Good money management depends on solid organization of your finances. This can be a problem for people who aren’t naturally good at organizing their finances and tracking their spending, but new digital tools make it easy to improve your money management, your spending awareness, and your financial planning all at the same time.
From digital banking to retirement planning, mobile and online tools can make you a better, smarter consumer—and help you make the most of your earnings, savings, and investments. Ready to take advantage of these online and mobile resources? Here are five steps to using digital tools to organize your money.
5 Ways to Use Digital Tools to Organize Your Money
- Manage your money through a mobile banking app.
- Track spending with a budgeting and money management app.
- Use online calculators to track saving, investing, and debt repayment.
- Track bill due dates through a bill management or calendar app.
- Connect banking, investing, and other accounts to understand your net worth and plan for retirement.
1. Manage your money through a mobile banking app.
Mobile banking saves you trips to your local bank branch by allowing you to use your phone for things from managing direct deposits to transferring money to making sure you don’t overdraft your account. A mobile banking app offered by your local bank is perhaps the single most important tool for organizing your finances.
A mobile banking app will save you time while making you a more responsive, proactive manager of your banking, credit, and other financial accounts. Push notifications can be used to track bills or changes to your checking account balance—and they can even help you avoid overdrafts and other unnecessary fees.
2. Track spending with a budgeting and money management app.
Want to track your spending and learn more about your own behaviors as a consumer? A number of budgeting apps and online tools can help you set budgets by spending category, track your progress, and make sure you’re spending within your means—without compromising your savings goals.
Over time, these apps can help steer you toward smarter money management. You might use these apps to prioritize spending reductions across certain categories or to challenge yourself to improve upon your past budgeting and money management performance as you develop better habits that will serve you over the long term.
3. Use online calculators to track saving, investing, and debt repayment.
Wondering how long it will take you to save for a down payment or how much interest you’ll pay over the life of an auto loan? A wide range of simple but illuminating financial calculators can help you analyze your finances and plan for the future.
These calculators can offer valuable insights into the total amount of interest you pay when taking out loans, as well as the long-term value of compound interest earned on savings and investment accounts. Turn to these calculators when projecting your income, savings, retirement plans, loan costs, or other major financial decisions.
4. Track bill due dates through a bill management or calendar app.
Do you have a habit of missing the deadline for bills you’re supposed to pay? Online calendars or bill management apps, as well as bill pay services through your bank, can help you meet these deadlines and avoid late fees and other penalties.
Although your mobile banking app and online bill pay services can help you make timely payments for recurring bills, a little extra help may be useful if you have a bad habit of missing payment deadlines.
5. Connect banking, investing, and other accounts to understand your net worth and plan for retirement.
Make sure you’re getting the full picture of your financial situation. Mobile apps and online financial tools can integrate the data from many different sources to add up your total investments, assets, and liabilities as you seek to understand more about your current net worth and your long-term financial forecast.
By understanding how these different accounts and assets are contributing to your financial goals, you can plan your future finances more effectively while ensuring that your money management habits are keeping you on track to reach those goals.
Discover more tips and tricks for savvy money management—download A Complete Guide to Budgeting today.
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