Personal Finance News Wednesday 5/1

Phil's Personal Finance Tip of the Day:

4 Online Tools to Fix Your Finances

Go online to budget, learn the basics, save money and ditch the paper.

By Lisa Gerstner, February 2012/Kiplinger
Follow @LGers

 

The Internet has changed the way we shop, get news and keep in touch. But it can also help organize your finances -- sometimes in ways you wouldn't expect. Here are four tools to get your budgets and bills in order.

SEE ALSO: Which Budgeting Site Is Best For You?

1. Budget and track. Link your financial accounts to Mint.com. The site downloads and categorizes income and expenditures from your accounts automatically, and offers snapshots of your cash flow with pie charts and graphs. A "Ways to Save" tool homes in on the most suitable banking and investment accounts and insurance policies based on your spending patterns or the information you enter. The "Goals" feature calculates how much cash you'll need to, say, build an emergency fund or buy a car. Check your budget as you shop with Mint's smart-phone application (for Android phones, iPhones and iPads).

2. Save for your goals. Take goal-setting up a notch by contributing to a savings account at SmartyPig.com. It's insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and pays 0.7% interest on balances of $50,000 or less -- fatter than what you'll find at many banks. First open an account with a specific goal, such as funding a vacation. Then have automatic deposits transferred from your regular checking or savings account. You can also solicit donations from family and friends by sharing a link on Facebook and Twitter. When you reach your goal, you have a few options for redeeming the cash: Return the money to the funding account, load it onto a debit card, get gift cards from major retailers (for which you'll get cash-back incentives), or select some combination of the three.

Read more at http://www.kiplinger.com/article/spending/T057-C000-S002-4-online-tools-to-fix-your-finances.html#bLx6ObSJTEDkxulB.99


Inspirational Quotes@Inspire_Us from Twitter:
The harder I work, the luckier I get. -Samuel Goldwyn


Hi my name is Philip J. Miano and I am the founder of PJM Personal Finance and Productivity Coaching specializing in Budgeting, Debt Reduction, Bank Reconciliations, Goal Setting, Time Management, and Organizational skills. Please visit my website: http://pjmcoaching.com.