategy to fit any budget.
They identify which companies are doing good work for society and invest in them accordingly. This feature makes personal finance much more interesting and easier than ever before!
Wealth Management Tiers
Many people invest in various financial services and products, such as mutual funds or stocks. They are promised that these investments will generate a good return, but they do not always make the best choice. Wealth management services are a way to help people manage their personal investments. They may charge fees for their service, but that is not always the case.
Depending on your level of assets, will determine the amount of services you will receive.
Investment Services:
This is the most basic level to receive financial and retirement planning guidance from their team of experts.
$100K in investment assets
Unlimited advice from any of the available financial advisors
Managed ETF portfolio
Wealth Management:
This is where you can receive more personalized services and dedicated support to manage your money as you move through new financial challenges.
$200K minimum in investment assets
Two dedicated financial advisors
Access to specialists in real estate, stock options, and more
Regular reviews on your customized portfolio
Tax optimization
Private Client :
This is the most exclusive level at Empower to help you receive comprehensive financial planning. They will help build a customized investment plan to reach your lifestyle goals.
over $1 million in investment assets
Two dedicated financial advisors
Priority access to specialists
In-depth retirement and wealth planning
Wealth Management Fee Structure
Empower charges only an all-inclusive annual management fee at a fraction of the cost of traditional financial institutions. In addition, they do not charge hidden fees, trailing fees, or trade commissions.
First $1 million = .89%
First $3 million = .79%
Next $2 million = .69%
Next $5 million = .59%
Over $10 million = .49%
Overall, if you want a financial advisor or a second opinion, using Empower wealth management services may be for you.
Even if you don’t join, you can still use the tools for free, no questions asked.
My Empower Review from Experience
I have had a lot of experience using Empower in the past. They provide snapshot financial pictures of your personal situation that are very informative.
Plus it is a free tool to use, which is always a bonus.
Empower is one of my favorite online tools to see all your finances in one place.
It is eye-opening to see the overall picture. Also, tracking investments across multiple accounts can be overwhelming, but they make the process seamless and help you stay on top of things.
Personally, my favorite tools are the net worth, fee analyzer, and retirement planner.
I use Empower in conjunction with Quicken. Read my Quicken review.
My Empower dashboard is my overall financial picture whereas Quicken tracks all of my day-to-day spending and helps me remember when we purchased something for a return.
The app has a convenient interface that makes managing your personal financial situation easy, even if you’re not familiar with finance jargon or investing terminology. With this tool at hand, keeping track of where everything stands financially becomes easier than ever before!
Just to note… to get the best financial picture, you must include all of your accounts. The more time you spend in the Empower dashboard, the more helpful analysis you will get from the tool.
Empower Alternatives
In addition to Empower, there are other financial apps that can help you allocate your portfolio.
These include Betterment with Wealthfront also being a viable option for those who want the best of both worlds by tracking their investments in stocks and bonds. However, these alternatives have much higher fees than what is charged by Empower which makes it an appealing alternative if the fee does not bother you.
Also, if you are looking for budgeting capabilities you may want to look at Quicken, Mint, YNAB, or Simplifi.
At the end of the day, you have to decide what your goals are and what you are looking for.
From all of the free and paid budgeting apps, here are our top budgeting apps to check out!
This section may contain affiliate links, which helps us to continue providing relevant content and we receive a small commission at no cost to you. Please read the full disclosure below.
Personal Capital Advisors Corporation (“PCAC”) compensates Money Bliss (“Company”) for new leads. (“Company”) is not an investment client of PCAC.
Personal finance and money management software allows you to manage spending, create monthly budgets, track investments, retirement and more.
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Personal Capital is wealth management for the Internet Age. The online platform combines digital technology with highly personalized service to provide a holistic view of a unique financial picture (AKA your net worth).
Make sure to connect all of your accounts within 7 days to set up your Personal Financial dashboard.
Tiller is the only tool that automatically updates Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel with your spending, transactions, and balances each day.
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Automate your financial plan with set-and-forget money tools that fit right into your daily life.
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HoneyMoney increases your awareness about your money habits. Being fully aware of your money naturally changes how you spend it.
Great way to use cash flow budgeting. Plus uses “envelopes” to budget.
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Moneyspire is user-friendly personal finance and small business accounting software that brings your entire finances together in one place.
Have total control over your financial life in one click.
Is Empower right for you?
Empower is a company that offers tools for personal finance management. This app has more than one hundred different tools to help you with your finances, including monthly budgeting and investing tracking.
Empower also helps people manage their credit card debt, establish emergency funds, track retirement savings progressions, calculate their net worth, and much more!
The smartphone app integrates locations, bank accounts, and credit scores which allows users to access current information on their financial situation.
The online portal allows for comparing available investment options.
This tool allows people to plan out the future of their money as well as provides them with valuable financial information in an easy-to-read format so they can make informed decisions.
As stated before, Empower is a financial app that can help you manage your investment assets. It has many features and it’s not perfect, but it’s the best out there in terms of value for money.
You can always test drive it and see what you learn about your personal finance situation.
Now you can try it free (no credit card required!)
Know someone else that needs this, too? Then, please share!!
Save more, spend smarter, and make your money go further
Stock markets and major commodities such as oil and gold seem to get most of the mainstream financial market headlines these days. Despite being the largest and most liquid trading markets in the world, the global currency markets do not nearly get the same attention.
There are a few key reasons for this – the lack of a true central currency exchange, the relatively small daily price changes and the seemingly opaque reasons for changes in currencies.
However, the value of our nation’s currency can have a strong affect on the stock market and the commodities markets as well as have a real affect on our lives. Our currency’s value is a basic fundamental component of our wealth and our ability to purchase goods – especially in this age of globalization. If we pay attention to the currency market trends, we can benefit by using this information to plan ahead for a vacation, search out deals on foreign products or take this knowledge into account when making our investment decisions.
For businesses, the value of a local currency can be even more important. A strong currency will make our exports more expensive to foreign buyers while possibly making imports downright cheap for us to buy.
As a currency trader, I can tell you that there are many economic factors to take into consideration when it comes to evaluating a currency’s strength. Some economic factors can have more influence at different times and for different countries.
Below, I touch upon four factors that I believe to be among the most important economic indicators anyone can follow by reading the news.
1. Interest Rates
The first factor contributing to the general strength or weakness of a currency is a country’s interest rate. Simply, interest rates are the amount it costs to borrow money. The interest rate level is moved higher or lower by a country’s central bank to either stimulate or slow down an economy. Higher interest rates impose a more costly fee to borrow money while lower interest rates lessen the fee and usually spur more borrowing (or access to cheap credit) in an economy.
When it comes to demand for a particular currency, however, the higher the interest rate usually means the higher the demand for that currency. Lower interest rates usually decrease the demand for a currency. The reason investors look to buy currencies with higher interest rates is it creates an additional rate of return on their currency exchange. A trader is compensated by the interest rate differential when the trader buys the currency with the higher interest rate compared to the lower interest rate currency. There is a popular currency trading strategy called the “carry trade” that seeks to exploit the differences in country’s interest rates (see more on the carry trade here).
The mechanics behind this can take some time and effort to fully comprehend, but the general take away is: Higher interest rates make a currency more attractive.
2. Inflation
Inflation is next in our economic factors list and is defined by the rise in prices of goods and services. When a product rises in price, it signals that there is an underlying demand for that product. Higher prices may not seem good to a consumer, but it is generally considered healthy for a country to have a moderate increase in inflation in a growing economy. Many central banks have a target inflation rate for their economy of around 2 percent a year.
When an economy sees too much inflation, the central bank will try to cool off rising prices and access to cheap credit with an increase in interest rates. This brings us back to number one in our list, where we see that higher interest rates make a currency more attractive. So in a growing economic environment, rising inflation rates will tend to increase expectations that interest rates will rise, which will in turn make traders have a positive outlook for the rise of the currency.
There are also downsides to inflation when not accompanied by a growing economy called stagflation (high unemployment, low growth, high inflation) and the dreaded deflation, which is when prices are in decline. This is usually a drag on an economy as prices of goods are falling, leading to declining wages in worker paychecks and less money workers will have to buy goods.
3. Economic Growth
The strength of an economy can go a long way to boosting the strength of the nation’s currency. A strong growth rate in a country will see a growing demand for products and services with better job prospects for workers as well as being an attractive destination for capital and investments.
The easiest way to watch a country’s economic standing is to pay attention to the gross domestic product (GDP). A strong GDP reading is growth of 3 percent or more in many cases, while growth close to zero percent or a negative reading shows that the economy could be headed for a recession. A typical definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth.
In an economy like the United States, which is driven by consumer spending, expanding growth that produces more jobs and better wages will allow workers to feel wealthier and help to further stimulate the economy through domestic consumption. More growth can bring higher inflation rates and the expectations for interest rate increases. Foreign investment and demand from companies abroad can also play an important factor in boosting the local currency of a strong economy.
4. Current Account Balance
The last on our list is the current account balance. It is considered to be the most extensive gauge of cross-border transactions of a country. Simply put, it is the total amount of goods, services, income and current transfers of a country against all of its trading partners. A positive current account balance signals that a country lends more to its trading partners than it borrows, and a deficit current account balance shows that the country borrows more from its trading partners than it lends.
This total amount of trade can influence the country’s exchange rate positively if there is more demand for that country’s goods (and currency) from other countries. A deficit or borrower country will see less demand for its own local goods and currency overall.
Conclusion
Economics and currency forecasting are both very much inexact sciences. Price movements can seem volatile and hard to understand, but for those seeking basic insight into currency trends, these important economic factors can go a long way.
Zachary Storella is the CEO of currency news website CountingPips.com.
Save more, spend smarter, and make your money go further
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If you want more financial discipline you are probably looking to curb impulsive spending, save money, or maybe just achieve financial stability.
Building self discipline your financial decisions is an important part of building wealth over the long run.
What’s Ahead:
Why is self discipline the key to becoming a good saver
Being a good saver requires self discipline since there is so much fun stuff to do and buy. You are exposed to more advertising than anyone in the history of the world, and the marketing companies know a lot about psychology and exactly how to get you to part with your money.
So it takes a lot of self discipline in order to fight those tactics and stay on course to meet your goals. You have to have a clear goal and know that meeting that goal is more important than anything you can buy.
It requires a lot of self discipline to overcome the temptation to delay gratification of spending money and to save it instead.
Steps to develop self discipline
Step 1: Set a goal – then break it down into regularly recurring actions
What exactly do you want to achieve? It could be to build a fully funded emergency fund, start investing, pay off your debt, or even achieve financial independence – or anything in between.
