As a Spender, I HATE the word Budget! But are they necessary? 🤷🏽♀️ Join the Great Debate about Budgeting & learn how to really take control over your cash to…
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Managing money can feel like a tedious task. And for some, creating a budget could be very intimidating if never taught how to do it. In the age of modern technology, using a bank ledge seems like the ice age. So, since majority of the world lives on their smart phones (thanks to Social Media Apps like Facebook and Twitter), here are four mobile apps that can help you manage your money with ease.
BUDGETING
Mint
is an awesome app that links all of your bank/credit union, investment, credit card, loan, etc. account into the app so you can see your entire financial picture. Mint allows you to categorize your transactions so you can see exactly how much you spend and on what; as well as helps you create budget based on your spending trends. Mint also has a bill payment feature to automate paying your bills and great information and tips on ways to save, invest and budget. Click here to learn more and get started.
INVESTING
Acorns
is an investment app that allows people to get started investing with as low as $5. You can manually transfer money or have a recurring amount deposited into your Acorns account towards your personalized stock portfolio. The app can also automatically invest your spare change from debit or credit card purchases called “roundups.” Once the roundups reach $5, it withdraws the money and invests it in your personalized stock portfolio. Click here to learn more and get started.
CASH BACK SHOPPING
Ebates
is a free online Cash Back Shopping app with 2,000+ of the world’s top online stores that pays a bonus to attract new, valuable customers through app and website. Ebates sends “Big Fat Checks” to your mailbox, your PayPal account or your favorite charity. Ebates is a great app to get cash back shopping the way your normally do online through the app. Click here to learn more and get started.
SAVING
Digit
is a cool app that automatically transfers cash from your checking account to a “rain day fund” savings account. This is a great app for people that find it a challenge to save money. Just connect your checking account to allow Digit to analyze your income and spending, and it finds money it can safely set aside for you. Every day, Digit analyzes if it can move some money from your checking account to your Digit savings account, without transferring more than you can afford. It also has a no-overdraft guarantee to ensure that you don’t overdraw your account because of the transfer. If necessary, you can transfer the money from your Digit savings account back to your checking account. Click here for more information and to get started.
UPDATE: Digit announced April 12, 2017 that was going to change to a fee based platform and only charge $2.99 per month. Thousands of people have saved so much cash and they live by this app.
(BONUS) Qapital is another great app that automatically transfers cash from your checking account to a “whatever you want to save for” account, but is a FREE alternative. Qapital also has a “round up” function that rounds up your purchases to the nearest dollar and automatically transfers the difference to the savings account. To ensure that transfers do not cause an overdraft to your checking account, Qapital pauses the transfers until you have at least $100 in your linked checking account. This is another app to help you save your spare change for a awesome Savings Goal, like Vacation.
These are just a few apps that I use to manage my money with ease that may help you as well. For more money lessons, click here to check out my free Madam Money Class.
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Let’s be real: attending other people’s weddings can get pricey quick. The worst part is that it usually comes in waves. I remember a few years back wondering why I hadn’t gotten any invitations yet. Low and behold, this year I received three for the same month. Be careful what you wish for.
This week we’re featuring two bloggers who tackle this adulthood struggle in their own ways.
First up is Erin Lowry, otherwise known as the Broke Millennial. Her blog is jam-packed with real-talk about handling money as a “Millennial,” and her work has been featured on Forbes and Kiplinger.
The Price Tag of Attending Other People’s Weddings
“Hey – guess who got engaged today,” Peach asked.
My stomach dropped. Our combined dance card felt dangerously full already with seven weddings populating our calendars from May to November.
“Who?” I choked out.
Peach smirked, clearly messing with me.
“Not nice,” I retorted, while wishing I could cradle my travel savings account and whisper in soothing tones, “I won’t totally deplete you.”
Lately, weddings seem to dominate both conversations and my bank account. The onslaught started about four years ago when I’d just hit 23. That’s not to say I’d been wedding free for the first 23 years of my life, but I didn’t have to pick up the tab as card-carrying member of the Bank of Mom and Dad.
Planning for the inevitable
Suddenly, entering my mid-twenties ushered me into a phase of life in which everyone around me seemed ready to get legally yoked to another human being. I was also a big girl with big girl paychecks – not to be confused with big paychecks – who no longer had an active account at the Bank of Mom and Dad.
After a year of five wedding invitations, and no end in sight, I decided it was time to stop trying to squeeze variable line item into my budget and instead give “Other People’s Weddings” its own savings account. It’s part of the reason I routinely joke that I’m saving for a wedding, just not my own.
Previously, the “Other People’s Weddings” fund served as my travel savings account, but considering most of my vacation had been co-opted by true love, the logic followed to just transition the account too.
The account gets funded by 25% of each freelance paycheck I earn. To clarify, that means I’m exclusively using side hustle money to pay for travel and focus my daytime job salary on other financial goals. Part of the reason I freelance is to subsidize non-essentials (in the sense of survival) like travel. I aim to have $2,000 to $4,000 available at any given time (depending on how many flights, hotels, presents and bachelorette parties I’ve recently attended).
On a few occasions, Peach and I have leveraged a wedding destination into … (continue reading Help! My mailbox is filled with wedding invites, and I’m trying to budget)
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