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Here’s a list of popular personal financial planning tools to help you manage your money effectively. These tools range from apps and software to online calculators and templates.
You could spend endless hours following the above or hire an investment advisor at a cost.
1. Budgeting Tools
- Mint: Tracks your spending, budget, and savings automatically by linking to your accounts. Provides insights and reminders for bills.
- YNAB (You Need a Budget): Helps you create a proactive budget by assigning every dollar a job.
- EveryDollar: A simple, zero-based budgeting tool created by Dave Ramsey’s team.
2. Investment Management
- Personal Capital: Combines budgeting with tools for tracking investments, retirement planning, and net worth.
- Betterment: Automated investment management and goal-based financial planning.
- Robo-Advisors: Platforms like Wealthfront or Schwab Intelligent Portfolios offer portfolio optimization and personalized strategies.
3. Retirement Planning
- Fidelity Retirement Score: Estimates whether you’re on track to meet your retirement goals.
- Vanguard Retirement Nest Egg Calculator: Helps assess how long your savings might last in retirement.
- Social Security Quick Calculator: Provides an estimate of your future Social Security benefits.
4. Debt Management
- Debt Payoff Planner: Calculates payoff timelines for debts based on your strategies (e.g., snowball or avalanche methods).
- Undebt.it: Tracks your debt payments and progress.
- Tally: Automates credit card payments and helps optimize interest rates.
5. Savings Tools
- Digit: Automatically saves small amounts for your goals based on your spending patterns.
- Qapital: Encourages savings by rounding up transactions or following customizable rules.
- Chime: Offers round-up features and automatic savings.
6. Tax Preparation
- TurboTax: Guides you through tax preparation with step-by-step instructions.
- H&R Block: Offers both DIY and professional tax services.
- IRS Tax Withholding Estimator: Ensures the right amount is withheld from your paycheck.
7. Expense Tracking
- PocketGuard: Shows how much disposable income you have after bills, goals, and necessities.
- Spendee: Customizable categories for tracking spending and shared budgets.
- Wally: Helps you log and manage expenses manually.
8. Comprehensive Financial Planning
- Quicken: Offers tools for budgeting, investment tracking, and bill management.
- Zeta: Tailored for couples, it helps track shared expenses and goals.
- MoneyPatrol: Aggregates financial accounts and provides proactive alerts.
9. Online Templates & Calculators
- Google Sheets/Excel Templates: Budgeting and financial tracking templates, often customizable for specific goals.
- Financial Goal Calculator (Bankrate, NerdWallet): Calculates how much to save for milestones like buying a home or college education.
10. Advanced Planning
- eMoney Advisor: Comprehensive planning software used by financial advisors but available for individuals.
- WealthTrace: Robust platform for DIY retirement and financial planning.
- RightCapital: Combines cash flow planning with tax-efficient withdrawal strategies.
As I said, you could spend endless hours following the above or hire an investment advisor at a cost.
Here is how to simplify the matter.
A Wall Street Journal reader made the excellent suggestion you see below.
“If you don’t control the Fed, Putin, Xi, or Trump, you don’t control your future. It is pretty simple to me. Just save as much as you think you might need, then double that amount, and your funds might outlast you.”
Saving should be our first rule of rules-based investing, which is always right. The other type is judgment-based investing, which is wrong at least half the time.
The other five rules are:
2. Do it yourself. (Wall Street wants us to think that investing is rocket science or brain surgery. It is not.)
3. Invest in the American economy using SPY. (Don’t pick stocks.)
4. Buy and hold. (Warren Buffett’s favorite holding period is forever.)
5. Rebalance your personal asset allocation when market movement throws it off. (David Swensen, who led the Yale University endowment fund, one of the most successful of any in the world, stated that asset allocation accounts for the largest share of portfolio returns. Asset allocation could be 50/50 (50% in the market and 50% in cash or near cash) 60/40, 55/45 or a similar ratio. It is important to have a lot of cash.
6. Avoid complexity. (If you cannot explain an investment to a 10-year-old, stay away from it.)
Check any of our posts titled What to do when the market opens today
Best regards,
Milan
