Latest news with #Goodbudget
Time Business News
01-07-2025
- Business
- Time Business News
Financial Resilience in Uncertain Times
Adapting to financial challenges is an essential skill in today's increasingly complex economic landscape. With fluctuating markets, shifting employment patterns, and the rising cost of living, building financial resilience has never been more important. Financial resilience, put, is the ability to withstand and recover from financial shocks. It's not just about having money in the bank; it's about creating a solid foundation that allows you to weather economic uncertainty while planning for a secure future. This article explores practical tips for strengthening your financial well-being, from saving strategies and debt management to leveraging financial services and tools effectively. Economic uncertainty can strike at any time. Whether it's a global recession, industry downturns, or personal emergencies, financial instability is an issue that impacts people across all income levels. Recent surveys show that nearly 30% of adults in highly developed economies feel unprepared to manage a major financial emergency. While saving money is a critical part of financial planning, the reality is that most people find it challenging to set money aside. Unexpected expenses, lifestyle costs, and increasing debt are common obstacles to saving. Developing financial resilience begins with understanding the connection between income, expenses, and long-term goals. Allocate some time to assess your financial habits. Start by identifying where your money goes each month. This initial step can lay the groundwork for creating a clearer, more effective budget. Using a budget is one of the most effective ways to manage your money. It helps allocate resources to necessities like housing, utilities, and groceries while allowing you to save and invest for the future. Several budgeting tools and apps are available to simplify this process. Free platforms like Mint and Goodbudget provide easy-to-use functionalities that track income and expenses. For those ready to plan more proactively, YNAB (You Need A Budget) offers specialized features that encourage goal-setting and long-term savings strategies. Beyond digital tools, community resources such as local financial workshops and online webinars provide valuable insights. Educational programs often cover topics ranging from basic budgeting to managing more complex financial subjects, such as mortgage planning or retirement funds. These initiatives can empower individuals to make smarter financial decisions that align with their goals. One of the cornerstones of financial resilience is access to reliable banking services. Traditional banks often offer a wide variety of financial solutions, including savings accounts, loans, and credit cards. However, with the rise of online banking, more consumers now prioritize convenience and flexibility over visiting brick-and-mortar branches. Institutions like BMO Harris Bank prove how vital customer-centric banking services remain. Known for its commitment to transparent and accessible solutions, the bank allows individuals to manage their finances through well-structured services effectively. Many customers even check BMO Harris branch hours in advance to schedule meetings with advisors, ensuring their banking experience is tailored to their needs. Similarly, local credit unions and smaller financial institutions enhance accessibility to loans and investment products. By diversifying options, they offer solutions that cater to different financial needs, especially for individuals who may not have access to larger institutions. Debt is a significant barrier to financial resilience for millions of people. Whether it's credit card balances, student loans, or medical bills, high levels of debt can make managing daily expenses more difficult. Establishing a debt management strategy is crucial for adapting to economic pressure while working to become debt-free. Start by understanding the total debt you owe and identify opportunities to consolidate payments. Many financial institutions offer debt consolidation products that reduce multiple high-interest debts into one manageable payment. Explore refinancing your loans for better rates if your credit score has improved since you initially took them out. Organizations like Driveway Finance auto loans provide unique options, such as vehicle financing programs that can help families secure necessary resources without overstretching their budgets. By opting for well-structured financing services, individuals can sustainably manage additional expenses while focusing on their financial health. An emergency fund is one of the most critical elements of financial resilience. This reserve is designed to cover unexpected situations like job loss, medical emergencies, or urgent repairs. Experts recommend saving at least three to six months' worth of living expenses in a liquid and accessible account in case of