Undeniably, managing your finances is a tough task. Without the proper financial tools, most consumers fail to recognize how much they are spending each month, and do not know how their investment portfolio is performing. Even worse, most Americans fail to realize that they are not saving enough money for life-events, such as unforeseen circumstances, marriages, buying a house, or building up college savings account for their child.
Fortunately, we compiled a list of the top three financial tools to help you plan for these, without further ado, our top three choices.
- Personal Capital
Personal Capital is one of the best financial tools around. At its core, Personal Capital is a robust financial dashboard that allows you to sync your bank accounts, loans, mortgages, investment portfolios, and credit cards into one consolidated location. Personal Capital will present you with a holistic view of your personal finances. However, the best part is their ability to calculate your net worth. Knowing your net worth is excellent because Personal Capital will compare yours to your peers. You will know exactly how your personal finances stack up.
- You Need a Budget
Do you know how to create a simple financial budget? Does creating one make you nervous? If so, then give You Need a Budget a show. This is my favorite budgeting platform that allows you to create a simple budget to follow. With YNAB you will know exactly what you spend your money on, and how to cut back on unnecessary expenses. However, what makes YNAB stand out is the educational resources and content they provide their customers. Fret not, as a YNAB customer you will know everything you need to know about budgeting and more. It truly is a jack of all trades, and well worth it if you are struggling with creating a personal budget.
- Trim
Trim is a relatively new financial tool; however, their growth has been astronomical. Are you a sucker for ‘free-trials’ for subscription services? Is your cable bill high? Trim will identify subscriptions you no longer use but pay for. It will also help you negotiate select bills that you pay to much for. If you are in dire need to save money, then Trim is your go-to resource. As they tout, Trim saved their customers over $1,000,000 last month alone. While Trim will not help your budget, it will help you cut back on your expenses. You could use this saved money to invest in the stock market, save for significant financial events, or stash it away into an emergency savings account.
Final Thoughts
Ultimately, there is a myriad of financial tools out there for consumers to utilize, but these are the top three tools we recommend. So, if you are struggling with creating a financial budget, need to cut back on expenses, or would like to consolidate all of your financial accounts into one dashboard, then our selection of the three best tools to help you manage your finances will get the job done. The hardest part is just starting but let me clear. The earlier you start caring about your personal finances, the better. Plain and simple.
