Top 3 Personal Finance Sites and Apps

The first step towards financial success is to track your money. You need to know where your money is going before you can make any sound decisions. There are many personal finance websites and apps that can help you do this. They integrate into your bank accounts and have amazing tools to help you manage your finances. Many of them are free so you may have to deal with some advertisements, but other than that, they are strong/powerful tools to aid you with your finances. Here are the top three that I’ve had personal experience with and/or had discussed with others about.

• Mint - I used this for almost a year and I liked it a lot. I was able to integrate all my accounts in it and it helped create good trackers and it let me track some of my personal goals. I had it on my desktop and the iPhone app. The iPhone app had a lot of advertisements, but it’s worth it. I want this blog to become a good source of information and I also rely on advertisements to help earn income. The app is owned by Intuit so if you’ve used Quicken to prepare your taxes, then some of your Mint information can quickly transfer over when filing your taxes.

  
• You Need a Budget (YNAB) – The full service costs money but it offers a social experience to it too. You can go on their forums and talk to others, view their tutorials and lessons and get real advice from professionals. They’ve recently released a free “lite” version of their product and it’s still very powerful. Some of my friends love the feature that gives you tailored advice if it notices you’re living paycheck-to-paycheck. I’ve been helping people with their finances for over a decade now and a lot of people don’t like asking for financial help (especially men). A friend of mine loved getting good advice from the app while retaining his privacy.

  
• Personal Capital – A friend personally recommended I post about this one. This site is less about the budget and more about investing and managing your money. I’ve read a lot of good reviews from users and they are very happy with the reduced amount of advertisements compared to Mint.com. I’ve never personally used it before but I trust the recommendation.

These are very powerful tools that you can use. Working with a Certified Financial Planner can be very costly, so even paying $60 for YNAB will save you money over the long run. Check out each website and let me know which one you prefer or like to use.  What other sites do people use?

Started from The Bottom, Now We’re Here…

Time is the most valuable commodity in our life. For your financial success, starting early is the best decision you can make. Regardless of your age, it’s always a good time to start planning for financial success. For those young 17/18 year olds just entering the military, the future is limitless. Here are some quick steps to start right now (complete in order listed).

·         Establish an emergency savings account. $1K-10K depending on how much bills you have (no more than 6 months’ worth of bills saved)

·         Reduce/eliminate debt. Reducing or eliminating debt is the bed rock of financial success.

·         Max out available tax-sheltered investments. Start an IRA and max it out. If you have additional funds, consider starting your Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). I usually don’t recommend saving all your money in retirement savings because you should have short- and medium-term goals you will need to save for.

·         After the IRA is maxed out, then start saving more in a taxable accounts or max out your TSP. Start investing in everything after you have an emergency savings account established, your debt is reduced/eliminated, and you’ve started saving for retirement. Buy stocks, mutual funds, gold and houses.

I enlisted in the military at 17 with no prior financial knowledge, absolutely no money and only two or three pairs of clothes. In the beginning, there weren’t as many resources available for me to learn from and I paid a lot of fees. But the banking industry has changed and information is available 24/7 and fees have been significantly reduced. After 15 years in the military, and following the steps above, I now have zero debt and have a significant amount of money saved up. I started from the bottom and now I’m here. At my 10-year mark, I crossed over to the “dark side” and became an officer. I hope to retire when I’m 40-years old. I’m not going to lie and say it was easy, but it’s worth it. It’s hard to see your friends spending all their money right away and having nice clothes, nice cars and a big house. But time can be just as cruel and it can be rewarding and after 15 years, I’ve seen time catch up to the big spenders and take everything away.

While blogging, I’ve met a junior enlisted, military-finance blogger, who’s well on his way to becoming financially secure. His investing style is focused on dividends. At the end of his military career and all the reinvested dividends, he will have no problems in the retirement years. Like his blog title states, he’s starting from bottom and he’ll soon be here. Go check out his blog and watch his net worth sky rocket: www.startingfromzeroblog.com/

There’s no reason you can’t do the same. Start today!