emergencies. While this may seem like a daunting goal, small and consistent steps will get you there. Begin by setting aside a portion of your income every month, even if it's a modest amount. Automating your savings with recurring bank transfers is a helpful strategy to ensure you stay on track. Overcoming short-term financial struggles is only part of the equation. To build lasting stability, it's essential to think long-term. That means exploring retirement savings plans, insurance options, and investment opportunities. For instance, employer-sponsored retirement accounts such as 401(k)s offer significant advantages through tax benefits and employer matching programs. If your employer does not offer retirement options, consider opening an IRA (Individual Retirement Account). Diversifying your investments through mutual funds, stocks, and bonds can also provide higher long-term returns. However, be sure to consult a financial advisor for guidance tailored to your specific goals and risk tolerance. Insurance is another critical layer of protection that shouldn't be overlooked. Whether it's health, property, or life insurance, ensuring coverage provides peace of mind and protects your finances in the event of unexpected events. Ultimately, achieving financial resilience doesn't happen overnight. It requires discipline, education, and the right tools. From building savings accounts to leveraging the services of organizations like Driveway Finance Corporation, each step contributes to enhancing your financial health. By adopting proactive financial habits and taking advantage of available resources, you can prepare for life's uncertainties while laying the groundwork for a brighter and more secure future. Financial resilience is about taking charge of your circumstances so you're ready not just to survive but to thrive in any financial situation. TIME BUSINESS NEWS
News18
11-06-2025
- Business
- News18
Looking To Save More Money? These Apps Can Help You
Last Updated: These are 6 "set-it-and-forget-it" apps that save your money automatically. Saving money can be tough, especially with daily expenses and unexpected bills. Automating your savings takes the stress out of the process by regularly setting aside money without requiring manual effort. It promotes financial discipline, ensures steady progress toward your goals, and reduces the temptation to spend impulsively. Whether you're building an emergency fund, planning a vacation, or growing long-term wealth, automation makes saving effortless. It also allows you to benefit from compound interest by starting early and saving consistently. With the right tools and apps, saving becomes a seamless background task quietly working toward your financial future while you focus on living your life. Here are the top 5 apps to automate your savings: Acorns: Perfect for beginner investors, Acorns rounds up your everyday purchases and invests the spare change. While not exactly a savings app, it automates micro-investments, which can grow significantly over time. It's ideal for those who want to combine saving and investing without thinking about it. Digit (now owned by Oportun): Digit analyses your income and spending habits, then automatically transfers small, safe amounts from your checking account to savings. It intelligently adapts to your cash flow, so the transfers are hardly noticeable, but the growing savings balance is. You can also set custom goals, such as saving for a vacation, paying off debt, or building a rainy-day fund. Chime is a mobile banking app that rounds up transactions and automatically transfers the difference to a savings account. It also offers a feature to save a percentage of your paycheck automatically. With no monthly fees and early direct deposit, it's a great all-in-one digital banking tool. Truebill (now Rocket Money): Originally designed for managing subscriptions, Rocket Money also helps users set savings goals and automate transfers. You can customise amounts and schedules, making it ideal for those who want more control. It's also helpful for tracking expenses and identifying ways to save more. Goodbudget: Goodbudget is a household budgeting app built on the traditional envelope budgeting method, where you allocate portions of your income into virtual 'envelopes" designated for specific categories like groceries, rent or loan payments. Available in both free and paid versions, the app helps users effectively plan and manage monthly expenses. While it excels at organising budgets and tracking spending, Goodbudget lacks built-in tools for saving or investing, limiting its functionality to budgeting alone. First Published:
Hamilton Spectator
20-05-2025
- Business
- Hamilton Spectator
New to finance apps, trackers and spreadsheets? My pro tip guide to getting started