Write down exactly what your goal is and the date by which you want to achieve it. For example, you may want to pay off your credit card debt within one year.
Then break down exactly what actions you need to take on a regular basis. Make these actions as small and as regular as possible. A small daily action is better than a larger monthly action.
For example, if you owe $10,000 on your credit card you’ll need to pay $833.33 off each month. Is that doable? If your budget allows for that, great. If not, you’ll need to figure out what exactly you need to do make up the difference.
If your regular payment is $150 and you can pull an extra $200 per month from your monthly budget that means you’ll need to come up with an additional $484 per month. If you have time to walk dogs after work you may decide to pick up a dog walking client for a few walks per week. At $25 per walk you’d have to walk the dog 20 times per month to make up the $484 you need. If you picked up a client that needed the dog walked everyday after work, you’d have the full amount.
You now have a goal and an action plan to make that goal happen.
Here are a few examples of short, mid, and long-term goals, but feel free to fill in the blanks with your own personal financial goals.
Short-term goals
Saving money each month towards your emergency fund
Going out to dinner with friends twice a month
Small household projects (planting a small indoor garden, painting a room, etc.)
Mid-term goals
Saving for a weekend getaway
Paying cash for your next car
Paying off your credit card debt
Long-term goals
Down payment on a house
Paying off your student loans
Putting money away for retirement
Read more: How to prioritize and save for multiple goals at once
Step 2: Track your progress
You’ll want some way to visualize and track your progress. A lot of people find this extremely motivating.
Using the example of paying off your car above, you could make a thermostat and color in a section each time you make a payment, representing the amount of money you’ve paid off (or is left on the loan). Or cover a piece of paper with stars (or anything else) and color in a star every time you send in your payment, each star representing one payment or a set amount of money.
Hang your tracker on the fridge so you can see it every day to remind you of what you are working towards. Make it a little celebration each time you get to fill in more of your tracker.
You can also go digital with your goal tracking. Apps like Empower offer a few different services for investing and checking up on your financial health. But, in this instance, I’m referring to the free tools they offer to keep track of your net worth.
You can create an account with them without opening an investment account. The wealth management and planning tools are the ones that you will probably be most interested in to help determine where you are at currently.
You can connect all of your financial accounts within the tool. These will be things, such as:
Checking account
Savings account(s)
Investment account(s)
Student loan account(s)
Auto loan account
Mortgage account
Credit card(s)
Medical debt account(s)
Sometimes, it can be pretty scary to see what your actual net worth is vs. where you want to be.
But, I use this as a driving force to work harder every month to increase my overall net worth. Because the faster I can get my net worth up, the faster I can get to my long-term goals.
Step 3: Find your tribe
Find people in your life who are working towards similar goals. This will help build self discipline because you’ll have a community that is embodying the new behaviors you want to build.
If you meet regularly with others who are paying off debt, you’ll have more discipline to follow that same path. You’ll have someone to share your successes with and a friend who can help when you are struggling.
Contrast that to when your friends regularly encourage overspending. Just going out to have a meal or a drink with friends can end up costing $100 or more in some instances. Something that sounded so innocuous, has now completely derailed your goal.
This isn’t to say you need to replace your entire friend group – not at all. But it will be up to you set a budget for having fun and then stick to it.
For example, instead of having two-three drinks, only have one. Go out for lunch instead of dinner, or a matinee instead of a night movie.
All of these options still give you the freedom to hang out with your friends and enjoy your life, but it won’t cost you nearly as much. And when you stick to your budget, your future self will thank you for your discipline.
Read More: The Cost Of Friendship – How Your Friends Affect The Way
Tips to meet your financial goals
Determine your needs vs. your wants
Setting up your financial goals and a way to track them are the first steps. But staying on track can get tricky when life happens. This is where needs vs. wants come into play. There are things that all of us want to have. But these are the things that can throw us off track so fast it will make your head spin.
So keeping in mind if the item/service is a need or a want can help you have more financial disciplined. Just remember to think long and hard about any purchases before you pull the trigger. If it is a need, then go ahead and do it. But if the item is actually something you want instead, it’s usually best to hold off even for a bit to make sure you still really want it as much as you think you do.
Reduce, reuse, recycle
When it comes to purchasing wants, you have a few other options that can save you a ton of money. If there is an item that you are wanting to purchase, but it simply isn’t in the budget, what might be some other ways to achieve the same goal?
Reduce, reuse or recycle may just be the best option here. If you have things in your house that you can get rid of (and maybe even make some money off of their sale), then that is one way to get the potential want. Sell your old stuff and then use the proceeds to purchase the new want item.
Or, if you can reuse an item you have in your house already, paired with something else, in order to create a similar item, then why not do that? Sometimes, all a table or chair needs is a fresh coat of paint in order to feel like a completely new item. So get creative and think outside the box about things you already have at your disposal.
And if all else fails, recycle your old items. You may not make any money off of them, but you could potentially get a tax write-off. Plus, it declutters your space, which can make it feel like a completely new room. Sometimes, that is really all you need.
Make it automatic
No matter what you goal is you can probably automate at least some of it.
If you want to save more, schedule automatic transfers from your checking to your savings. If you want to pay off a certain amount of debt each month, set automatic payments to your accounts.
Having these transactions happen automatically will remove the friction that can be caused when you have to manually make that extra payment, or save that extra money. You can always go in and stop or change the automatic payment if you can’t swing it one month, but making it the default will cause it to happen more often than not.
Of course, don’t set yourself up for failure. Setting an automatic payment without a plan to make sure the money is available will cause more harm than good. Create a feasible plan and realistic goal, then set it up to run without any extra effort from you.
Read more: Put your money on autopilot
Put your emergency fund in a high yield savings account
If you are working on building your emergency fund – or already have a solid savings account – you’ll want to make sure you are getting the most interest possible. This will help grow your savings rate since you’ll be earning a little extra interest each month.
Interest rates on high-yield savings accounts are higher than they’ve been in years, and the difference between online accounts and those at your local bank are huge. So, while these high yield savings account rates may not be anywhere close to the average return you will get on investing your money, it’s still nice to make some interest on your savings.
The best high yield savings account, in my opinion, is the CIT Savings Builder.
Read more: How Much Should You Save Every Month?
CIT Bank Savings Builder
CIT Bank Savings Builder has a very competitive APY – compared to the pennies you get from a credit union account.
You only need $100 to open an account and they charge no maintenance fees. To earn the highest APY, you need to get your account up to $25,000, or you need to deposit at least $100 monthly. See details here.
The CIT Savings Builder has a completely online platform, so everything can be done directly from your smartphone, just to make life simpler. They are also FDIC insured up to $250,000 per account type.
CIT Bank. Member FDIC.
Summary
Overall, it is extremely easy for our money to flow through our fingers like water. This is why you have to be cognizant of what you have and where you want to be with your finances.
If you want to avoid debt, save more money, or invest for your future then it’s important to develop self discipline in your finances.
My monthly Extraordinary Lives series is something that I’m really enjoying doing. First up was JP Livingston, who retired with a net worth over $2,000,000 at the age of 28. Today’s interview is with Tanja Hester, who retired at the end of 2017 at the age of 38.
You probably know her from the amazing blog Our Next Life. Our Next Life is one of my favorite blogs, so I’m glad Tanja said yes to this interview!
In this interview, you’ll learn:
How she managed to retire so early;
How she still lives comfortably in one of the most beautiful places in the world;
Her advice for retiring early no matter what your career choice is;
How she decided how much she needed to retire on;
The sacrifices she has had to make;
And more! This interview is packed full of valuable information!
I asked you, my readers, what questions I should ask her, so below are your questions (and some of mine) about Tanja’s story and how she has accomplished so much. Make sure you’re following me on Facebook so you have the opportunity to submit your own questions for the next interview.
Related content:
1. Tell me your story. How are you managing to retire so early?
Hi Michelle! Thanks so much for having me. 🙂 We feel like we’re now living a magical life as early retirees, but there’s no magic to how we got here. We spent a lot less than we earned for a bunch of years in a row, made easier and faster by above average salaries (both earned six figures in our last several years of work), and we tried to make some other smart decisions along the way. But we didn’t strike it rich with Bitcoin or build a unicorn startup or get an inheritance or anything else. We just stayed focused on our goal and ground away at it, bit by bit.
More specifically, we focused on three big things:
1. Buying less house than we could afford. The banks would have happily lent us three times as much as we paid for our house in Tahoe, but we stuck to our guns and set our own budget. We lucked out by being able to buy at almost the bottom of the market in 2011, but even though we could have bought more house then for a pretty good price, we kept our budget modest, and that allowed us to pay off our mortgage in just over five years, which then let us save more in our last year of work as well as go into early retirement with no mortgage, which means our basic cost of living is minimal.
2. Paying ourselves first and automating that. We set our paychecks up so that a big chunk went straight into savings without us ever seeing that money, and had another big portion set to go into our investments automatically with each paycheck. We kept only a small portion of our total income in our checking account, and so felt like that was all we had to spend. But more importantly, saving wasn’t a choice we had to make, which would have relied on willpower we don’t always possess. It just happened without us doing anything. For those who aren’t natural savers (like us!), I can’t recommend enough taking the decision out of it and automating your savings.
3. Not inflating our lifestyle. For the last decade of our careers, we banked every bonus and every raise. So at the start of each year, we’d increase our automatic investments by at least as much as our paychecks increased, meaning we never felt like we got a raise, and we didn’t start spending more. When you add the compounding effect of all those raises we banked, it adds up to quite a big number! But for us, because we did it gradually that way and just kept the amount we had to spend steady, it never felt like a sacrifice to save at a really high rate.
2. When did you begin saving for early retirement?
While we’d been saving for years for a string of financial goals – paying off my consumer debt, buying our first place in LA, buying our forever home in Tahoe and saving a bit for traditional retirement – we started saving for early retirement in a focused way about six years ago. And then we got super focused four years ago.
I still can’t believe how much we saved in that time, but it’s amazing what’s possible when you get really clear on your “why” and align all your decisions around it. (And again, having a higher income for sure helped. You can’t save more than you earn, so the more you can earn, the faster you can save.)
3. Was early retirement always something you were striving for? What made you want to retire early?
Mark and I always had a sense that we didn’t want to work “forever,” but we didn’t know what that meant. We had very demanding, high-stress careers where we could never truly be offline. We loved much about the work and loved our clients and colleagues, but it definitely took a big toll on our physical and mental health. And that’s how we knew that we weren’t willing to do that kind of work forever.
We talked about transitioning to different, lower-paid careers, but once we realized that we could work hard for just a few more years and then never need to work again, it was an easy choice to keep going.
