Personal Capital APP Review

This post brought to you by Personal Capital. All opinions are 100% mine.


In today's world it is more important than ever to keep track of our financial life. What we save, spend, and invest in is critcal to our success with money. Keeping track of these things has become more difficult with the increasing complexity of our lives. Keeping track of income, planning with a budget, and making sure our investments are on track can take up a lot of time.

Sometimes we need to have this information at our finger tips. Luckily, we have a multitude of mobile computing devices that can make this simple. With Personal Capital's mobile app we can have all this important information close by.

The Personal Capital App, is available for the iPad, iPhone and Android; it allows you to see the overall picture of your finances. You can view all your financial accounts in one place. Your savings and checking account, mutual funds and stocks all displayed in an organized, easy to view way.

Personal Capital Benefits from Personal Capital on Vimeo.

The Personal Capital app is free to download and use. Plus has all these feature:

1. Encompasses all your finances. Personal Capital gives you access to all your finances in one location.
2. Gives you a broad overview of your investment portfolio. Many investors that have accounts with multiple brokers can view them all in one easy to view place.
3. Personal Capital offers a great way to drill down into asset allocation and tax optimization.
4. Check your investment fees by using the mutual fund fee calculator.
5. Stay on top of your 401k with the free organizer.

I always found that the major complaint from people who want to keep their finances organized is the desktop and mobile apps we have today are just to hard to use. I have found that the Personal Capital app is very simple to use and this is the one thing that will keep me using it. I think this app has made looking after your finances no longer a chore.

I recommend you give the Personal Capital app a try. You can download it to your iPhone, iPad, and like me even your Android device.

If you want track your income and spending plus finally feel sure your doing all you can to be successful with your financial life. Use the Personal Capital app.

The Necessity of Individual Retirement Accounts

retirement (Photo credit: 401(K) 2013)

Even if you have quite a long time before you retire, it's never too early to start thinking about a plan. When that day comes, you want to make sure you have enough money saved up and that you are able to live comfortably. What are the benefits if individual retirement accounts, which are sometimes referred to as IRAs?

An Individual Plan

Not everyone has the same needs, and you want to ensure that your personal ones are met. By developing an IRA, you can work to craft a plan that makes sense for you and addresses your personal and financial needs. When you take the time to sit down with a certified financial planner and come up with an individual retirement account, you are being smart about your future. Specifically, you will be able to work toward attaining a specific amount of money to have reserved for you when you retire. In society at large, these accounts allow people to develop a greater sense of personal responsibility.

Personal Responsibility

Let's explore this concept of personal responsibility a little bit more. It is clear from the state of the economy that many people and government entities are not great with money. Therefore, it's also smart to take some steps to amplify your knowledge and to learn more about where your money goes and why it's important. Taking the step to have an IRA, regardless of the specific type, means that you are putting personal stake into your financial affairs and working toward a plan that works for you.

Tax Options

You likely want to know about taxes on these accounts, and CNN Money's article, "Retirement: IRA Investment Advantages" discusses them in detail. The article writes, "There are two types: a traditional IRA offers tax-deferred growth, meaning you pay taxes on your investment gains only when you make withdrawals in retirement, and, if you qualify, your contributions may be deductible...A Roth IRA, by contrast, doesn't allow for deductible contributions but offers tax-free growth, meaning you owe no tax when you make withdrawals in retirement." You don't need to be told that both of these situations are rather desirable.

Withdrawing Money

The end of the article notes, "Further, if you need the money before retirement, there are more opportunities for penalty-free withdrawals." Ultimately, the goal here is to save up as much money as possible before retirement so that you do not have to deal with financial burdens later in life. However, sometimes situations do arise, and you just need to have the cash available now. When that happens, you can turn to your IRA and take out some of the money to help get you through. Since it's your personal account, you do have the freedom to do that.

Working toward an IRA is really a smart idea. Whether you have just entered into the workforce or you are thinking about retiring soon, it's smart to start making a plan that can be really beneficial to you and your financial situation.

Author Jason Harter is a retired accountant who can happily say that he has all of his retirement accounts in proper order. He obtained his Online Bachelor's in Accounting Degree.

4 Budgeting Lessons Families Can Learn from Federal Spending

Family budgets don't work like federal budgets. Still, the average person can learn from the successes and failures of the federal government. These stand out as 4 lessons that we should all learn.

Don't Buy Things You Can't Afford

Everyone knows, or should know, that you can't buy things you can't afford. A big line of credit does not mean it makes sense to spend money that you don't have. Chances are, if you don't have enough money now, you won't have it tomorrow.

Now, the government does this all the time. When you don't include two wars in your budget, you build a huge fence along the Mexican border, and you keep entitlements at about the same level year after year even though you don't have as much money coming in, you end up with a $16 trillion dollar deficit. And growing.

Learn from this. If you can't afford a Ferrari, buy a Corolla. If you can't afford a house, rent an apartment. There are smarter ways to spend money. You just might not like them as much.