It doesn't matter how simple or fancy your financial tools are, the only way your money situation will improve in these turbulent economic times is through consistent effort to try to make it better. That means developing good spending and savings habits. If you're committed to that, selecting the right tools for your situation gets easier. Here's what you need to consider as you wade through the thousands of options. Different tools are designed to excel in specific areas, and that's a good thing. Are you wanting to focus on budgeting, which involves tracking daily expenses, income, bills and recurring subscriptions? Is your priority saving? Perhaps you have specific targets for an emergency fund, down payment or vacation. Is debt reduction most important? There are tools for managing loans, paydown calculators and even your credit score. Do you want to start investing, or simply progress the investments you already have? Once you're clear, your search for the best tools becomes easier and you're less likely to end up with one that only does part of the job you need it to do. I've supported students with math degrees who can't work through simple budget spreadsheets, and artists who leverage AI to paint themselves a literal picture of future retirement income. Everyone is unique. The right tools are out there for your style, in your preferred colour scheme, level of detail, degree of automation and more. How do you thrive when learning something new or trying to get better at a skill? Are you a mobile-first or desktop user (small screen vs. big screen vs. face ID or not)? Do you like to manage money daily, weekly, monthly? My pro tip here is that you should be looking at your money situation a minimum of once per week. Do you like when you get to DIY a lot of the inputs, or prefer it to be automatic? Are you someone who appreciates incredible detail (YNAB and Monarch Money do that, btw), or are you better served with basic overviews like in the free version of Goodbudget? When in doubt, start with a more simple tool. Some tools directly connect to your bank accounts so they can pull balances, transactions and other data that help formulate key insights, like categories of spending that seem to be problematic or investment portfolios that appear off-balance. But you might not be comfortable sharing your personal data with these tools and apps. Perhaps you are, but need to do a deep dive on how security measures work, like bank encryption and t wo-factor authentication . If you're worried about security, you can always take the path of manually updating your own data into a spending tracker, budget or net-worth spreadsheet, and deduce things like investment performance via quarterly and annual performance reporting from the financial institution that holds the accounts. The same goes for debt-payoff calculators; updating remaining balances each week as you crush the highest interest ones first. If you need a hand figuring out what all the numbers mean, a financial adviser or money coach can help you digest this information and provide you with customized insights. They'll almost certainly charge a fee for this service, so keep that cost in mind. No matter your comfort level, I recommend automating as many of your bill payments as possible so they never get forgotten. If you're up for some personal reflection, keeping a money journal can be super helpful as a place to jot down goals and process any big feelings you might be having about your finances — it's nearly impossible for an app to help with that! Some tools are free and others are paid, and certainly if you're leveraging any kind of investment platform you'll be paying fees associated with the particular investments and level of service you've subscribed to. Factor the costs into your budget just like you would for a subscription to Netflix. I also recommend taking advantage of the free trial period before you sign up. Paid budgeting and net-worth monitoring apps typically cost about $100 over the course of a year, but fees vary widely, promo periods end, service tiers change. Keep in mind these tools should be giving you powerful insights to help save you money; if they're not doing that, especially if they're not even covering their costs, they, or your habits, aren't working for you. If you've had a hard time sticking with programs or tools in the past, choose simpler, free financial tools rather than feature-rich platforms you'll abandon quickly and waste money on. Now it's time to search for tools that will work for you, and AI can really help. Input prompts like 'highly detailed spending tracker for a hands-on learner' or 'seeking best free mobile app for checking credit score in Canada' or 'insights-driven net-worth trackers for ETF investors under $15 per month.' Compare the results with recent user reviews on Reddit, Google, app stores and in community groups. As an example, I belong to 'Moms at Work' on Facebook and we are always chatting about money, new personal finance tech and more. Consistency with budgeting, spending wisely, investing and saving is the secret ingredient to financial success. And consistency, though not easy, is free. There is no app required for that.