Related: What Is Financial Independence, Retire Early? Answers To FAQs About FIRE
4. Would you say that you live comfortably? I ask this because many people assume that early retirees eat a lot of rice and beans!
I mean, I do love rice and beans. 😉 But we only eat rice and beans a few times a month. I would definitely say we live super comfortably! We own a single family home in a crazy beautiful part of the world, we spend money on fresh, healthy, mostly organic food, we ski multiple times a week and we take several international trips per year.
There’s a lot we don’t spend on, of course, and we do have one freakishly frugal habit that shocks a lot of people – keeping our house at a chilly 55 degrees F in the winter – but we think our life is pretty darn luxurious. But we keep it reasonable by ruthlessly cutting out the mindless spending that doesn’t add real value to our lives and focusing our spending only on the things we love to do.
5. What career did you have before you retired? Did that career help you to retire earlier?
We both worked as political and social cause consultants for a long time – 16 years for me and nearly 20 for Mark. We loved doing meaningful work with smart, talented people, but the pace of it was really hard to sustain. We had to travel a ton and be reachable at all times, and that stress was something we carried around with us at all times. But, the upside of high-pressure jobs like that is that they often pay well. So yes, absolutely – having those careers 100% enabled us to retire early!
6. What advice do you have for the average person that doesn’t make six figures a year who wants to retire early? What do you have to say to those who may think that they can never earn as much as you can – can they still retire early too?
While earning more certainly helps speed things along, there’s nothing about the core principle of financial independence – spend less than you earn and save the difference – that requires an especially high income or a job in tech or any other particular factor. (We both went to state schools for college and majored in English and communications, if you’re curious.) If you can afford to save even a little bit of money each month, you can do this, you just might be on a slightly longer timeline. If you make saving for early retirement a priority, you’ll be amazed that it does not take 40 years to save, as many financial experts would have you believe.
My best advice is to be diligent about tracking your spending. Know where every dollar is going, and then then ask yourself which of those dollars brought you real, lasting happiness, not just a momentarily thrill, and which ones didn’t. Then, as much as you can, cut out the spending that doesn’t make you happy. You don’t even have to do it all at one time, but once you start seeing your spending that way – mindless spending that doesn’t add value and mindful spending that makes you happier – it becomes a whole lot easier to save money.
And then don’t just think about the saving side of the equation. Think about the earning side, too. Side hustles are all the rage, and I side hustled for the first 12 years of my career, working a few odd jobs and then teaching yoga and spinning for 10 years. Those jobs definitely helped me earn and save more in my early career years, but eventually having extra commitments held me back in my “real career.” And at that point, I ditched my side hustle and committed myself fully to my main job, working as long and traveling as much as that required. I know that having that real commitment to work paid off in the form of promotions and bonuses, and that wouldn’t have been possible if I’d kept my side hustle.
7. Will you still earn an income in retirement?
Our retirement is funded primarily by selling shares of stock and bond index funds that we bought throughout our savings phase, as well as by collecting rent on the one rental property we have. We created our “magic number” that we needed to save by figuring out what we’d need to have if we never earned another penny, and that’s what we saved. But now that we’re retired, we also realize that of course we’ll still earn money in some form. Retiring early takes a bit of a hustle mindset, and you don’t just stop being a person who hustles when you leave your career.
The good thing is that we can now put that hustle to use toward community service instead of paid work, and if we do take on paid work, we can be super picky and do only work that sounds super fun, that we’d happily do for free. And that extra money we earn can go toward more charitable giving, toward an extra trip overseas, or maybe toward a home project like a kitchen remodel. In the spirit of full transparency, Mark and I are both working a little bit this year, though in total it will only be about 10-20 percent of our time. We didn’t plan to work, but Mark got an offer he couldn’t refuse to work on a passion project, and I got an offer to fulfill a lifetime dream, so we both had an easy time saying yes.
8. How did you decide on how much you needed to retire on?
The starting point for calculating any early retirement number (or traditional retirement number, for that matter) has to be knowing what you spend in a year. Most online retirement calculators base your target number off what you earn, and that’s bananas if you don’t spend everything you make. When we started our planning, the rule of 25X (25 times your annual spending, the inverse of the 4% safe withdrawal rule) wasn’t as widely talked about, and it wouldn’t have worked for us anyway because we wanted to build a two-phase early retirement plan that would let us leave our traditional retirement savings alone (many early retirees convert 401(k) and IRA funds to be able to access them early without penalty, but we don’t want to do this), so that we’d have a big cushion for our later years, especially given all the uncertainty right now around health care, and the high costs even for those on Medicare.
We probably overcomplicated our calculations a bit because we’re both spreadsheet nerds, but the short version is that we calculated that our 401(k)s already had enough in them to support our “phase 2” (basically our traditional retirement, from age 59 ½ onward, after we can access our 401(k) money without having to jump through any hoops), and so we focused on saving an amount in unrestricted, taxable mutual funds that our spreadsheets told us would carry us through the first 18 years (our “phase 1”). We based those projections on extremely conservative market gains – only about percent real returns after inflation – so that we’d be okay even if the markets are flat for many years.
9. What sacrifices or hard decisions did you have to make?
I think the way we did this – focusing mostly on keeping our lifestyle contained as our earnings increased and automating our savings – made it not feel like a sacrifice. We for sure did give some things up like frequent meals out and traveling with a bit less of a budget orientation, but for those things, it was easy to give them up because we knew exactly why we weren’t spending money on them anymore. Having our goals clear in our minds and both being excited about our vision for the future was so motivating that it headed off any potential feeling of sacrifice.
Two of the hardest decisions we made along the way were to alter our plans to be able to help out family members. We hadn’t planned to buy a rental property, but it became clear that a relative with special needs would be helped a lot if we’d buy a property that would meet those needs and rent it to them, and so we adapted our plans to allow for that. And then another relative was about to go to debt collection for some medical debts that weren’t their fault, and we decided to make a personal loan to let that person move forward financially. Both decisions have worked out super well, and we believe strongly that there’s no point in having money saved if you can’t use some of it to help people you care about, but it was definitely tough to make each of those decisions.
10. What will you do about health insurance in early retirement?
We fully expect the landscape around health care in the U.S. to keep shifting, but for now we have health insurance that we purchased through the Affordable Care Act exchange. It’s a bit pricey but it’s normal insurance, which is a huge comfort to have!
11. What are your long-term plans now that you will have significantly more time not working?
We’re trying to keep things as open-ended as possible! I’m definitely going to keep writing the blog, and we’re both actively volunteering in our community. We went to Taiwan earlier this year and are planning a few more trips through the end of 2018, and then, who knows?
We’re exploring getting a very small motorhome (not big and fancy like yours, Michelle!) that we can use for road trips around the west, but that’s not for sure yet. A few years ago, we decided that our purpose is service, adventure and creativity, so while we don’t yet know what path our lives will take, we know we’ll be doing some of each of those three.
12. Are you doing any lifestyle changes to reduce your expenses in early retirement?
We are! When we were working, we were so crunched for time that we ate a lot of frozen and convenience foods, even though we would have preferred to make everything from scratch. We also couldn’t really comparison shop because we didn’t have time for that. But now we’re making more food from scratch and visiting a wider array of stores and learning what items are priced best at each place.
We’re also DIYing everything we can now that we have time to do that. But beyond that stuff, we were already living at a level we were comfortable with and that let us save a lot, so it doesn’t feel like we need to trim much more. But ask me again in a year, and maybe I’ll have found some new ways to save!
13. I’m curious to know what your methods for staying focused on accomplishing such a major goal?
Even in the very best case scenario, saving for early retirement takes years, so it’s important to know up front that you will feel some impatience along the way. Everyone who’s done it has felt it at one time or another, or maybe many times!
We found it helped a ton to track our progress and look at it often, so that we could see how far we’d come. And having everything automated also helped because we didn’t even give ourselves the opportunity to have the thought, “We’d rather spend this money instead this month to treat ourselves.” And finally, we didn’t deprive ourselves, and I think that’s important.
Living solely for tomorrow is not the way to be happy with your life – you have to allow yourself some joy today. We tried to keep things modest, of course, but we still let ourselves do fun things and spend money on things that made us happy instead of saving all our money. Living for both today and tomorrow helps with the impatience a ton!
14. If you were starting back at ground zero, what would you do differently from the beginning?
If I could go allllll the way back, I’d never set foot in Target! Haha. When I was just starting out in my career, Target was my kryptonite, and I wouldn’t set foot in there without buying a whole bunch of home decoration stuff that I didn’t need. One of my best practical saving tips is to know your spending triggers and avoid them, so to this day, I do not set foot in Target, and I get what I would have bought there on Amazon or at less tempting stores.
But if we’re just talking about the beginning of the early retirement journey, we would for sure have invested in more rental properties. Real estate offers a quicker path to financial independence than does saving, and it gives you some diversification you don’t get by only investing in the markets. I thought I’d hate being a landlord and so wasn’t interested in real estate, but now that we’ve done it for several years, we wish we had put more focus on rental properties.
15. Lastly, what is your very best tip (or two) that you have for someone who wants to reach the same success as you?
Don’t just think in terms of numbers. Get clear about what you really want to be doing with your life – what that looks like, what will make you feel like you have a purpose, what you want to be able to look back on at the end of your life and feel proud of – and then decide what you’re willing to give up to make that happen. Doing that exercise will help you figure out much more quickly how much your new life will cost and how much you can afford to save now, but best of all you’ll have the motivation to do that saving because you will have already invested the time in forming that solid vision for yourself instead of saving just to save, or just because you don’t like your job. If you retire early just because you don’t like your job and not because there’s something else you’re super stoked to do, you’ll probably be unhappy in early retirement, too.
And on the numbers front, don’t just focus on saving money. Focus on earning more. There’s a limit to how much spending you can eliminate but no limit to how much you can earn, so don’t neglect that half of the equation.
Are you interested in early retirement? Are you saving for retirement?
In only a few years, the rapid advancement of mobile technology has placed the power to invest at our fingertips and ushered in a wave of fintech startups, armed with new and innovative solutions for investors. Names like Acorns and Stash are now competing head-to-head with traditional brands such as E-Trade, and TD Ameritrade. (Imagine E-Trade being considered a “traditional” brand!)
With so many great options to choose from, it can be downright difficult to decide which investment app is right for you. To take out the guesswork, I’ve compiled a list of the best investment apps for 2021. From beginner investors to advanced traders, there’s something here for everyone.
Before we dive in, I should point out that this list of best apps is not a ranking. Instead, I’ve chosen what I believe are the best apps for a variety of situations – trading stocks, exchange traded funds (ETFs), no-fee, and micro-investing, you name it.
