Must-Have Apps for Managing Your Finance
Successfully managing your finance can be one hell of a daunting task. This is probably not because you’re financially reckless or any other reason at all. A good number of people find adopting good financial management practices just as difficult, hence taking help from a financial advisor is a good idea.
We live in a highly digitalized era were we make transactions with the swipe of a card or click of a button. This makes it very easy to lose track of your spending or go way out of the budget without even knowing it. Everyone always has plans on saving better and sticking to their budget but I guess it never really happens. Effectively managing your money and keeping your finance in order isn’t the easiest thing to do after all.
Just as much as technology makes spending easy, it has also made provisions to help you save, budget and better manage your finance. The world is fast evolving and almost everything we do manually are getting automated by the minute. Technology has provided a wide range of mobile apps that will help you better manage your finance than any account manager ever will.
It’s time to say goodbye to ineffective budgets, manually tracking your expenses and constantly motoring your bank balance to know if you’re still within budget. These “finance management apps” are a must-have for every first-time iPhone owners who are looking to stay on top of their finance.
Whether you need to track the upcoming bill and pay on-the-go, a reminder when you’re almost eating up your budget or connect to your bank acct to get accurate details of your spending and even as much as keeping up with your credit score. These must-have finance management apps will make you a finance expert in no time. With these apps, you can easily….
- Get email reminders on the due dates for your various bills
- Track your subscription and make immediate renewal when due
- Manage your bank account and digital wallets from your mobile
- Create budgets and expenditures, set monthly financial limits…
Whatever your financial management challenges may be, we’ve sifted the internet and app store to help you compile a list of the best money management apps out there. These apps will help you keep up with your finance wherever and whenever.
Here are 4 must-have apps for managing your finance:
1. Mint
Mint gives you a complete overview of your expenditure and absolute control over your spending right from your mobile device. Aside from helping you create a sustainable budget, once you connect mint to your bank account, mint updates you one every purchase you make, tracks your spending and provides email alert when your bills are due.
Mint allows users to view their credit score whenever they want and it also provides users with tips on how to keep perfect credit score and maintain a healthy financial life. Managing your finance and making the best of your money definitely gets easier with mint.
2. YNAB
YNAB (You Need A Budget) not only guides you in building and sustaining better budget but also allows you to gain control of your finance. YNAB achieves this by helping users spend an allocated fraction of their last month’s income judiciously.
When you have the YNAB app, you don’t have to worry about the imbalanced budget. The app adjusts your budget categories whenever you overspend and also provide a detailed report of all your spending for the month. With the YNAB app, you become the master of your own finance.
3. Personal Capital
Personal investment managers are now losing their job due to this app. This awesome app combines the feature of helping you create a monthly budget that gives room for saving and help you manage your assets and investments. With affiliations to over 14,000 financial institutions, you can rest assured managing your account and tracking your spending is as easy as it gets with Personal Capital.
Personal Capital has a distinguishing feature that allows you grow your investment, better manage risk and discover opportunities for investment portfolio diversification through the apps in-built AI and provided registered advisors that offer investment advice tailored to meet your investment goals.
4. Prism
Prism provides the ultimate solution to bill payment. This helps you better manage your finance by providing notifications when your bills are due. Prism can also be automated to directly pay your bills several days before or on the due date. Prism will definitely help you properly manage your finance and also prevent late bill payments.
5 First-Time Home Buyer Tips
Are you a first-time homebuyer looking for tips to help you in buying your dream home? Do you want to know the right steps to take to get the best value for your money? Do not stress out; below are the perfect tips for first-time homebuyers.
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Start Saving Early for a Downpayment
Immediately you have conceived the idea of buying a home, start saving for the mandatory 20% downpayment. Except you have the money to complete the buying process without borrowing; you must start saving early. As a first-time homebuyer, related mortgage programs require 3-5% downpayment, which can be huge depending on the cost of the house you intend to purchase. To avoid having trouble with cash, start saving early.
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Assess Downpayments and Sources of Funding
Go through different sources of funding available to raise the money you need to pay for your new home. Each mortgage option comes with its pros and cons. If you need to raise fund through a mortgage, consider one of the following:
- Federal Housing Administration Loan - requires 3.5% downpayment
- Veterans Affairs Loan - requires no downpayment because the Department of Veterans Affairs secures it.
- Conventional Mortgage - requires as low as 3% downpayment.
If you have critical illness insurance, getting a preferred mortgage comes with some technicalities. Your lender may not require your critical illness cover because it will be added as a rider to a mortgage life insurance policy. However, the lender may request to be named as the beneficiary of the critical illness insurance as an assurance that they would recover some parts of the loan in case the recipient falls ill and cannot survive.
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Get Pre-approved for a Loan
Having chosen from the available sources of raising the money you need to buy your dream home, make savings for the closing costs too. After that, contact the mortgage company you have decided to raise fund from. Get pre-approved for a loan and obtain a letter attesting to your pre-approval status. A pre-approval letter shows that you are indeed serious about purchasing a home.
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Find a Home and Inspect It
The next step is to search for homes placed on sale that are within your price range. You need an agent to help you with the procedure. Go ahead with the negotiation with your agent and proceed to home inspection. Before making a purchase after and seal the deal.
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Prepare for Closing
As a first-time homebuyer, you should plan for closing the homebuying deal. Quite a lot of people make the mistake of not preparing for this closing process. It may take 43 days to complete the deal. This stage requires a series of documents to be signed and exchanged. As a result, you need the services of a legal team to interpret the content of the documents and assure you that everything is documented correctly. Bear in mind that you would be responsible for the legal fees and other expenses at the closing of the homebuying.