Know When to Limit Subsidies

Subsidies are great for certain things. Federal subsidies, for instance, were instrumental in developing the Internet and countless medical breakthroughs that have improved the lives of millions. Even early subsidies to oil companies made sense. When an industry doesn't have the ability to generate profit yet, subsidies let the government give new companies a little push towards success.

It's similar as you giving your child an allowance. The allowance is basically a subsidy. Sure, it's a lot smaller, but it works in similar ways.

The problem is that the government, like some parents, never learn when to let subsidies expire. Once your kid gets old enough to earn a living, you don't need to give her a weekly allowance anymore. That would be like the government giving the oil industry $20 billion a year even though the top five oil companies made $375 million in profits per day in 2011.

Wait, that happened? You don't need a masters in public administration to see why that doesn't work.

Stop Relying on Fossil Fuels

Fossil fuels are considerably more expensive than you think. You might get a stress headache while pumping $5 per gallon gas into your car, but you're not even thinking about the tax dollars that were used to pay the subsidy mentioned above.

The fact of the matter is that the country and its people need to rely less on fossil fuels. Riding a bike not only uses less money, it contributes to your health, which will become increasingly important as healthcare costs continue to skyrocket.

 

More Money or Less Spending: You Have to Decide

The government and families face a similar choice: they can either make more money or spend less money. For the government, making more money means raising taxes. For your family, that means getting a higher-paying job or picking up extra hours.

For the government, spending less money means cutting programs, staying out of wars, and limiting subsidies. For families, it means living within your means by setting a budget and sticking to it, even if it means you don't get all of the things you want.

What other lessons do you think families could learn from the federal government?

Top Five Ways of Avoiding Financial Scams And Abuse In 2013

Finance (Photo credit: Tax Credits)

All of us, irrespective of gender or age, are vulnerable to financial scams and abuse. And interestingly most of the time we are not even aware that we are being victimized by an imposter. However, all of us must take some stern steps to avoid such mistreatment. Let us start our discussion with a brief discussion on what is financial abuse.

What Is Financial Abuse and Scams?

Financial abuse is subtle form of fraudulent activity that is mainly perpetrated by someone on whom you trust blindly. It can be your financial advisor, tax consultant or even a near relative who has access to your earning as well as bank account details. They might access your account and steal or invest a negligible amount of money without your permission. When such actions are taken by a person on whom you have full trust, it is called financial abuse and scams. However, it is extremely difficult for the victim to understand that he or she is being exploited as the perpetrators always chose such victims who would not realize that is being mistreated or will not be able to protest.

The Target Group

It is generally seen that swindlers target the older persons for falling prey to their scam. Research conducted in this regard show that the old people are generally much more confident and optimistic when it comes to taking financial and other decisions. Moreover, it is also seen that their ability to analyze things quickly also declines to quite an extent. Thus, they are the target audience of the cheats. Therefore, all of us and specially the older people need to take certain solid steps to protect themselves.

Here are top five ways whereby financial scams and abuse can be avoided:

Share Your Bank Statements

According to Burton Copeland, While sharing the accounts details with one person is not a good idea, sharing it with many close associates and professionals can be beneficial. Make an effort to forward the e-statements to your old friends, grandchildren and your advisors as they will be able to detect the frauds or misappropriation, odd transactions or latest investments from your account which you might have overlooked. However, make sure you are circulating it among your close knit circle only as these documents are really important.

Acquaintance Is Important

Most of us seek the aid of many specialists to look after our finance. Therefore, you have a team of tax consultants, investment advisors and real estate advisors working for you. It will be a good idea to introduce them with each other as this decrease the chance of any fraudulent activity in your account. Since all of them would want to maintain a cordial relation with you for their future business, you will be hinted about any financial abuse by any one of them. However, if too many advisors are trying to convince you for a particular financial product, then you should make extra effort to review the product before buying it.

Beware of Promise of High Return

If an investor is promising you unbelievable return from a particular investment, then you definitely smell danger. Always remember that if the investment is genuine, then the return from it will be less but steady. So do not fall prey to such lucrative offers made by the investors or any other persons.

Avoid ‘Pocket Littering’

We always carry with ourselves some valuable and sensitive information so that we can access them easily. For example, the passwords or the ping numbers are stored in our cell phone or computers or wallets. Crooks can use this sensitive information to access your accounts and perform some illegal activities. Therefore, if you are using computer or mobile phone for accessing your accounts, then make sure to log out of the account and not let any other person know your password. Moreover, it is best to keep these vital numbers at your home only.

Do Not Take Decision in Haste

Another important measure that can safeguard you from financial fraud is not taking decision in haste. If an investor is pressurizing you to sign a deal quickly, then it indicates that he is actually trying to stop you from reviewing all the aspects of the investments. So be very conscious to avoid such problems. Moreover, all lawful financial products come with a detailed brochure stating all the terms and conditions. If there isn’t sufficient disclosure, then it is not a good idea to make such investment.

By taking these steps, you can avoid financial scams and abuse. It is a matter of being a bit more careful and cautious and does not involve any excess expenditure. So do not let any other person fool you with your hard earned money.