This means that the investment app I chose as best overall won’t necessarily be the top pick for every investor. Rather, it’s the one that I feel most clearly meets the needs of its target client. With that in mind, I present to you the Best Investment Apps for 2021.
Best Overall: Acorns
My top choice for investment app is Acorns. Not because it does everything well, but because it does what it’s designed to do, as well or better than the competition. Acorns was made specifically with new investors in mind, and it delivers precisely what so many of them are looking for: simple, automated investing, with very low fees, and no minimum balance requirement.
To achieve this, Acorns uses an innovative feature known as roundup savings. Here’s how it works. Acorns syncs to your debit and/or credit card, and automatically rounds up your purchases to the nearest dollar. It then deposits the “spare change” into your investment account. For example, let’s say you buy a cup of coffee for $1.48. Acorns will round up to the nearest dollar, setting aside $.52 into your savings.
Open an Acorns Account Today
From there, the money is invested in one of five professionally managed ETF portfolios, that match your recommended asset allocation. What I love about Acorns is how easy it is to set up an account directly from the app, and get saving. For account balances less than $5000, the fee is $1/month (.25% annually for balances over $5000). For an additional $1/month, you can now open an Acorns checking account, complete with a Visa Debit card, making the process even more seamless.
Features:
Ideal for new investors
Easy to use app
Innovative, roundup savings
Syncs to your credit/debit card for automated savings
No minimum balance requirement
Monthly fee: $1 (for portfolios up to $5000, over $5000, .25% annual fee)
Available Acorns checking account with free ATM use nationwide
Acorns Found Money – earn credit from retail partner stores
IRA account available
No stock trading functionality
Best for Automated Investing: Acorns, M1 Finance
While the real magic of automated savings comes in the form of roundups, Acorns offers even more layers of automation. For example, with Acorns Found Money, you can earn cash when you spend money at Acorns retail partner stores, a list that includes Sephora, Barnes & Noble, and Walmart. To register, simply download the Acorns Chrome extension, then sit back and watch as retail discounts are returned back to you in the form of credits to your Acorns account when you shop.
M1 Finance also gets a nod here, for their ability to invest preset amounts directly into an ETF investing platform, absolutely free of charge. Unlike Acorns, however, M1 will require a minimum balance of $100, and they lack some of Acorns added features.
Best for Beginning Investors: Acorns, Stash
From the Acorns app, you can access a huge assortment of educational content for beginner investors. Whether you’re learning about the differences between stocks and bonds, or the basics of dollar cost averaging, these articles will give you the confidence you need to start investing. With tools like this, it’s clear that Acorns understands its target market.
For beginning investors, Stash gets an honourable mention (more on them later), due to the creative names they’ve assigned to their various ETF portfolios, making it easy for beginners to visualize the underlying investments. For example, Stash account holders can choose from portfolio selections such as Retail Therapy, Delicious Dividends, or Robots Rising.
Best for Financial Management: Personal Capital
Personal Capital has become known for their cutting edge tools that help people budget and keep track of their net worth. However, they also act as an asset manager, providing customers with a dedicated advisor, and investment portfolios that include individual stocks and low-cost ETFs. On the downside, they are more expensive than other robo-advisors, charging an annual fee of .89% on assets up to $1MM.
If you meet Personal Capital’s asset threshold, and you’re looking for an investment app that will provide you with powerful tools to help you manage your finances, as well as dedicated advice, Personal Capital might be the way to go.
Features:
.89% fee up to $1MM
$100,000 minimum investment requirement
Free tools
Dedicated advice
App can sync all of your financial information
Best for Stock Trading: TD Ameritrade, E-Trade
TD Ameritrade has long been a leader in the discount brokerage space, with solid pricing (including an introductory offer of 60 free trades), powerful research & data analysis tools, and a very robust trading platform, making them a top choice with stock trading investors. What makes the TD Ameritrade mobile app great, is that it takes a lot of the functionality of the desktop site, and places it right at your fingertips.
Investors can access educational videos right from the app, receive price alerts on stocks they’re tracking, and place trades with ease. In addition to stocks, TD Ameritrade offers over 100 commission-free ETFs, with no account minimum. You can download the TD Ameritrade app for use on any iOS, Android, or Blackberry device.
I’m giving an honourable mention to E-Trade, which, like TD, boasts an easy to use app, loaded with functionality. They do have a $500 account minimum, however, and don’t offer commission-free ETFs.
TD Ameritrade Features:
Powerful research/data analysis tools
Educational videos available from the mobile app
No account minimum
$6.95 per trade (standard)
Free trades for the first 60 days (with qualifying deposit)
Over 100 commission-free ETFs
Best for Free Stock Trades: Robinhood
Robinhood is the investment app that boasts no strings attached, free trades on stocks and ETFs. If low fee investing is what you’re after, Robinhood is pretty hard to beat. In exchange for free trades however, you’ll give up some of the advanced features that come complimentary on competitor apps.
For example, access to research tools costs $5/month, and margin trading can only be done through Robinhood Gold, for which there is a cost. Think of Robinhood as a discount supermarket, offering rock bottom prices, with no frills service. In addition to free trading, there are no account fees, and no minimum balance requirement.
Active traders may be turned off by the reduced functionality, but if you’re ok with doing your own research and don’t require the margin capability, Robinhood may be the right investment app for you.
It comes as no surprise that Vanguard’s competitive advantage lies in its pricing. After all, would you expect anything less from one of the industry’s forerunners in low-cost investing? What I wanted to know was how well the Vanguard app measured up, when compared to the competition.
With the Vanguard app, you can place trades on thousands of funds and ETFs free of charge. In addition, there are no account fees, nor is there a minimum balance requirement. Where Vanguard comes up short is in its functionality as a stock trading platform. The app is not as capable as offerings from competitors such as TD Ameritrade, and E-Trade.
Not only that, Vanguard’s fee structure for stock trading is somewhat complicated, in fact, it could be argued that it’s biased against active trading. Here’s an example: If you have less than $50,000 in Vanguard funds, you’ll pay $7/trade. But after 25 trades, the fee increases to $20/trade, which alone is enough to steer active traders elsewhere.
In short, if you’re a buy and hold ETF investor, better yet, a dedicated Vanguard investor, you’ll likely find this to be a perfectly suitable investing app. But if you’re looking for a place to buy and sell stocks on a regular basis, it’s best to look somewhere else.
Features:
Well suited for the buy and hold, Vanguard ETF investor
No commission fees on thousands of ETFs
No account fees, or account minimum
Top-notch educational resources available
$7 trading fee for stocks, rises to $20 over 25 trades
Complex fee structure for stock trading
Not suitable for active traders
Best for Socially Responsible Investing: Wealthsimple
Canada’s largest robo-advisor is now making inroads here in the US, with a mobile app that is intuitive, enabling much of the functionality of the desktop site. With Wealthsimple, you can choose from a selection of low-cost ETFs that will fit your investor profile. What I love most about Wealthsimple however, is their focus on Socially Responsible Investing (SRI).
These days, more and more investors are steering clear of companies that may not reflect their values. Wealthsimple makes that easier through their SRI ETFs, which include holdings in the low carbon, cleantech, and affordable housing sectors. In addition, Wealthsimple offers a Halal portfolio, which only includes investments that align with Islamic investing principles.
In other words, any company profiting from the sale of alcohol, tobacco, gambling, pork, or weapons, is excluded from the Wealthsimple Halal portfolio. Halal portfolios do not include income investments, such as bonds or CDs, as they are considered debt instruments. Because of this, rather than ETFs, Halal portfolios are made up of 50 carefully selected, individual stocks.
Features:
Robo-advisor offering a broad selection of low-cost ETFs
.50% annual fee on portfolios up to $100,000, .40% over $100k
No minimum investment amount
Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) available
Halal portfolio available
Best for Real-Estate Investing: Fundrise
The Fundrise investment app was designed with a very specific customer in mind: the real-estate investor. Advertising themselves as an alternative to the stock market, Fundrise enables investors to select from portfolios comprised of private real-estate investments. Fundrise portfolios are tailored to three specific asset allocation models – income, balanced, and long term growth.
What I love about Fundrise is that they make real-estate investing accessible to almost anyone, with a $500 minimum investment. There is an annual fee of up to 1.00%, which is not far off some of the robo-advisor competition.
I will issue a note of caution relating to the historical returns that are advertised prominently on the Fundrise website. Not only is past performance not an indicator of future returns, but Fundrise portfolios have yet to endure a severe market downturn, having only been around since 2012.
That said, real-estate investing, in general, has proven to be a suitable long term investment for many generations. If you’re looking for a way to add some variety to a standard stock and bond portfolio, Fundrise may be a good alternative.
Similar to other micro-investing apps, Stash makes it easy to get started, by saving very small sums of money. What I love about their investment app, is that it allows you to open an account in only a couple of minutes. Not only that, but as soon as you deposit $5, they’ll match it with a $5 contribution of their own.
Investment apps like Stash make micro-investing possible because they have the ability to purchase fractional shares of the underlying investments (stocks and ETFs).
You can actually browse through a large selection of stocks and ETFs on the app, making it easy to choose a portfolio that aligns with your values. As I mentioned earlier, Stash ETF portfolios have some pretty creative names. Who wouldn’t want some Retail Therapy, or Delicious Dividends.
Features:
Same pricing as Acorns
Ability to invest small amounts with fractional share capability
Customized ETF portfolios to align with your values
$5 welcome bonus (with a $5 deposit)
Ideal for beginner investors
$1/monthly fee might not be worth it for everyone
Which Investment App is Right for Me?
To figure out which investment app is right for you, start by deciding which features are the most important.
If simple, automated savings is what you’re after, Acorns is probably your best bet. Serious stock traders will prefer the robust trading platforms and research tools offered by TD Ameritrade or E-Trade, while fans of Vanguard may be satisfied with its offering of thousands of free ETFs.
Either way, once you know what you’re after, the final decision becomes a lot easier.
If you’ve been using your debit card for all your purchases for years — carefully tracking your checking account balance and not spending more than what you have in the bank — shifting your spending to a credit card can be a big change.
I used to be one of those people who pay for everything with their debit card because they’re afraid of racking up debt. I thought debit cards were the safe spending option since you can’t spend more money than what you have in your account. I thought that was what financial responsibility looked like. But my perspective changed as my interest in travel grew and I learned that I could earn big rewards by signing up for and using credit cards.
Related: Credit vs. debit cards: Which is the smarter choice?
Maybe you already have a rewards credit card or two but are hesitant to shift all of your spending to credit cards. You’ve possibly signed up for a credit card and charged enough to meet the minimum spending requirement for a bonus, but after that, you always return to using your debit card. If you’ve been on the fence about switching your spending from debit to credit, here are a few tips to help you make the change.
