Do you really hate thinking about money? Don’t you wish that you could spend less time on the boring financial stuff?
Most of us are totally confused when it comes to figuring out how to manage money. There are many complex books out on the topic and different ideas. We just don’t even know where to start. It’s intimidating. We just want money in the bank. We don’t want to be finance-dorks. We don’t want to become financially literate nor do we care about budgeting for every dollar.
I’m going to show you how-to never stress about money ever again. I want you to have a better life than me. I want you to learn from my mistakes and from my trial-and-error over the years.
From the outside looking in, I appear to have a complex financial system. It’s actually really simple when you boil it down to the basics.
What do you need to never stress about money again?
Do you want to finally become a banking ninja? You need a few tools. It only takes a few minutes to sign up for these tools. I recently wrote about the best financial tools to save loads of money.
All you need are the following tools to save money easily:
A free and user-friendly checking account.
Is your checking account critical here? 100%. This is where you get paid, access your money, and pay your bills. I’m tired of seeing young people get screwed over with administrative fees and other fees that come with checking accounts. You need to keep more money in your pocket. Stop putting up with crappy customer service and paying random monthly fees.
A savings account that actually helps you save money.
When there’s no more space under your mattress you might want to consider putting your money into an online savings account. Your savings account is key because that’s where you store your money. That’s also where your money accumulates while you’re working and trying to enjoy your 20s. You have way better things to worry about than your savings account and the safety of your money.
How can you make saving money easier than ever before?
Saving money can be a bit tricky because nobody wants to be a Scrooge or to be mocked for always being cheap. We all have that friend that’s always counting pennies or making every situation super-awkward with their frugality. You don’t want to be that friend. The good news is that you can save money without your friends even having the slightest clue. You don’t have to let the whole world know that you’re serious about saving your money.
How does one save money without thinking about it? The oldest trick in the book — pay yourself first. The process for paying yourself first is simple:
- Go to your employer or bank to fill out the forms to get your money taken out on payday. This part is really easy. The forms take less than a minute to fill out. You only have to fill the forms out once. There’s no trouble here at all.
- Pick an amount that you’re comfortable with. I started off with $50 because I knew that this would be an amount that I wouldn’t notice. What are you comfortable with stashing away whenever you get paid?
- Watch your savings grow. Your money piles up while you live life. Pretty awesome.
Saving money really is that simple. Your money goes into your checking account and then what you want to save gets moved to your savings account. You don’t have to do anything else.
How do I organize my finances with multiple investments?
Since I have a few arrangements and different investments, I have a few accounts setup. My multiple accounts are as follows:
I have a separate checking account with the bank down the street for my rental income and everything to do with that. I collect the monthly tenant checks here, use the money to pay for property taxes, mortgage payments and the maintenance fees. I try to keep this separate from everything else. I also have a retirement account here, along with my credit card and a discount brokerage account. I barely use this account.
I have my ING Direct for everything else. This is my main account. All of my money from Paypal gets transferred here. I also have the money from my part-time job and other checks come here. I use the checking account for my daily debit transactions (usually food mmm). The savings account is where I store my money until I find an investment worth pursuing.
I also have my Paypal account for everything. This is where I get paid for all of my online work. This is where I do all of my online transactions. The money comes here and then is filtered out to my ING Direct account or it stays in Paypal so I can pay for my fixed online expenses (hosting, work that I outsource, and monthly subscriptions).
How long does it take to start this sweet system?
The initial setup will take a few hours. If you don’t have any accounts, then it might take you a few days to get the accounts setup. The only reason that it might take a few days is because you can’t just get a new checking account setup right away. You usually have to fill out the forms and then mail them a blank check to set things up. Once you do this, you’re smooth sailing and your FREE checking account is ready for you to use.
Setting up Paypal is fairly easy. You have to first create your basic account. Then for you to accept payments, you have to sync your bank accounts with Paypal. Once again this may hold you back a few days because you have to go through the process. When I synced my accounts, I had to confirm that I was the owner of the accounts.
Within a few days of wait time, you should have your different accounts created and ready to make life easier for you!
…And a few more tricks to make life even easier for you!
I still have a few more tricks to make this whole managing money thing easier than ever.
What do I do about my monthly bills? I automate everything to my credit card. Whenever I add a new monthly expense (rarely) I ensure that I call to have the bills charged to my credit card automatically. So I never think about paying my cell phone bill or my gym membership. The only caveat here is that you still check your bill to ensure that you don’t get ripped off or double charged.
I actually have three credit cards. One I rarely use, one credit card with Walmart, one with my bank.
You don’t have to think about money all of the time. You don’t have to stress about money. You can put paying bills on auto-pilot.
Can you really never stress about your finances?
Once you’re setup, you’re on cruise control. You don’t have to think about money again. Trust me.
Do you have to login to your banking accounts?
I do just to look at my credit card to ensure everything is cool. I’ve been a victim of credit card fraud before and it’s not fun. I check on my credit cards to see that everything is up to par.
I also long on to my ING Direct account to transfer money whenever it comes into my checking account so that I have money in my various savings’ accounts depending on my goals at the time.
Good luck with this financial system! Setting it up might take a few minutes. Once you’re up and running you can take it easy. Life is really too short to stress about money 24/7.
How do you make managing money easy for yourself?
Since we live off my wife’s income for every day expenses except for my debt payments, her paychecks go into the joint checking and mine are split between my solo checking and our joint savings. Enough money comes out of my pay check to pay my debt payments and that is it. Everything else is automatic savings (although we do dip into it for larger and unexpected purchases).
The debt payments are automated, so I almost never log into that account. Just once per month when I do my net worth updates. All my online income goes into the savings account linked to my solo checking account. At the end of the year, I will make a big payment towards debt.
That’s a pretty slick system. I tend to login too frequently ever since I was a victim of credit card fraud last year.
That’s the beauty of it. There are three banks that have the account information for that account and the debit card is locked in my safe. Online statements. It would be pretty difficult of a fraudster to get a hold of that information.
I love ING, even though they recently got bought out by Capital One..
Love your plan Martin! Keep things simple, sometimes separate, and automated.
What did people do 20 years ago when there was no online banking? lol
Once in a while I go to the bank to take care of some stuff. I imagine many years ago, you had to actually drive to the bank to transfer money.