January 2013 Challenge {Finance: Week 4}

Today I'm sharing my favorite resources for managing finances.

Mint.com
Perhaps you've heard of Mint? I have been using it for quite a few years now and absolutely love it. Here's my financial confession: we don't balance a checkbook. *gasp* I keep receipts, but I'm far too lazy to take the time to add/subtract from a check register. Everything is online, after all. I monitor our bank accounts closely, so I don't see the big deal. Mint helps me with this by nicely managing all of my bank, credit card, and student loan accounts in one place. I can see transactions and balances. I can categorize so I can see our spending "trends" each month. {A little to heavy on the dining out "trend" last month. Oops!} Besides all of the cool stuff I've already mentioned, Mint has a smartphone app. I absolutely LOVE this. I can easily log in to the app and see our current cash balance {as well as that lovely negative debt balance - which actually has, at times, caused me to rethink purchases}. Our bank accounts would be a mess if it weren't for Mint - seriously.

Capital One 360
Hear me out. I'm not trying to "sell you" on a bank - I just really love Capital One 360 {formerly ING Direct}. We've had an account with them for 3 years now. We also have an account with a local bank, but I love CO360 more. The whole reason for opening this account was so we could save money. Save in a place with a decent interest rate. Save in a place that's "out of sight, out of mind" - CO360 is an online bank. They have a super cool smartphone app as well. The app lets me take pictures of checks to deposit them. They currently have a promo where you get $20 for signing up. It was seriously one of the best decisions we've made to open an account with CO360. I have 3 savings accounts and one checking - all with zero fees. Why have 2 accounts? We use our local bank for spending cash {Chris' paycheck is automatically deposited in this account} and the CO360 account for savings and bill pay {my paycheck is automatically deposited in this account}.

Pageonce
Pageonce is bill management made easy. I linked up all of my bill accounts - credit cards, utilities, insurance, rewards accounts, and even magazine subscriptions. I like that I can log in and view all of my accounts in one place. Pageonce has a smartphone app that is great. I really love that they will send me bill reminders automatically. If I haven't paid the bill at the time of the email, I'll star it in my Gmail account so I get to it ASAP. Since I check my email all of the time, I see that reminder constantly.

Credit Sesame
Credit Sesame is the ultimate tool for viewing all of my debts and my credit score in one place - for free! They analyze my creditworthiness and current debt, and then give me advice on ways to lower payments and save money when looking for a new loan or credit card. I mostly use this website for keeping up with my credit score. I want to make sure I'm keeping things in excellent standing so that when we're finally ready to buy a house, we can get the best rate possible.

My Total Money Makeover
I completed the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University online last year. Very eye opening. Then Chris lost his job in April and we lost track of the importance of paying off the debt. Now that we're in steady jobs, I decided to sign up for the year subscription to Dave Ramsey's My Total Money Makeover. A parent at my school had talked to me about the difference it's made in their life over the last year, and I knew that I needed Dave in my life again. I set up a budget through the website for January. I also set up our debt snowball. I used Christmas money to totally squash a small credit card amount we had. With the debt snowball, you take the amount you were paying on the lowest amount a month, and add it to the next lowest payment. You keep going and going until everything is paid off. Genius. {Read more about Dave Ramsey's Debt Snowball Plan.}