Adjust your mindset
When I first decided to shift my spending to credit cards, I knew I wanted to be a responsible credit card user. I didn’t view a credit card as free money or a long-term loan to pay back over time through minimum payments. I didn’t want to pay interest, which meant not charging more than I could pay back each month.
Related: The best way to pay your credit card bills
One thing that helped me is that I treated my credit card just like my debit card. That meant not spending more than I had in the bank. Even though my credit card did not withdraw directly from my checking account for every purchase (as my debit card did), I acted as it did.
Maybe you made only minimum payments on credit cards in the past. If so, paying it in full will require adjusting your mindset. View your credit card just like a debit card. Don’t spend more than you can pay back every month.
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Related: TPG’s 10 commandments of credit cards
Know your credit limit
You’ll want to avoid accidentally exceeding your credit limit on a lower-limit card. If you do, transactions may be declined, or you may be charged fees. But you also shouldn’t view cards with high limits as available money for maxing out.
Keeping your balance within a reasonable limit of your available credit can boost your credit score. Your credit utilization ratio makes up 30% of your FICO score, so keeping your balance in check is important.
Start with just one card
Maximizing your points- and miles-earning often involves strategizing which cards to use for different purchases. As many cards come with category bonuses — bonus points for different types of spending, such as restaurants or gas stations — it can be quite lucrative to use different cards for different purchase categories. That might mean using an American Express® Gold Card for 4 points per dollar at restaurants and U.S. supermarkets (on up to $25,000 in purchases per calendar year, then 1 point per dollar) and switching to the Citi Premier® Card for 3 points per dollar when filling up your gas tank.
However, remembering which card to use for each purchase can feel overwhelming if you’re new to travel rewards and using your credit card for everything.
Related: 4 ways to manage your spending on multiple credit card accounts
A good way to maximize points earned using only one card at a time is through new card sign-up bonuses. Open a new credit card and use only that card until you meet the minimum spending requirement (which is required for earning the welcome bonus), being sure to pay off your balance in full every month.
Once that’s complete, apply for another card and shift all your spending to that card. You’re generating lots of points by receiving sign-up bonuses, even though you may not utilize all of the bonus categories you could maximize by juggling multiple cards. But remember that some issuers — including American Express, Chase and Bank of America — limit the number of cards you can be approved for.
Related: The ultimate guide to credit card application restrictions
Once you’re comfortable with consistently paying your balance off in full every month, you can add more complexity, like switching your spending to different cards to take advantage of category bonuses.
Shift any automatic payments
Automatic payments make life easier by knocking one more thing off the to-do list. If you have automatic transactions using your checking account or debit card and use your credit card for other purchases, tracking your finances can complicate your finances. There’s more to manage. Keep it simple by shifting as many automatic payments as possible to your credit card.
You likely can’t use your credit card to autopay everything. Your mortgage and car payment are good examples. Thus, you’ll still have to track those in your checking account. Yes, some services will accept your credit card for a fee and send a check to your loan company or other merchants, but you’ll have to weigh whether the fee is worth it for you.
For your other bills — such as cellphone, utilities, fitness club membership, streaming services — it should only take a few minutes to update your payment online, then you’ll start earning rewards for those purchases.
Review your transactions
Whether you check your credit card account daily or monthly, it’s important to take the time to ensure all your transactions post correctly. You’re not just reviewing transactions for the correct amounts, but you should review your points earned to verify you’ve earned the correct amount of points. And check for any statement credits you expect to receive, such as from Chase Offers or Amex Offers.
Set up autopay or schedule manual payments
You don’t want to forget a payment, thus incurring late fees and interest. While some card issuers may waive late charges and interest as a one-time courtesy, you shouldn’t get in the habit of paying late.
Determine a payment schedule that works best for you. Some people pay weekly; others pay monthly. If you’re afraid of overspending and not having the money in your checking account to pay the bill, don’t wait until the due date. You can make multiple payments, even paying off balances daily or weekly.
You should set up autopay for your full balance (ideal) or the minimum balance by the due date if you’re concerned you may forget to pay your bill.
Bottom line
I’m a long-time travel rewards enthusiast, and I spend significant time and energy learning how to maximize my spending and earn rewards. However, it can feel like everyone is signing up for new credit cards (and spending thousands of dollars on them) to generate points for first-class flight redemptions and luxury hotel stays.
But that’s not the case. Even still, I’m still surprised when a friend or family member pulls out a debit card to pay for a purchase. Even though they may be interested in travel rewards, moving from a debit to a credit can be nerve-wracking, and I understand that.
Switching from debit to credit is one of my best money moves. My only regret is not doing so sooner.
I am obsessed with the film Everything Everywhere All at Once. From the moment I saw the trailer, I knew the movie was meant for me. I was right. The film’s bizarre blend of action, philosophy, science fiction, taxes, and juvenile humor feels specifically targeted to me and my brain.
For those unfamiliar, here’s a quick plot synopsis.
Evelyn and Waymond Wang own a laundromat. Their business is failing, their marriage is fracturing, and so is their relationship with Joy, their daughter. During a meeting with the IRS, Evelyn is visited by a version of her husband from a parallel universe. He says that the multiverse — all of the many parallel universes — is under attack from an evil being named Jobu Tupaki, and Evelyn is the only one who can save it. The rest of the film is about Evelyn overcoming her skepticism and discovering her true power (and Waymond’s).
This trailer pretty much nails the mood and theme of the film. If this preview intrigues you, you’ll probably like it:
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Everything Everywhere All at Once is strange. Very strange. It starts mundane and boring, descends into madness, then ultimately ties everything together in some magical ways. Some people hate it. They can’t finish watching it. That’s too bad, because if you abandon the film during the boring part or the strange part, you never get to the magical part. The tedium and the madness are all part of the journey.
I’ve watched the film five times now (and will likely watch it a sixth later today), and I get something new from each viewing. The movie is rich. And detailed. And layered. In fact, it’s designed for repeat viewing (because frequently there’s no way to know something has meaning the first time through).
The reason the film hits me so hard, I think, is that its themes are aligned with things I’ve been ruminating over throughout 2022. While I was caring for my dying cousin during the spring, I reached some sort of nihilistic nadir. Like Jobu Tupaki, the movie’s “villain”, I decided that nothing matters, that life is inherently meaningless.
At heart, though, I’m a Waymond figure — and I always have been. It didn’t take me long to realize that even if life is inherently meaningless (especially if life is inherently meaningless), then it’s up to each of us to make our own meaning. And that kindness matters.
Then there’s the movie’s wild exploration of the multiverse. I’ve been exposed to this concept repeatedly in 2022, most notably in the novel The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, which has a plot similar to Everything Everywhere All at Once: a woman is trapped in a limbo state between life and death, where she explores the many alternate lives she might have lived.
It’s as if the universe is trying to beat me over the head with a message: “J.D., you bozo, you are not trapped by your current reality. If you’re dissatisfied with this timeline, it’s up to you to create a timeline you like better.”
Message received, Universe.
Designing Your Life
Last week, I re-read a book that helped me understand how to take this esoteric idea and do something practical about it. That book is Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. Ostensibly, Designing Your Life is about finding a career that fits you. In reality, it’s about looking at the multiverse and deciding which of the many available universes you want to live in.
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Fundamentally, Designing Your Life is a career book targeted at young adults. The material here is derived from a Stanford University course taught by the two authors.
Bill Burnett is the executive director of the Stanford Design Program (and was a part of Apple’s early laptop design team). Dave Evans is the co-director of the Stanford Life Design Lab and a very early employee of Electronic Arts, the videogame company.
Burnett and Evans aim to get students (and readers) to apply principles from the world of design to the process of planning their future. While sometimes this approach (and the terminology associated with it) feels forced, most of the time it works surprisingly well. In fact, I found this book was full of aha! moments.
What does a well-designed life look like? What does that notion even mean? “A well-designed life is a life that makes sense,” the authors write. “It’s a life in which who you are, what you believe, and what you do all line up together.” They call this alignment coherence, and I think it’s an excellent concept.
To build a coherent life, the authors encourage readers to practice five disciplines:
Curiosity. Curiosity, of course, is about being open-minded, about casting a wide net. The authors want you to explore, to be open to opportunity. Doing so will help you “get good at being lucky”.
Bias to action. It’s not enough to simply read and think about things. Burnett and Evans want you to act — even if your actions are imperfect. They want you to try things. They want you to fail over and over, because failure is the foundation of success.
Reframing. People get stuck all of the time, and often this “stuckness” is a result of an inability to shift perspective. Designing Your Life urges readers to reframe problems in order to remove barriers and circumvent perceived roadblocks. (Reading this book helped me realize I do a poor job of reframing problems in my life. I allow myself to stay stuck for far too long, in most cases.)
Patience. Design, the authors say, is a process. Life design is no different. “For every step forward,” they write, “it can sometimes seem you are moving two steps back.” They advocate what they call prototyping — testing new ideas and solutions. “Life design is a journey,” they say. “Let go of the end goal and focus on the process.”
Radical collaboration. Lastly, the book urges readers to seek help. Great design requires multiple minds tackling a problem. In designing your life, you want to consult with friends and family and mentors. You want to meet people and ask questions. You want to get input from people you trust.
Because this book is based on an actual college course, it’s filled with exercises. These exercises were quite clearly homework assignments for Stanford students, but for old folks like me they’re useful tools to gain clarity.
One exercise, for instance, asks readers to write a 250-word Workview (a short statement about what you believe work is for and what constitutes good work), a 250-word Lifeview (a short statement describing what you believe makes life worth living), then explore how the Workview and Lifeview clash and/or complement one another.
But the exercise I like the most in Designing Your Life makes me think of the multiverse.
The Many Versions of You
“This life you are living is one of many lives you will live,” write Burnett and Evans. “The plain and simple truth is that you will live many different lives in this lifetime. If the life you are currently living feels a bit off, don’t worry; life design gives you endless mulligans.”
To prove their point, they ask readers to visualize three versions of the future, to create three five-year Odyssey Plans.
An Odyssey Plan is like a roadmap to an alternate universe. It’s a vision of what your life might might like five years from now. And the authors want you to draft three of these so that you can see clearly that there really is a multitude of alternate realities from which to choose.
Your first plan, they say, should be based on what you currently do.
Your second plan should be the thing you’d do if the path you’re currently on suddenly vanished.
And the third plan should be the thing you’d do if money and/or image were no object.
I love this idea. And, in fact, I think of it as a missing link in my own work.