Toronto Star
20-05-2025
- Business
- Toronto Star
New to finance apps, trackers and spreadsheets? My pro tip guide to getting started
It doesn't matter how simple or fancy your financial tools are, the only way your money situation will improve in these turbulent economic times is through consistent effort to try to make it better. That means developing good spending and savings habits. If you're committed to that, selecting the right tools for your situation gets easier. Here's what you need to consider as you wade through the thousands of options. Figure out your financial priorities Different tools are designed to excel in specific areas, and that's a good thing. Are you wanting to focus on budgeting, which involves tracking daily expenses, income, bills and recurring subscriptions? Is your priority saving? Perhaps you have specific targets for an emergency fund, down payment or vacation. Is debt reduction most important? There are tools for managing loans, paydown calculators and even your credit score. Do you want to start investing, or simply progress the investments you already have? Once you're clear, your search for the best tools becomes easier and you're less likely to end up with one that only does part of the job you need it to do. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Honour your learning style I've supported students with math degrees who can't work through simple budget spreadsheets, and artists who leverage AI to paint themselves a literal picture of future retirement income. Everyone is unique. The right tools are out there for your style, in your preferred colour scheme, level of detail, degree of automation and more. How do you thrive when learning something new or trying to get better at a skill? Are you a mobile-first or desktop user (small screen vs. big screen vs. face ID or not)? Do you like to manage money daily, weekly, monthly? My pro tip here is that you should be looking at your money situation a minimum of once per week. Do you like when you get to DIY a lot of the inputs, or prefer it to be automatic? Are you someone who appreciates incredible detail (YNAB and Monarch Money do that, btw), or are you better served with basic overviews like in the free version of Goodbudget? When in doubt, start with a more simple tool. Check your comfort level with certain features Some tools directly connect to your bank accounts so they can pull balances, transactions and other data that help formulate key insights, like categories of spending that seem to be problematic or investment portfolios that appear off-balance. But you might not be comfortable sharing your personal data with these tools and apps. Perhaps you are, but need to do a deep dive on how security measures work, like bank encryption and t wo-factor authentication. If you're worried about security, you can always take the path of manually updating your own data into a spending tracker, budget or net-worth spreadsheet, and deduce things like investment performance via quarterly and annual performance reporting from the financial institution that holds the accounts. The same goes for debt-payoff calculators; updating remaining balances each week as you crush the highest interest ones first. If you need a hand figuring out what all the numbers mean, a financial adviser or money coach can help you digest this information and provide you with customized insights. They'll almost certainly charge a fee for this service, so keep that cost in mind. No matter your comfort level, I recommend automating as many of your bill payments as possible so they never get forgotten. If you're up for some personal reflection, keeping a money journal can be super helpful as a place to jot down goals and process any big feelings you might be having about your finances — it's nearly impossible for an app to help with that! ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Paying for tools won't guarantee results Some tools are free and others are paid, and certainly if you're leveraging any kind of investment platform you'll be paying fees associated with the particular investments and level of service you've subscribed to. Factor the costs into your budget just like you would for a subscription to Netflix. I also recommend taking advantage of the free trial period before you sign up. Paid budgeting and net-worth monitoring apps typically cost about $100 over the course of a year, but fees vary widely, promo periods end, service tiers change. Keep in mind these tools should be giving you powerful insights to help save you money; if they're not doing that, especially if they're not even covering their costs, they, or your habits, aren't working for you. If you've had a hard time sticking with programs or tools in the past, choose simpler, free financial tools rather than feature-rich platforms you'll abandon quickly and waste money on. Now it's time to search for tools that will work for you, and AI can really help. Input prompts like 'highly detailed spending tracker for a hands-on learner' or 'seeking best free mobile app for checking credit score in Canada' or 'insights-driven net-worth trackers for ETF investors under $15 per month.' Compare the results with recent user reviews on Reddit, Google, app stores and in community groups. As an example, I belong to 'Moms at Work' on Facebook and we are always chatting about money, new personal finance tech and more. Consistency with budgeting, spending wisely, investing and saving is the secret ingredient to financial success. And consistency, though not easy, is free. There is no app required for that.
