This page is a work in progress, but I wanted to share some of the tools I use to save, make and track money.
Some of these tools are affiliates or referral links and I may profit. Often times the person I refer gets something too. The ones I have personally tried are underlined, but even if I haven’t used it, I would if I had a need for it. I’ve looked into these companies to some degree to make sure they are reputable as far as the information is available.
Money Saving Apps:
- ibotta app: Scan your receipts and get cash back.
- Rakuten: A browser extension that pops up when you are on a site and can give you huge cash back. I’ve seen as high as 12.5% offered.
- Swagbucks: They are a survey site but you can shop through their site like Ebates and get cash back. I often compare Ebates vs Swagbucks and go with the one with higher cash back.
- Dosh: Cash back at various retailers. Get $5 when you sign up. This has been amazing for shopping at Sam’s club.
- Drop: Cash back at restaurants, etc. Get $5 when you sign up.
- Walmart grocery pickup: Don’t wander the aisles and buy stuff not on your shopping list.
- Honey: This is a browser extension that gives you legit coupon codes that help you save money when shopping online.
- Raise.com: You can buy discounted gift cards here. For example, we got a Buffalo Wild Wings gift card for nearly 10% off, which takes the hit off the bill. Get $10 to start with my link.
- Paribus: If the item you bought last week goes on sale, Paribus gets the difference refunded to you
Budgeting/Money Tracking:
- Qube Money allows you to do Dave Ramsey’s envelope system on your phone. It’s a pretty cool app that will help you allocate and stay on top of your money.
- Personal Capital: One of my favorite apps, I check it often. It has an amazing retirement calculator, great net worth tracking and investing guidance.
- Status money: Similar to Personal Capital, they track your accounts in one place and offer some good bonuses and recommendations. They’re trying to be a social network in a way.
- Zeta: My wife and I started using this app to track our money better. Similar to Personal Capital. Better in some ways, not as good in others, but it works better for us overall. We use both it regularly to monitor transactions.
Credit Monitoring:
- Credit Karma: Great app that I’ve used for years to monitor my credit score. They also have a good online savings account that pays close to 2%.
- Credit Sesame: Almost the same as Credit Karma but they give all their users $50,000 in Identity Theft insurance for free. That alone makes it a no brainer to set up an account.
Credit cards:
- Chase Freedom Unlimited: Earn $150 bonus with Chase Freedom Unlimited. This is one of our main credit cards giving us 1.5% back on everything.
- Southwest Rapid Rewards (Chase): Earn 40,000 points with the Southwest Rapid Rewards Premier Credit Card. A good card for getting Southwest points.
- Capital One Savor: Our go to for date night, with 4% cash back on “Entertainment.”
Student Loan Financing
- Sofi is awesome for refinancing loans. Competitive rates, low or no fees and good customer support. They’re made a great name for themselves. Use this link to get $100 towards your student loans when you refinance through them.
- Tally helps people pay down their debt systematically which can save a lot of interest paid over the years.
Investing
- M1 Finance is an awesome trading platform. No fees and the option to borrow against taxable accounts. Get $10 when you sign up and fund your account with $100.
- Worthy Bonds: inventory backed bonds, bought $10 at a time. Easy and relatively secure 5% return.
- Digit: Microinvesting app that rounds up your purchases and invests on your behalf.
- U-Nest: A great 529 app that cuts through the confusion and gets you going in 5 minutes.
- Robinhood is another great trading platform without fees and the ability to get into crypto. Get a free stock when you sign up.
- Blooom analyzes your 401k and let’s you know how you can decrease your risk and increase your return. They can help you with this for a low monthly fee or you can do it yourself based on the information provided.
Crowdfunded Real Estate
- Streitwise: Have you ever thought you would get the chance to own commercial real estate? You can with Streitwise. They have never missed a quarterly payout of 10% interest on the principal from their investors. For 2020 they are planning to pay out 8-9%.
- Fundrise: They make it easy to get into real estate investing without any work on your part. You’re quickly diversified into a portfolio with properties around the country.
Cell Service:
Tello is an excellent value. It uses Sprint’s network but charges much less. No contract, just monthly pay as you go. Learn more here.
I personally use PagePlus, which piggybacks off Verizon’s network. I get 8 gigs of data per month (4G) and if I go past that they give unlimited (2G). So you’ll always have data but it might be slow if you go past the 8 gigs. I rarely exceed 8 gigs, and have never had a problem with their service. Sign up here.
Estate Planning
My wife and I recently purchased this awesome ICE Binder from SmartMoneyMamas.com. We’re working through it and find it a huge help to get our lives organized. Should something happen to us, the transition for our young children and family members picking up the pieces will be infinitely better.
While it’s not fun to think about, this sort of stuff happens to people every day. It has got to be horrible dealing with the loss of a loved one and then scrambling to get everything figured out. It can take months or years to finally go through stuff.
Not so with this binder, which comes as a downloadable and fillable PDF. I encourage you to be responsible and really take care of your family. This binder will walk you through everything, but doesn’t replace a will. It’s a great start and will get you organized and your family will thank you for it one day.
I used Trust and Will to compose a basic will. It only took about 20 minutes, and you can get 10% off on your will here.
You can actually get a free will, power of attorney and healthcare proxy from Trust and Will when you get a term life insurance policy from Haven Life. I have a policy (outside of my employers) through them, it’s priced very competitively, and they are owned by Mass Mutual, a 160+ year old insurance company that is very financially stable. Read more about the perks of having a policy through Haven life
Random:
- Neighbor is the AIRBNB of storage units. Rent out space in your garage, shed, basement or spare room.
- Cash app: Similar to Venmo. Get $5 when you sign up and transfer some money. It’s owned by Square.
Crypto:
- Dock is LinkedIn on Blockchain (if you’re into crypto)
- Coinbase: The simplest place to get into Bitcoin, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Additionally, I enjoy the following services:
- Ally Bank – online bank that pays about 2% interest.
- Vanguard – Low fee investments
- Root car insurance – really inexpensive and good coverage. Get $50 when you sign up and pass their driving test, you don’t even have to switch! (I’m now in a state where Root cannot provide coverage yet, and have had great experience and prices with GEICO).
- Toyota: nice reliable cars.