There are millions of people out there who have no idea how to manage their money because they feel they are bad at math and struggle with basic accounting. As a result, they don’t know how much money they are spending each month and what they have left remaining. When you have no idea of what is coming in and what is going out each month, it is an ideal recipe for a financial disaster.
The basic principle to manage your money is that you need to be spending less than what you are making each month. If you end up spending more, you will get into debt and plunge yourself into a downward spiral that can be hard to come out from. A lot of people end up paying more money than they should for a lot of products and services because they are not aware of special offers that they can use to get a discount.
For example, if you like playing online casion games you can get special bonuses without having to spend any real money of your own. Nodepositrewards offer great money saving tips for people who enjoy casino games, so do check them out.
Now, before we give you tips on how you can use technology to manage your money better, we want to make it a point to inform you that you will have to cut back on your spending if you are blowing away more money than you are making!
You Need A Budget: If you are one of those individuals who does not know anything about budgeting, then you need to get You Need A Budget (YNAB) which will do the work for you. This is a very simple budget software that focuses on categorizing your monthly expenses and painting a clear financial picture for you so that you are able to quickly tell where you spent your money, on what you spent your money and how much monthly expenses you incurred.
YNAB offers you a free trial for 7 days, so you don’t have to pay anything upfront to try out the software. After you use YNAB for a few months, you can look back at each month and see where you are spending the most and what you can do to cut back on your spending.
Quicken: This financial software is a little more advanced than YNAB as it takes into consideration not just your expenses but also your different sources of income. Quicken will allow you to link your savings account, checking account, credit card spending and internet banking so that you can keep track of every dollar that you make as well as every dollar that you spend.
If you have multiple assets, work with the stock market or dabble in the cryptocurrency market, Quicken will be a great investment even though its monthly payment fees are a bit high.
Bank Rate: Most people are not aware of Bank Rate and hence miss out on some great deals. This software covers a wide range of financial products and updates you with the latest deals, news, stats and offers. If you are looking for the best credit cards on the market, lowest interest rates on housing and student loans, mortgages and cash back offers, you should check out Bank Rate.
Bank Rate provides users with a number of different calculators that take their information from multiple sources to bring you the best deals possible. If you want to find out exactly how much you owe on your credit cards along with the interest, try out their credit card debt calculator. You will also find a nice list of useful topics covering important topics such as consolidating credit cards, bankruptcy and investment plans.
Smartphones: Just about everyone has a smartphone now but most people use it for entertainment purposes and don’t think about using their smartphone to assist them with their finances. There are a number of personal financial apps that you can download on your Android or Apple smartphone and help make things easier for you.
You can download your bank’s app and use it to pay your bills online and keep tab of how much money you have in your account. You can also download a number of utility apps that help you to pay your bills while you are on the move. There are also a number of shopping apps which you can use to shop online and avail special discount coupons that are provided for mobile shoppers.
While there are numerous benefits of using your smartphone to pay bills, shop and keep track of your finances, we must warn you to be cautious at all times and protect your phone by using a strong password, just in case you lose it. The biggest concern when using your smartphone to carry out financial transactions is that it can be hacked or misused when stolen or lost.
The best way to avoid this problem is to never carry out any financial transactions when connected to a public network. The best time to use your smartphone to carry out financial transactions is when you are back in the confines of your own home! If your smartphone is lost or gets stolen, immediately contact your bank and suspend all financial services to be safe.
Annual Credit Report: If you have taken any sort of loan whether it be a student loan, mortgage or credit card loan, you will need to keep track of your credit score. One of the best ways of doing this is to check out AnnualCreditReport as it will give you a free yearly credit report that gives you an accurate picture of your credit score as it compiles data from TransUnion, Experian and Equifax.
We hope you take advantage of these technology resources to manage your finances better!