Time Business News
12-05-2025
- Business
- Time Business News
College Student Budgeting Tips 2025: Smart Money Moves for a Stress-Free Semester
College life in 2025 is fast-paced, tech-driven, and more expensive than ever. With tuition rates rising and the cost of living continuing to climb, mastering the art of budgeting has become a non-negotiable skill for students who want to thrive financially during their academic journey. Whether you're in your first semester or gearing up for graduation, learning how to manage money wisely can reduce stress, increase savings, and give you a head start toward financial independence. In this guide, we'll share the most effective and practical college student budgeting tips 2025, updated with modern tools, trends, and insights that reflect today's economic landscape. Start with a Realistic Budget Plan Before you can start saving or spending wisely, you need a clear view of your financial picture. Create a monthly budget by listing your income sources (e.g., part-time job, parental support, scholarships, or financial aid) and fixed expenses (tuition, rent, phone bill). Then factor in variable costs like groceries, entertainment, and transportation. Use free budgeting apps like YNAB, Mint, or Goodbudget to create and track your budget in real time. Many of these apps now integrate with your bank account and even offer AI-based insights to help you spot overspending trends. As a college student, you're eligible for thousands of dollars in potential savings every year if you know where to look. From software like Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Cloud to food delivery services and streaming platforms, always check for a student discount before making a purchase. Popular student discount platforms in 2025: UNiDAYS Student Beans Use browser extensions like Honey or Capital One Shopping to automatically apply coupons at checkout. Credit cards can be both a blessing and a curse. Used responsibly, they can help you build a solid credit history which is essential for future goals like renting an apartment or buying a car. However, misuse can lead to high-interest debt that takes years to pay off. Best Practices: Choose a student-friendly credit card with no annual fee. Only use it for small recurring payments (like Spotify or Netflix). Pay off the balance in full each month to avoid interest. Apps like Credit Karma can help you monitor your credit score and suggest personalized financial products. One of the biggest money drains for students is food, especially takeout and fast food. While convenient, those $10–$15 meals quickly add up. Instead, try meal prepping on weekends or investing in a mini slow cooker or air fryer for your dorm room. Cooking at home saves money, and you'll likely eat healthier too. Budget-friendly food tips: Buy groceries in bulk at stores like Costco or Sam's Club (team up with roommates). Use cashback grocery apps like Ibotta or Fetch Rewards . or . Plan meals using discount flyers and store promotions. Share and Save with Roommates Living with roommates can dramatically lower your monthly expenses, especially when it comes to rent, utilities, and groceries. Ways to save together: Split subscriptions (Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc.) Share textbooks and supplies. Create a rotating cooking schedule to split grocery costs. Apps like Splitwise or Venmo make it easy to track and divide expenses fairly. Visit our website for more smart financial tips and student budgeting tools. Textbooks are notoriously expensive, but you don't need to buy them new. Smart alternatives: Rent books from Amazon or Chegg. Buy used copies on eBay or campus marketplaces. Check the library or PDF repositories (some professors share materials digitally). With open educational resources (OERs) gaining traction in 2025, more universities now offer free or low-cost digital textbooks, so always check before purchasing. Saving money without a goal can feel pointless. Set short-term and long-term financial goals to stay motivated. Examples: Save $500 by the end of the semester for travel. Build an emergency fund of $1,000 by next year. Pay off your student credit card every month for 12 months straight. Use visual tools or apps like Qapital or Simple that gamify saving and make it more fun and rewarding. Many students forget that college campuses are full of free or low-cost resources designed to save them money. Free gym memberships Career counseling and résumé workshops Free software via your .edu email (e.g., Microsoft Office 365) On-campus clinics or therapy sessions Taking advantage of these can help you save hundreds or even thousands each year. Services like Afterpay or Klarna have become increasingly popular, but they can easily lead to overspending and financial strain. While they may seem convenient, splitting purchases into installments is still debt. Unless you've budgeted for it, avoid using BNPL for non-essential items. Instead, build an emergency fund or save up for large purchases — delayed gratification pays off in the long run. One of the best ways to make your budget work better is to increase your income. Thanks to the gig economy and remote work opportunities, students in 2025 have more flexibility than ever. Easy side hustles for students: Freelance writing, design, or coding (Fiverr, Upwork) Remote tutoring Selling digital products on Etsy Campus ambassador programs Running a monetized blog or YouTube channel Even an extra $100–$300 a month can ease your financial stress and build a habit of entrepreneurial thinking. Budgeting as a college student in 2025 doesn't mean living a life of deprivation. Instead, it's about making smart, intentional choices that help you stay in control of your finances, avoid unnecessary debt, and build a solid foundation for the future. With the right tools, habits, and mindset, you can enjoy your college years without constantly worrying about money. Start small, stay consistent, and remember: every dollar you manage well now brings you one step closer to financial freedom. TIME BUSINESS NEWS
