10 Ways To Automate Your Finances
How do you automate finances, so managing money doesn't feel like a second job?
Automating your finances creates repeatable systems and routines, so you quickly know where your family's finances stand at all times. Knowing where you financially stand puts you in control of your financial life. When you are in control of your financial life, your finances become a tool to help you create a life you love. Debt finally stops being the glue that holds your life financially together.
Below are 10 ways to automate your finances:
Use an online budgeting tool to help you automate your finances
Set up online bill pay services to automate your finances
Do recurring transfers to your savings account
Use your employer's retirement account tools to help automate your finances.
Create systems and routines to help you control your spending
Create a meal-planning system
Digitally store your passwords
Manage your passwords digitally
Use online calendars for reminders
Manage your email subscriptions
1. Use an online budgeting tool to help you automate your finances
If tracking your spending makes you want to reach for a bottle of Advil, consider automating the process. Use budgeting tools that will help you consistently stick to a budget. I do not believe in one-size-fits-all budgeting tools. Your budgeting tool of choice has to work with your personality and the time you have to budget. A few suggestions:
Super detailed oriented- Tiller money software program or your excel spreadsheets
David Ramsey superfan-Everydollar software program
Want apps that track and categorize your transactions-Mvelopes, Mint,
Like active FB group support and webinars- YNAB
Want to see your entire financial life in one place- Personal Capital
Don't want to research budgeting tools- Use your bank's budgeting tool.
Want boundaries around spending- Budget with bank accounts
Old school? Use cash envelopes or basic worksheets.
2. Set up online bill pay services to automate automate your finances
Automate paying your bills. I want to be clear: You still need to review your bills monthly to check for billing errors.
Decide how you want to automate your bills. You can either:
Set up payments directly with your billers.
Pay your bills through your bank. Most banks have a bill pay service to simplify bill paying.
3. Do reoccurring transfers to your savings account
If you struggle to save, make it automatic. Disciplined? Then open a savings account where you currently bank. Constantly dip into your savings? Consider opening a savings account at a separate bank.
Start slow. Even if it's $25 a month, choose an amount you can save consistently. Commit to saving an extra $5 each month.
Next, choose how you want to automate your savings. Below are two options:
Set up automatic funds transfer from your checking to your savings account.
Set up payroll deductions to automatically go to your checking account.
4. Use your 401k account tools to help you automate your finances
Retirement planning doesn't have to feel like a second job. Take advantage of your employer's retirement plan tools to help automate your retirement planning.
Struggle with investment selections? Consider automating your investing by choosing a target-date fund closest to your retirement year. A target-date fund is a mutual fund pre-mixed with various investments, like stocks and bonds, designed for someone retiring the fund's year (i.e., Target Date Fund 2030). The fund will automatically update the investments to grow more conservative (less stock mutual funds) the closer you get to the date of the fund.
Behind in savings? Automate increasing your retirement plan contributions by using your "Auto Escalate" feature to automatically increase your retirement contributions. If you do not have the Auto Escalate feature, set a calendar reminder to increase your retirement plan contributions on January 1st every year.
5. Create systems and routines to help you control your spending
If you struggle with impulsive spending, use the following strategies to decrease your spending:
Take all the shopping apps off your cellphone home page.
Either unsubscribe from tempting sales ads or create another email specifically for sales ads.
Commit to a "No spend workweek" for a month. From Monday-Friday, you do not spend money.
Agree to never step into a store without a shopping list.
Use cash in the categories you struggle with the most, like eating out.
This may sound counterintuitive, but sign up for grocery delivery if you struggle with overspending on groceries. Seeing every penny you're about to spend and the lack of impulse buys outweigh the extra costs of grocery delivery. Another option is grocery pickup, which may be free.
6. Create a meal planning system
Groceries are one of the few spending areas people have some control over. But to control grocery spending, it's essential to have a meal plan. Choose a meal planning method that fits your budget, time, and your sanity.
If you need help coming up with meal ideas, use Pinterest to pick and save your favorite meals or use a meal planning website.
Create a meal plan template. I looked at my typical week and create a meal plan around the week. Make the template generic and flexible in case something happens. The template helps me to easily choose meals for the week. Below is my weekly meal template:
Sunday- A baked protein (chicken, pork, fish, etc) with veggies and rice
Monday- Crockpot meal
Tuesday-Crockpot meal
Wednesday-Burgers/Fries
Thursday-Crockpot Meals
Friday- Pizza
Family Favorites- chicken wings/tacos/quesadillas, etc
Consider a meal delivery service if you just want to cook with minimum thinking. You get a box with the meals and ingredients.
If you don't want to cook daily like me, consider using freezer meal plans like The Family Freezer. I prep the meals in gallon-size bags (only takes about an hour, maybe 90 minutes at most), freeze the bags, defrost overnight and stick them in my programmable Crockpot, and that's it.
Have some quick meals- frozen pizza, burgers, etc. on hand for the unexpected crazy days.
After finding a few favorite meals, repeat the recipes. You become efficient with repetition. If you are continually making new meals, you never nail down the cooking process. Once you find 10-14 favorite emails circulate and occasionally add a new meal.
If you hate grocery shopping, don't. Choose curbside pickup or a grocery delivery service.
7. Manage your passwords digitally
If you’re anything like me, I forget a password almost as soon as it’s created. Nowadays, each place that asks you to create a password has different requirements making it tough to remember passwords.
If this sounds like you consider using PC Magazines guide to find a password management software program for you.
8. Store documents digitally
One of the biggest fears I have, is losing an important document. Also over time, the sheer volume of documents you have may feel overwhelming. Take the following steps to get your documents organized:
Look at your documents to see if you even need to keep them
Next, look at secure online storage options
9. Use online calendars for reminders
Our lives are filled with so many activities it can be hard to keep track. Your online calendar, whether it’s a google or apple calendar, can be a powerful tool to help keep you organized. You can use the online calendar is so many ways. Below are a few examples:
Birthday, important event reminders - like reviewing your finances or goals to live your calling
Track bill payments
Important due dates
Create a shared family calendar where everyone tracks their events
If you have kids, can link with their schools to track school calendars
Dates you’d like to accomplish a goal
10. Manage your email subscriptions
Sometimes cleaning up my email box feels like a second job. A few options to manage email subscriptions are:
Create a separate email that’s strictly used for email subscriptions
Have a rule in your email setting to automatically transfer subscriptions to a specific folder. Many automatically transfer certain subscriptions in folders like promotions.
RECAP
Life is busy, consider using one of the ideas below to help you automate your finances, free up your time and energy.
Use an online budgeting tool to help you automate your finances
Set up online bill pay services to automate your finances
Do recurring transfers to your savings account
Use your employer's retirement account tools to help automate your finances.
Create systems and routines to help you control your spending
Create a meal-planning system
Digitally store your passwords
Manage your passwords digitally
Use online calendars for reminders
Manage your email subscriptions
Next Steps
Pick one area this week you want to simplify
Choose a method to simply
Implement the method, track to see if it works for you
