Follow these tips and make life easier when it comes to managing your family’s financial plan.
Get the kids ready for school, cook dinner, keep the house clean, manage the household schedule. Being a mother comes with a laundry list of responsibilities. Who wouldn’t want to take one more thing off their plate? When it comes to personal finances and planning for your family’s financial future, there are a couple of ways you can automate, consolidate, and make life easier. Let’s talk about it.
1. Find An All-In-One App To Manage Finances
Consolidate all of your financial accounts into one place
Think about how many financial accounts you have. From bank accounts to retirement funds to credit cards—and everything in between—it’s insanely hard to keep track of everything. One of the best ways to manage your finances is to find a do-it-all budgeting and personal finance app.
When you use a budgeting app, you can connect all of your accounts in one place. Rather than logging into multiple accounts to check your finances, a budgeting app will give you a clear view of all of your accounts in one dashboard.
You can also use your app to send alerts to your phone to stay on top of your spending and bills. Depending on the app, you may be able to set up alerts to see when transactions occur and flag unusual transactions. Most apps can set reminders for your bills and even give you regular credit score updates.
Regularly using an app can help make budgeting much easier, too. Your app will track your spending and categorize everything to give you a clear picture of where you are spending your money. This can help you set limits for yourself and understand where you may need to cut back.
When looking for a budgeting app, there are a few things you’ll want to consider:
- Is it free or paid? – Many free budgeting apps on the market may be exactly what you’re looking for. But, some of them may limit the features you can use, so it may not be a bad idea to invest in an app that includes all of the features you need. Many offer a free trial so you can play around with the app and its features before you start paying for it.
- Does it sync with all of your accounts? – The goal is to make managing your accounts as easy as possible. Do some research to make sure it can sync and connect with all of your accounts so you can be sure everything will be easy to manage from the same place.
- Is it reputable and secure? – Your account information is obviously something you want to keep as secure as possible. Make sure the apps you’re using are reputable so you don’t put your account information at risk to be hacked into.
The other features you look for will depend on your needs and what you need out of your budgeting app. Luckily, there are plenty of great options out there for you to choose from. Try some out and pick the one that works the best for you.
2. Set Up Autopay To Make Paying Bills a Breeze
Make paying bills one less thing you need to worry about
Out of all the things you have to remember to do, the last thing you want to forget is paying your bills. Automating your bills is just one way you can make your life a little easier.
When you set up automatic payments on your bills, you can rest assured that you will make your payments every month and make them on time, too. This way, you can avoid late fees and build positive credit as you build a strong payment history.
You can basically automate anything, from utilities to loan payments to contributions to your savings accounts. Setting up automatic payments is fairly easy, too.
The first, and typically the most common way, to set up automatic payments is to do it straight through your creditor or service provider. Most providers have the option to opt into autopay on their website. Typically, you just enter your bank account information, and the creditor or service provider will automatically deduct payments from your bank account on a regular payment schedule.
If your creditor or service provider does not have the option to set up automatic payments or if you don’t want to share your bank account information, you can set up payments through your bank instead. Most banks offer some type of bill pay service, and the steps to set it up vary from bank to bank. With this method, your bank will make automatic payments on your behalf. This is a great option if you have a fixed monthly payment, like your mortgage or a loan payment.
Autopay is a great way to make paying your bills a bit easier, but this shouldn’t be set it and forget it type of deal. You should still regularly check your billing statements in case any billing mistakes occur. Make sure you are being charged the correct amounts and that your payments are going through.
You should also be mindful of the account you use to automatically make your payments. Make sure your account always has enough funds to avoid overdraft fees. Those fees can be costly and quickly add up if you aren’t paying attention to your accounts.
3. Get Life Insurance Without the Hassle
Skip the medical exam and get approved for a life insurance policy quickly
Let’s face it—many of us don’t have a financial plan in place to protect our children in case of an untimely death of a parent. It’s hard enough to set money aside for our emergency savings accounts, let alone setting aside money to help your family financially if you were no longer around.
Life insurance provides a financial safety net for you and your family. With an active policy in place, the payout from a life insurance policy can be used to pay off outstanding debt and funeral expenses. Beyond that, though, it can help your family stay afloat financially as they adjust to a new normal.
In many cases, it’s a hassle to get a life insurance policy. Long applications, in-person medical exams, and drawn-out underwriting processes deter lots of people from getting a policy. As a mother raising a family, who has time for all of that, anyway?
Luckily, though, it’s gotten much easier to get a comprehensive life insurance policy without all of the added hassles. In recent years, some life insurance companies have started offering accelerated life insurance policies. This type of life insurance policy requires no medical exam, has a quick application process, and will let you know if you’ve been approved for a policy almost instantly.
Many people assume there’s some type of catch here, but really, there isn’t. These life insurance companies take the information you provide in your application and use predictive models to understand your risks in life. Then, they can get a clearer picture of how much of a policy you are approved for and how much your premium will cost.
These policies are for term life insurance, so if you are looking for a whole life insurance policy, this may not be the best option for you. You also may not be able to get a policy for more than $1 million, but most people find that the coverage they can get from an accelerated policy is just what they need. Plus, these types of policies are pretty affordable, too, so you can get a policy at the price point you need without jumping through hoops. What’s not to love?
4. Plan Your Estate Without Breaking the Bank
Create your estate plan online rather than going through a lawyer for the whole process
Planning your estate becomes especially important when you have a family. If anything were to happen to you or your partner, your estate plan will have everything you need to ensure your kids are taken care of and your wishes are properly communicated.
Many people try to create a will on their own and find that it’s a complicated thing to DIY. Going through a lawyer can be very expensive and time-consuming. Thankfully, there are a few tools available online to help you create a will.
Most commonly, the services you use to create your own will online are pretty simple and straightforward to use. Many will walk you through a list of questions to get a better understanding of what needs to be included in your will. Some have an option to chat with legal professionals while others will offer to have your legal documents reviewed by a legal professional. After you’ve completed your questions, you will have a completed will personalized to your needs and wishes.
Wills created online are legally binding, but you should always look into your state laws to make sure your will complies. Any errors in your will open up the opportunity to have it contested later down the road. Because of this, it’s still best to have it reviewed by a lawyer who specializes in estate law after you’ve written it up online. This is a more affordable option and much less time-consuming.
Any way that you can take some of your responsibilities off your plate is a welcomed opportunity. Follow these tips and tricks, and you can make managing your finances and planning for the future so much easier.