When I’m asked to speak, I generally talk about money and meaning. I lead audiences through exercises designed to help them find purpose in life. My end goal is to help people draft a personal mission statement.
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But I’ve always felt that my presentation lacks a certain something. Now I know what that something is: Odyssey Plans (or my own version of this idea). An Odyssey Plan helps to put a personal mission statement into action.
Let me give you a real-life example of what Burnett and Evans are after. (This isn’t exactly their exercise, but it’s the same idea.) Let’s look at three possible futures for me.
Future #1: Get Rich Slowly. The authors say that your first Odyssey Plan should be built around your existing life. In my case, that means Get Rich Slowly. This works well because that’s my preferred plan, anyhow. I have a clear vision of what I want this site to be, and although my aims have been thwarted repeatedly over the past year, I have made progress toward the goal I have in mind.
In this preferred future, five years from now this site will have a clean, elegant design (which I’m currently building here) that puts the reader first. No ads. No tracking. No social media. No bullshit. The site will still feature this blog, of course, but the content will also be organized into sections that resemble “online textbooks” about specific areas of personal finance.
Meanwhile, I’d also like to build out the GRS YouTube channel to feature video versions of the most important articles. And somehow in all of this, I’d be grateful if I could earn an income. (Yes, I realize that’ll be difficult to do without ads.)
My preferred plan is to do what I’m doing now — but more of it…and more intensely.
Future #2: Preserving the Past Your second Odyssey Plan should be something you’d do if your current work suddenly vanished. In many cases, that means you’d end up doing something similar to what you already do. For me, this is and isn’t true. If Get Rich Slowly suddenly vanished, I’d still write — but not about money.
The two months I spent with my cousin Duane at the end of his life made me interested in finding a way to contribute my talents to hospice somehow. But what can a writer do to help the dying? When I phrase it like that, I suspect you might already see the answer.
For my second five-year plan, I’d explore how to help people tell their life stories. The idea excites me, actually. I think I could do a good job at it because it’d combine a lot of my interests and talents.
The way I see it, I’d sit with people and record their stories. I’d learn to ask questions that elicit memories and meaning from their past, then take these responses and somehow compile them into keepsakes for families. This is something I always wish I’d done with my father. It’s something I tried to do with my cousin Duane. And it’s something that I’ve actually been doing over the past decade with Kim’s family. I have a whole collection of stories from her father and his siblings. (I’m not joking when I say their lives would have made a fantastic Michener novel!)
So, my second possible future is helping people tell their life stories.
Future #3: A Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man Your third Odyssey plan should be a pipe dream. It’s what you’d do if money (and/or the judgment of others) were no object.
In my case, I’ve had a plan percolating in the back of my head for a year now. My Plan C would be something completely different than I’ve ever done before. I’d go to art school.
You see, I’d like to draw a webcomic about personal finance. I’ve been a comic nerd my entire life. I’ve been writing about money for 15+ years now. This seems like a fun way to combine these two passions. And, in fact, I have a concept already. It’s about a young woman named Penny Short who moves to small village inhabited by colorful characters, all of whom are anthropomorphized animals. Each of these animals is a caricature of one of my colleagues (or their ideas).
There’s Pete, the Canadian Beaver, for instance, who is super frugal and bikes around town and hates rampant consumerism. There’s Sam, the samurai duck, who slices through life’s money mysteries. There’s Marla, the bear. And Tom, the turtle. And there’s a whole bunch of folks who live in the Frugalwoods.
That’s my third five-year plan. I’d go to art school, then create a webcomic about personal finance.
The Multiverse and Me
I hope that small example gives you a glimpse of just how powerful this exercise can be. Exploring three possible versions of your future is mind-opening. And this is just one of many similar exercises in this book.
Designing Your Life is terrific. I recommend it highly. It’s one of those rare books that I’ve added to the mental library of titles I suggest to those who need help. (Other examples of books in this mental library include Your Money or Your Life, I Will Teach You to Be Rich, and The Simple Path to Wealth.)
This book is so good, in fact, that I plan to make time to work through all of the exercises. And I’m not the only one. Kim is going to do them with me, as is my buddy Craig.
Even if I didn’t plan to do the exercises, though, I feel like I would have profited from reading Designing Your Life. The book is packed with actionable advice and thought-provoking questions.
For me, though, the biggest takeaway has been that the multiverse isn’t just the stuff of science fiction. That concept can be applied to my own life today. By taking the time to think about how to align my life with my values, then drafting multiple five-year plans that fit with these coherent values, I — and anyone else — can build a well-lived, joyful life.
My biggest pet peeve with this book is the lack of an index. I never understand how books like this make it to print without a way to look things up. Designing Your Life is dense with “sticky” ideas, and I found myself wanting to reference past sections repeatedly. But it was nearly impossible to find the info I wanted because there’s no index. Instead, I had to flip through page by page until I found what I wanted. Such a terrible design decision for a book guided by design principles.
You’re in the market for a free checking account and you want the security that comes with a bigger, FDIC-insured bank. Where do you turn?
If you don’t care about bells or whistles or financial perks, the BMO Harris Smart AdvantageTM Account is a good place to begin. It’s about as simple as a checking account can get without sacrificing any of the basics.
What Is the BMO Harris Smart Advantage Account?
The BMO Harris Smart Advantage Checking Account is a free checking account from BMO Harris. It’s a simple account with no monthly maintenance fee, no ongoing minimum balance, a broad fee-free ATM network, and a sign-up bonus that’s better than most free checking accounts’.
This account has few value-added benefits or perks. For example, BMO doesn’t reimburse out-of-network ATM fees or waive overdraft fees for Smart Advantage account holders. But the account does have an excellent mobile app that basically eliminates the need to bank in-branch.
What Sets the BMO Harris Smart Advantage Checking Account Apart?
The BMO Harris Smart Advantage Checking Account has no truly unique features, but it does stand out for a few important reasons:
No monthly maintenance fee with electronic statements. As long as you opt into electronic statements, this account charges no monthly maintenance fee.
Above-average sign-up bonus for a free checking account. For a free checking account, Smart Advantage has an excellent sign-up bonus that’s worth $200 with qualifying direct deposits.
Big ATM network with no withdrawal fees. BMO Harris Bank has more than 40,000 ATMs in its fee-free network. But be forewarned that BMO doesn’t reimburse out-of-network ATM fees on this account.
Key Features of the BMO Harris Smart Advantage Checking Account
The BMO Harris Smart Advantage Checking Account is a basic checking account that stands out mostly for its generous sign-up bonus and no monthly maintenance fee.
Sign-up Bonus
Open a new BMO Harris Smart Advantage Account by July 14, 2023, and get a $200 cash bonus when you receive a total of at least $4,000 in qualifying direct deposits within the first 90 days your account is open.
Minimum Deposit and Balance
The minimum deposit to open a BMO Harris Smart Advantage Checking Account is $25. There’s no ongoing minimum balance once your account is open.
ATM Network
BMO Harris is part of the Allpoint ATM network, which means it has more than 40,000 fee-free ATMs across the United States. That includes many areas where BMO Harris doesn’t have branches.
However, Smart Advantage doesn’t reimburse out-of-network ATM fees, so avoid those to avoid surcharges.
Possible Account Fees
This account has no monthly maintenance fee when you opt into paper statements. Otherwise, your monthly fee is $3.
Other possible fees include:
A $3 out-of-network ATM fee
A $15 fee per overdraft unless you opt into Overdraft Protection, which may involve interest charges
A $3 fee per check image if you’re not enrolled in paperless statements
Mobile Features
BMO Harris has a comprehensive, user-friendly mobile app that supports:
Free mobile check deposit
Person-to-person Zelle transfers with no BMO user fees (though other fees may apply)
Budgeting and expense-tracking tools
One-dashboard view of all your BMO bank and credit card accounts
Advantages
BMO Harris Smart Advantage has no monthly maintenance fees, a generous sign-up bonus, and an unusually large fee-free ATM network.
No monthly maintenance fee with paper statements. BMO Harris Smart Advantage charges no monthly fee (or any other type of maintenance fee) as long as you opt into paper statements. Otherwise, the paper statement fee is $3 unless you meet certain other qualifying criteria.
$200 sign-up bonus with qualifying direct deposits. By the standards of the no-maintenance-fee checking space, BMO Harris Smart Advantage has an above-average sign-up bonus. The direct deposit requirement is manageable for many would-be account holders too.
More than 40,000 fee-free ATMs. BMO Harris Bank has a big fee-free ATM network that includes many more than just BMO-branded machines. This is a big advantage over banks with smaller or proprietary ATM networks, including big ones like Chase Bank.
Disadvantages
BMO Harris Smart Advantage’s downsides revolve around what it lacks: relationship benefits, out-of-network ATM rebates, ongoing bonuses for account holders, and interest on balances.
No relationship benefits. BMO Harris Smart Advantage is an entry-level checking account with no relationship benefits for account holders. By contrast, the BMO Harris Premier Account offers quarterly bonuses on credit card spending and discounts on loans originated with BMO. If you can afford that account’s maintenance fee or meet the waiver requirements, it’s a more rewarding option.
No out-of-network ATM rebates. BMO Harris Smart Advantage doesn’t reimburse out-of-network ATM surcharges. This is a disadvantage relative to BMO Harris Premier, which does, and other more generous checking accounts too.
No ongoing bonuses. Unlike the more generous BMO Harris Premier Account, Smart Advantage has no ongoing bonuses for account holders. The sign-up bonus is all you get.
No interest on balances. This account earns no interest on balances. That’s a disadvantage relative to the growing number of high-interest checking accounts on the market, a list that includes some accounts with no maintenance fees.
How the BMO Harris Smart Advantage Checking Account Stacks Up
If you’re just looking for a basic free checking account, BMO Harris Smart Advantage is perfect for you. If you’re looking for something more generous, it’s not — but the BMO Harris Premier Account could be.
BMO Harris Smart Advantage
BMO Harris Premier
Monthly Maintenance Fee
$0
$25, but can be waived
Waiver Requirements
None needed
Yes, required $10,000+ balance
ATM Fee Reimbursement
None
Up to $25 per month
Credit Card Benefits
None
Up to $75 in quarterly spending bonuses
Mortgage Benefits
None
Closing cost and interest rate discounts
Interest on Balances
None
0.01% APY
Final Word
The BMO Harris Smart AdvantageTM Account is a no-frills free checking account that’s ideal if you’re not looking for anything fancy. With only a token minimum opening deposit and no ongoing minimum balance, it’s a good starter bank account that you can easily grow into (and hopefully, eventually, grow out of). The above-average sign-up bonus and robust mobile app are nice too.
