Important tools and advice to solve your financial problems.

Except maybe you are a hermit living alone on the moon, you will always have to meet your financial obligations. There are several financial services rendering companies like SmartAsset and Maxifi planner that purport to prevent you from making bad financial decisions. The important question begging for answers remains, can you rely on these companies to help solve your financial problems? You may consider going through reviews like this SmartAsset Reviews to expose you to the reality of banking with personal finance companies.

Leaving no stone unturned by reading reviews before transacting with any finance company will prevent you from falling prey to the wolves of the global financial sector. Before going the whole hog to read the reviews of financial companies, we recommend that you get a little education about personal finances to help escape the financial rat race, and stay out of bad debt.

Top three personal finance advice.

1.    Expenses must not be above your income:

One of the top secrets to attaining financial freedom is to ensure that whatever you spend must be way less than what you earn. It is very tempting to fall into the common error of increasing expenses as soon as your income increases, this in itself is one of the major reasons people go broke. You may be accused of frugality if you follow this advice, remember, what people say is not as important as meeting your financial obligations. 

2.    Save to invest.

Contrary to popular opinion, you shouldn’t save just for the sake of saving. One key lesson from the book, the richest man in Babylon is that it makes sense to keep one-tenth of your earnings as savings to be invested for a greater return. 

Due to the harsh reality of inflation, the value of money saved without investment will keep dropping as inflation bites the economy harder. Investing in the real estate market, the stock exchange, bonds and treasury bills will give you a considerable return on investment and prevent your money from losing out to inflation.

3.    Assets over liability.

Assets are properties or resources that can provide future economic benefits while liabilities are properties or resources that lead to an outflow of financial resources. To solve your financial problems, you need to have a bias for acquiring assets over liabilities. Assets can be tangible and intangible, they lead to an inflow of economic resources to your purse while liabilities drains your economic resources. 

Following these financial advice requires strong will and discipline. We shall be perusing some important personal finance tools that can be downloaded to keep your expenses tracked.

Top personal finance tools.

1.    Quicken.

This is perhaps the most popular finance tool in the world, it was brilliantly designed to help you track debts, investment, and savings. Its easy to use interface allows you to export Microsoft Excel documents effortlessly.

2.    You Need a Budget (YNAB).

You will find this tool very useful if you desire to acquire financial education within the comfort of your home. As the name suggests, it allows you to create a budget, manage your finances by linking to your bank account to keep track of spending patterns and habits.

3.    Mint

This free to download tool helps you in cutting down unnecessary expenses to improve personal finances. It was designed to give you information on what can be reasonably spent on necessities like food and gas. It also alerts you on payments due date to prevent you from paying more in penalties.