However, if you expect more from your checking account, Smart Advantage probably won’t cut it. Unlike the BMO Harris Premier Account, it offers no discounts for BMO borrowers, no bonuses on credit card spending, and no out-of-network ATM fee reimbursements. It’s your money — choose wisely.
The Verdict
Our rating
BMO Harris Smart Advantage™ Account
The BMO Harris Smart Advantage Checking Account is a solid first “adult” bank account and a fine choice for anyone else who doesn’t mind a bare-bones product. If you’re looking for more generous perks and rewards, you’re better off paying (or finding a way to waive) the monthly maintenance fee on a higher-end account.
Editorial Note:
The editorial content on this page is not provided by any bank, credit card issuer, airline, or hotel chain, and has not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of the bank, credit card issuer, airline, or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.
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Brian Martucci writes about credit cards, banking, insurance, travel, and more. When he’s not investigating time- and money-saving strategies for Money Crashers readers, you can find him exploring his favorite trails or sampling a new cuisine. Reach him on Twitter @Brian_Martucci.
Most of us struggle with some psychological aspect of money that can impede our savings. Whether it be the lure of clothing stores, nights out with friends, or stocking a top-shelf liquor cabinet, there tends to be one thing or another that creeps from our wants category into our needs. I’ve never been a compulsive shopper and always preferred voluntary simplicity, both in the kitchen and in my closet. This means that for most of my young adult life, I had good control of my finances.
Then I Started Dating…
Dating quickly made gift giving my Achilles heel. As with other debt-inducing habits, it seemed harmless at first. Here are some things I started doing, not realizing how much money I was shelling out:
I never liked to show up at my girlfriend’s apartment empty handed so I always had her favorite Snapple or a magazine for her in hand. (Six bucks, just to say hello.)
I always wanted to pick up the check, even when we were out with a friend or two. (Could be upwards of $100, just to show I cared.)
I brought expensive bottles of wine to dinner parties, not to show off, but just to enjoy with everyone, even if I was just as happy with $7 bottle myself. ($25 to try to find community.)
I was sent to the store to get simple baking supplies, but instead of getting the normal vanilla extract, I would get the fancy packaged one for twice the price. Take that philosophy down the entire list of supplies and I’d racked up a pretty hefty bill. ($50 extra just so we could feel high society together.)
It was never about seeming rich to my friends or girlfriend. I took pride in my penny pinching in every other aspect of my life. I honestly thought it was about generosity and showing affection, nothing more.
My usual smart budgeting was out the door. If it began with my dating life, it quickly found its way into all my close friendships and relationships. If I were booking a hotel room for myself, I would find some side-of-the-road motel for $35. If it was for my parents, I’d charge a much fancier $300 room to my card. I wanted them to be comfortable, right? (I should note that my parents’ honeymoon was a nine-month camping trip in a VW bug across the United States. They’ve grown up some since their 60s hippie days, but not all that much.) Technically, I could afford it. I just wouldn’t contribute very much to savings that month.
As the gifts became a larger and more elaborate, my savings account stagnated. The want of purchasing gifts found its way into my budget as a need.
Providing the Important Stuff
If I look deep enough, I know that I have an engrained desire to be the provider in my relationships. I was stuck in a 50s mentality of the man as the breadwinner, and thinking that gift giving was my only way of showing financial muscle. I never wanted to buy the affection of my friends, but I got caught in a trap thinking that financial security was the most important thing I could provide. I ignored all the other myriad ways of showing affection, whether it be kind words, acts of service, spending quality time, or even a big hug.
I tried a spending freeze on gift giving and decided to come up with something different whenever I got the urge to spend for someone else. The experiment lead to the following new behaviors:
I accepted that showing up at her front door was hello enough, and I realized a smile and being genuinely happy to see someone went further than I’d ever expect.
I learned the fine art of the potluck dinner, and saw that people got so much joy just from sharing what they loved to make in the kitchen.
At a dinner party, I brought Apples to Apples. It was appropriate for the crowd, probably more appropriate than the bottle of wine I would’ve brought, and if you’ve never played it, it’s the best thing ever to bring a group a little closer.
Instead of worrying about how fancy the baking supplies looked, I joined her in the kitchen. I never realized how much raw dough the woman could eat. I joked that it was a much truer way to her heart.
Ignoring these other ways of showing love had been getting in the way of my friendships and relationships. I learned so much more about the people around me and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves when I stopped worrying about how much they were enjoying themselves.
Tracking Spending
Since I identified the underlying cause of my stagnating savings account, I could go about fixing it. I started tracking the dollars that left my bank account each month and realized just how much was going to small gifts. Paying for gas for my girlfriend’s SUV was an incredibly friendly gesture, but it hurt in the long run. This isn’t to say I needed to stop with my generosity, but tracking my spending allowed me to create a column just for gift giving. It stopped being a mindless act and more a conscious decision, which in turn provided me with more joy in the activity. This way, I was giving something from my daily life to be generous toward others, which to me, seems a much truer definition of generosity.
Virtues in Excess
We usually think about our financial trolls being negative. Something like greed leads us to live in excess, buying new shoes or the new electronic. It’s easy to blame. It’s much harder to point your finger at a problem that seems virtuous. I started to see that I wasn’t alone. My friend Tracy spends almost all of her disposable income spoiling her kid and yet complains about the holes in her own shoes. I had a family member almost go broke donating to the Doctors Without Borders. Such gifts of charity are easier to rationalize; they seem so nice, even if they are ruining your financial situation. It’s never easy to change patterns, especially when the emotions of not only yourself, but of others are involved. As always, it’s important to be honest with yourself and communicative with those around you.
I still have to remind myself that if someone is going to breakup with me because I don’t bring Snapple to her door each time I show up, I could probably do without the relationship. I bring myself, and that’s just fine.
What are some ways that gift giving puts you under budget? Do you have other “virtuous” that hurt you in the long run?
Inside: Do you need to make $5000 fast for ways to make extra money? This guide has dozens of ideas for earning money. When you need to know how to make 5000 fast, this list has something for you.
Are you looking for ways to make 5000 dollars fast?
You’re in the right place.
In this post, we’ll share 15 realistic ways to make money quickly.
Your first thought might be SCAM to make this much money fast, but honestly, there are plenty of ways to make extra cash without any special skills or experience.
You just have to decide what works best for you. That is how you will make the most money without feeling like you are working.
I love hustling to make extra money to afford things we couldn’t otherwise.
So if you’re ready to start making some extra cash, let’s get started!
What are the most realistic ways to make $5,000 fast?
Moreover, making $5,000 fast is possible through a combination of online and offline methods.
Selling items, offering freelance work, participating in paid surveys, trading stocks, and pet-sitting or dog-walking services are all viable options.
Set goals, track progress, and experiment with multiple gigs to find what works best for you. With dedication, effort, and a little bit of creativity, you can reach your income goal in no time.
How to double $5,000 quickly?
If you want to double $5,000 quickly, there are several realistic ways to achieve this goal. Here are five options to consider:
Invest in the stock market: The stock market can be a great way to make money quickly, but it also comes with risks. Look for companies with a strong track record and invest wisely.
Start a side hustle: Starting a side business or selling items online can be a great way to make extra money. Consider your skills and interests to find a profitable niche.
Participate in affiliate marketing: Affiliate marketing involves promoting products and earning a commission for each sale. Look for products with high commissions and a strong customer base.
Flip items for profit: Buy low and sell high by flipping items like cars, furniture, or electronics. This can be a risky business, so do your research and start small.
Play the long game: Consider living a frugal life and saving and investing your money over time to see a larger return. This may not double your money quickly, but it can lead to significant growth in the long run.
Each method comes with its own potential risks and benefits, so it’s important to do your research and choose the option that best fits your skills and financial goals.
With dedication and hard work, doubling your $5,000 is within reach.
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16 realistic ways to make 5000 dollars fast
If you’ve been looking for ways to make some extra money, there are many opportunities out there.
While most won’t make you rich overnight, if you put in the effort, you can find some that will help you reach your financial goals.
Here are 16 realistic ways to make $5,000 fast.
1. Sell Unwanted Items
If you’re looking to make $5000 fast, selling unwanted items is a great way to do it.
Start by identifying valuable items in your home such as antiques, electronics, furniture, or musical instruments.
Once you’ve identified your items, choose a platform to sell on eBay, Craigslist, and Facebook Marketplace are all great options.
When pricing your items, do some research to ensure you’re pricing them competitively. Use the “buy it now” feature on eBay or set a fair price on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. Don’t forget to take clear photos and provide detailed descriptions of your items.
Check out the most popular items to sell and make money. Plus you can declutter your home.
2. Take on a Part-Time Job
Part-time jobs offer a steady stream of income and opportunities for skill development. Often this is an overlooked way to make money, but there are plenty of part-time jobs available.
Popular part-time job options include retail or food service positions, which often offer the potential for tips or commission-based earnings.
Balancing a part-time job with other commitments may be challenging, but it can be done with proper planning and prioritization. Overall, a part-time job can be a reliable way to generate extra income and reach financial goals.
Many happen to be early morning jobs, too.
3. Invest in Stocks
Investing in stocks can be a realistic way to make $5000 fast. In fact, learn how fast you can make money with stocks.
Since you are interested in making money fast, you need to be an active trader, which means you are trading for income. Not a buy-and-hold investor.
Typically, most active traders prefer to trade growth stocks such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, or Tesla.
It’s important to do your research and choose the right stocks to invest in. More importantly, you have to know when to enter and exit. Here is the best course I know on learning how to trade stocks.
However, keep in mind that investing in stocks is subject to market risk, so it’s important to consult with a personal finance expert and assess your risk tolerance before making any investments.
4. Borrow Money
Remember that borrowing money should not be a long-term solution and explore other ways to make money as well.
If you need to make $5000 fast, borrowing money might be an option. You can borrow from a personal loan, credit card, or friends and family.
Personal loans are a good option if you have good credit, but they often come with high-interest rates.
Credit cards can offer cash advances, but the interest rates can be high too.
Borrowing from friends or family can be a good option, but it can also put a strain on relationships.
To secure the best possible terms, shop around for loans and compare interest rates and fees. Make sure to read and understand the terms and conditions before signing, and ensure you can make the payments on time.
5. Sell Things Online
Selling things online is a great way to make extra cash quickly. This involves buying items you know you can resell online for a higher price.
With the ability to reach a wider audience and the convenience of not having to leave your house, selling online has become increasingly popular.
Platforms like eBay, Etsy, and Amazon offer product-selling concepts that make it easy to sell a variety of items, from clothes to electronics.
To optimize product listings, take high-quality photos, write detailed descriptions, and price items competitively. When handling shipping and handling, use free shipping labels, and provide excellent customer service to ensure a positive experience for buyers.
6. Land a Job That You Can Do From Home
To land a job that you can do from home, it’s important to have the necessary skills and qualifications for the job you’re interested in.
Popular work-from-home jobs include online tutoring, virtual assistance, bookkeeping, social media management, and transcription.
Be prepared to participate in virtual interviews and demonstrate your ability to work independently. With the right skills and job search strategies, you can land a job that you can do from home.
Find the best non phone work from home jobs.
7. Make Crafts
Crafts can be a fun way to turn your hobby into a money-making side hustle.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you get started:
Choose your craft: Decide on a craft that you enjoy making and that you think will sell well. Popular options include jewelry, candles, and home decor.
Gather your materials: Depending on your craft, you’ll need to gather materials such as beads, wax, or fabric. You can find these at craft stores or online.
Develop your skills: If you’re new to your chosen craft, take some time to practice and improve your skills. Watch tutorials and read books to learn new techniques.
Create your products: Once you have your materials and skills, start creating your products. Make sure they’re high-quality and visually appealing.
Set up shop: You can sell your crafts online through platforms like Etsy or Amazon Handmade. You can also sell them in person at craft fairs or local markets.
Promote your products: Use social media and word of mouth to promote your products. Share photos and information about your crafts and encourage people to buy them.
By following these steps, you can turn your love of crafting into a profitable side hustle. Remember to be patient and persistent in your efforts to sell your crafts.
8. Rent Out a Space
Right now, your space can be a profitable side hustle.
To make $5000 fast by renting out a space, start by identifying the type of space you can rent out, such as a parking room, garage, or storage space.
You can even get creative and rent out your pool.
Clean and organize the space, then list it on online platforms like Airbnb, Turo, or Neighbor. To ensure a smooth rental process, screen potential renters, set clear rules and expectations, and maintain regular communication.
With some effort and attention to detail, renting out a space can provide a lucrative source of extra income.
9. Sell Digital Goods
This is one of the most popular ways to make money.
Digital goods are products that can be downloaded, streamed, or accessed online, such as ebooks, printables, stock photos, and online courses.
They are a viable option for making money quickly because they require little to no overhead costs and can be sold to a global audience.
The most popular is creating and selling printables. Learn how to make printables.
With dedication and effort, selling digital goods can be a lucrative way to make up to $5000 fast.
10. Join the Gig Economy
The gig economy refers to a labor market characterized by short-term contracts or freelance work, as opposed to permanent jobs.
Popular platforms in the gig economy include:
Joining the gig economy can be an effective way to make $5,000 quickly. One of the main benefits of working in the gig economy is flexibility, as you can determine your own schedules.
To maximize earnings, it’s important to treat gig work like a business and stay organized, tracking expenses and income.
11. Work as a Shopper
As a shopper, your job is to pick up and deliver items to customers using your own vehicle.
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to get started:
Choose a platform: There are several platforms to choose from, such as Instacart, Shipt, and DoorDash. Research each platform and choose the one that best suits your needs.
Sign up: Once you’ve chosen a platform, sign up and complete the application process. This typically involves providing personal information, a valid driver’s license, and passing a background check.
Attend orientation: Some platforms require you to attend an orientation session before you can start working. This will provide you with important information on how to use the app, how to pick up and deliver items, and how to maximize your earnings.
Start shopping: Once you’re approved, log into the app and start accepting orders. Be sure to read the instructions carefully and communicate with the customer if you have any questions.
Maximize earnings: To maximize your earnings, consider working during peak hours when there are more orders available. You can also increase your tips by providing excellent customer service and communicating with customers throughout the shopping process. Additionally, some platforms offer bonuses for completing a certain number of orders within a specified time frame.
Ensure success: To ensure success, it’s important to be organized and efficient. Plan your route ahead of time and try to group orders in the same area together. Keep track of your expenses, such as gas and vehicle maintenance, and make sure you’re earning enough to cover these costs.
With the convenience of on-demand shopping and delivery services, there’s never been a better time to get started.
12. Clean Houses
Cleaning houses can be a lucrative business, with the demand for house cleaning services always high.
To get started, you will need basic cleaning supplies such as cleaning products, mops, vacuums, and cleaning cloths. You can market your services by creating flyers, promoting on social media, and offering referral discounts.
Here are some tips to be successful:
Setting your rates depends on factors such as the size of the house and the frequency of cleaning.
Negotiating with clients can help you secure long-term contracts.
Providing excellent customer service is crucial for building a loyal client base.
As your business grows, consider expanding your services to include laundry and organizing, and hiring additional staff to take on more clients.
With dedication and hard work, you can make up to $5000 fast by cleaning houses.
13. Take Photos
If you’re looking for a side hustle that can earn you some extra cash, taking photos on your phone and selling them on stock photo sites is a great option. You don’t need to be a professional photographer, but having some experience can be helpful.
Some of the best apps to sell your photos on include Shutterstock, Deposit Photos, or iStock by Getty Images.
To get started, you’ll need to create a portfolio of your best work and start submitting them to stock photo sites. While you might need to purchase a camera and photo editing software, there’s not much else you need to get started.
It’s possible to make $1 or more per photo you sell.
14. Write Web Content for a Blog
Well-written web content is essential for making money online, as it can attract more visitors to your blog and keep them engaged.
To write effective web content, it’s important to understand your audience and their needs and to use clear and concise language.
Make sure to use headings, bullet points, and images to break up text and make it easier to read. Additionally, provide actionable advice that can help readers make money or solve a problem.
Sharing your personal experiences and stories can also help to connect with your audience and build trust. By following these tips, you can create high-quality web content that can help you make money and increase website traffic.
15. Engage in Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is promoting someone else’s product or service and receiving a commission for every sale you facilitate.
To be successful with affiliate marketing, start by finding products with high commissions and you will need a large number of followers.
Build an audience around the products you’re promoting and promote them through social media and email marketing. Focus on building a strong relationship with your audience and providing value through helpful content.
With the right strategy and persistence, you can earn your first $5000 through affiliate marketing in no time.
16. Provide Virtual Assistant Services
Virtual assistant jobs are becoming increasingly popular as a way to make money from the comfort of your own home.
As a virtual assistant, you can perform a variety of tasks such as scheduling appointments, managing social media accounts, answering emails, creating presentations, and more. The amount of money you can make will vary depending on your skills, but the average hourly rate for a virtual assistant is around $25 per hour.
Additionally, taking virtual assistant courses and learning new skills can help you specialize and earn more money.
How to use what you’ve learned to start making money quickly
Believe me, I have gone down the road of making money with MLMs or (multi-level-marketing). However, I have found the above ways to be better options for me.
Once you find your groove, you will be able to scale up how much money you make.
Step 1: Research ways to make money fast
If you need to make money quickly, there are many legitimate opportunities available.
Try multiple gigs to find what pays the most in your area and what you enjoy doing.
When researching ways to make money fast, be cautious of scams and do your due diligence before committing to anything. With a bit of creativity and determination, you can find practical and actionable steps to achieve your financial goals.
Step 2: Choose a way to make money fast
When choosing the best way to make $5000 fast, there are a few criteria to consider.
First, consider your skills and interests. If you enjoy driving, delivering for DoorDash or UberEats could be a good fit. If you’re tech-savvy, freelance work or online tutoring might be a good option.
Second, consider the time commitment. Some methods, like selling items on eBay or Facebook Marketplace, can be done in your spare time, while others, like starting a side hustle or taking on freelance work, may require more time and effort.
Finally, consider the potential earnings. Some methods, day trading stocks or selling printables, have the potential for higher earnings than others.
Step 3: Get started making money fast
If you’re looking to make money fast, it’s important to take action right away and not get bogged down by analysis paralysis.
Start with the methods that require the least amount of time and effort, such as selling items you no longer need or completing online surveys. These are easy-to-implement money-making strategies that can quickly generate extra cash.
If you need to save up for a course, then set aside your profits to make that happen.
Step 4: Sacrifice your time for money
Sacrificing your time can be a great way to make money quickly.
The best is when you start to build passive income, you are earning money without the need to work. That is when your hard work will pay off.
By dedicating your time to side hustles, you can earn a significant amount of money within a short period.
Step 5: Maximize your revenue with each step
To make $5000 fast, it’s essential to set realistic revenue goals and identify the most profitable revenue streams.
Prioritize the revenue streams that are most feasible and have the highest earning potential. Once you have identified your revenue streams, optimize your earnings by leveraging your skills and resources.
This could include networking, outsourcing, or investing in your own education to improve your earning potential.
FAQ
Flipping items on eBay is a great way to make money.
To start, you need to find items that you can buy for a low price and sell for a higher price. Look for items that are in demand, such as electronics, clothing, and collectibles. You can find these items at flea markets, garage sales, and online marketplaces like Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace.
Remember to reinvest your profits into buying more items to flip. With time and effort, flipping items on eBay can be a lucrative side hustle.
Becoming a content creator on YouTube might be an option for you.
You can make money from ads, affiliates, and sponsored content, as well as selling your own merch and products.
It is important to create consistent and top-quality videos to build up a following, but it can be a lucrative online side hustle.
freelance work, and more. Here are some of the most popular options:
Freelance work: Graphic design, web development, digital marketing, typing, and more.
Food delivery: DoorDash, Instacart, Uber Eats, Grubhub, and more.
Package delivery: Amazon Flex, Roadie, GoShare, Lugg, and more.
Rideshare driving: Lyft, Uber, and more.
While these jobs offer flexibility and quick payment, they may come with fees and additional costs. Nevertheless, they are great options for making extra income on the side.
There are plenty of job opportunities in the gig economy, ranging from food delivery to How to make $5,000 in a month?
There are several realistic and actionable ways to make $5,000 in a month.
Freelance jobs like virtual assistance, freelance writing, and web development are great options. If you have an established following, your YouTube channel could also make more than $5,000. Other methods to explore are selling on Amazon, affiliate marketing, and blogging.
While some methods may require more work than others, there’s no reason you can’t earn this money quickly.
Remember to think outside the box and explore all of your options.
How to Get 5000 Dollars Fast
Remember that making money fast requires dedication and persistence, but the rewards can be significant.
The potential earnings and time commitment for each option vary, but with effort and dedication, you can make $5000 within a couple of months.
Selling items can earn you a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, while freelance work and trading stocks can earn you thousands of dollars depending on the quality of your work.
Don’t be afraid to try new things and experiment with different methods until you find what works best for you.
Also, consider what works well for one person may not be the best idea for the next.
Maybe earning 5k is more than you need:
Know someone else that needs this, too? Then, please share!!