There’s no better feeling in the world than building a bit of a cushion in your chequing account after living paycheck-to-paycheck for a few years. You’ve gotten those raises and bonuses you deserved—or maybe just a sweet windfall—and maybe you’ve even paid down a few credit cards. Way to go! The big question now is: what to do next?
Maybe when we were all a little younger (and a little less wise) we would’ve blown it on a trip or a new video game system, putting us back at square one. But it doesn’t have to be that way! There’s no time like the present to look at your financial goals and use the money you’ve built up in chequing to build toward those goals. So, what is it? Do you want to get your retirement savings kickstarted? How about buying a house? What about investing, or starting your own business?
The possibilities are endless, but you’ve gotta start somewhere. There are a number of things you can do to get to your goal, and the options can seem overwhelming. Luckily, we’ve narrowed down the best possible concrete steps you can take to save, make more money, and use the money you already have to build your own little wealth empire—right away! After all, why start tomorrow when you can start today?
Stop Wasting Money And Get Better Credit Quicker
Let’s face it. No one likes checking their credit score. Or, if you do, you either already have a perfect credit score or are a masochist. If you don’t fall into these two categories, you might be like most normal people—you’ve made some mistakes in the past, and it's reflected in your credit score. That, of course, can come back to haunt you if you’re looking for a loan, to buy a new car, or to purchase a home.
It’s a simple equation. Poor credit=bad interest rates=money lost. The best way around it is to improve your credit. Now, doing that the old-fashioned way could take years. However, why wait when you can use Credit Sesame. Allow me to be cheesy for one moment and tell you that when you use Credit Sesame, you’re basically saying “Open Sesame” to better interest rates. I’m sorry! I had to!
There are two major ways that Credit Sesame works to improve your credit, but they begin the same first steps. Once you sign up with them, they’ll provide your free credit score—and provide you with the means to help you better understand your credit in simple, easy-to-comprehend terms.
Based on your history, Credit Sesame will then provide you with personalized strategies to help you improve your score and allow access to credit products tailored to your lifestyle that can help you build better credit. The other way that they can help to improve credit score? They can help you find errors on your credit reports that could be affecting your score. One user was able to raise her score by nearly 200 points this way!
Letting a bad credit score affect your life is a waste of time and money—so don’t sleep on it!
Get A Lot—And We Mean A Lot—For A Little
If you think the ability to invest is something that only the rich have access to, think again. There are a lot of startups and apps out there that let regular people like us invest—but only Stash lets you invest in well-known companies like Google, Apple, and Amazon. That’s right, with Stash, you can own a piece of some of the biggest, most profitable companies in the world—for as little as $1.
To get started, sign up for an account and deposit at least $5 in your account. Stash will then hook you up with a sign-up bonus and allow you previously unheard-of access to amazing investments. Then, watch as what you’ve invested grows. When the companies profit—and with companies like these, that’s all the time—you will too. Many of the companies that Stash works with will send you dividends as they profit. A quarterly check? Heck yes. Feeling like Gordon Gekko or Jordan Belfort (minus all the bad stuff, of course)? Priceless.
It’s Easier To Cut Down On Hidden Costs Than You Think
One of the best ways to make your own money work for you is to look at your monthly expenses and find out where you’re wasting when you don’t need to. If you’ve got a car, those monthly bills increase exponentially. There are payments, gas, registration, and other fees, maintenance, and—who could forget—insurance. Most of these are next-to-impossible to cut down on, and you’d think that car insurance would be one of those unchangeable things. After all, it’s mandatory in most places! However, there is one way to cut down on your car insurance payments.
This is where Gabi comes in. To put it simply, it’s a search engine that helps you find cheaper car insurance. To put it even more simply, it’s the easiest way to save hundreds of dollars per year. If there’s one thing to be learned from using Gabi, it’s that there’s a good chance that you’re paying more in car insurance than you need to. And you don’t need to read over the fine print of a dozen different insurance plans to figure it out—simply connect your current insurance, and let Gabi do the hard work. Within seconds, you’ll find similar or better coverage for a fraction of the price—but that’s not all.
You’d think that once you find that better insurance, you’d have to call your old company to cancel, then go through the rigmarole of finding an agent at the new company. Not so. Not only will Gabi directly hook you up with your new, cheaper plan, but it’ll also help you cancel your old policy, hassle-free. Now that’s white-glove service for the app age.
Few Millennials Do This…But They Absolutely Should
There’s one wise financial move that money experts agree on—but that no below boomer age seems to actually take advantage of. That’s taking out a life insurance plan! You may be making jokes in your head about calling your parents to let them know (“It’s Patrick, he took out life insurance!”) but using Bestow to take out a policy is probably one of the easiest things you can do to ensure a comfortable future for you and your family.
Once upon, taking out life insurance was a big inconvenience—doctor’s visits, paperwork. No wonder the interest in getting a policy tanked! Here’s what sets Bestow apart: it’s both hassle-free and contact-free—perfect for these strange times we’re living in! Bestow uses data, not doctor’s reports, to come up with a life insurance plan that suits your individual needs. On top of that, the coverage is affordable for basically everyone. In fact, premiums start at $16 per month.
One reason why many skip or ignore life insurance is that it's included in their general insurance plan provided by their workplace. It’s understandable—but if you take the time to read the fine print on the life insurance component of those plans, you’d be gobsmacked. Bestow is real, useful, life insurance, for those who know the value of a good insurance plan. If you’ve ever had to haggle with your car or health insurance just to get what you’re owed, you know that value. Do you really want your loved ones to have to go through the same thing if the worst happens? If the answer is no, check out Bestow.
Of course, you got to the point where you have a nice financial cushion with a lot of hard work. But making money doesn’t have to be so hard! There are two ways to really build what you’ve got exponentially: find methods to save on the bills and items you have to pay for—and get paid for the things you’re already doing every day. Here are the easiest ways.
Kick Heavy Monthly Payments Out Of Your Life…For Good
The average US citizen carries about $16,000 in credit card debt. Are you one of them? We all want to be that person who pays off their entire balance every month, but that’s simply out of reach for a lot of us. And the downside is absolutely brutal. When you’re simply making minimum payments, the result is that you wind up paying exorbitant interest fees. These are what keeps us in debt and stops us from paying it down significantly—especially if there’s more than one credit card in play. BUT, there’s a better way!!
What is it? One name: Fiona. Consolidating the debt into one low-interest loan means that you can get out from under the credit card companies (Take that, Visa!! See you in heck, Mastercard!!). Instead, you pay one bill per month, without having to worry about the interest piling up and drowning you in debt. Victory!!
Okay, we’ve got the answer—but how do we got about it? All you’ve got to do is fill out a simple form. Click one button, and Fiona will find you personalized offers from reputable providers. Pick one, and then, within minutes, you could be approved—and you could kick toxic high-interest credit cards out of your life. What a feeling.
We’ve All Got To Spend—So Spend Smart
No matter how hard you’re working to save, there’s always going to be daily expenses. Groceries, gas, something for the home here, something at the pharmacy there. Takeout. It adds up, and it’s unavoidable. So, why not get money back for what you spend every day?
With pretty much any rewards program, it takes years to get a few pennies back for what you’ve spent—but not with Aspiration. How? Well, Aspiration is a debit card…with a 10% kickback. Ten percent!! It’s like having a sweet VIP discount.
When you’re swiping to pay for everyday expenses, you’re likely either using your credit card (hello, interest rates) or your debit card anyway—and right now, be honest: is your bank offering you anything to use your debit card? Not likely. Aspiration has partnered with a number of merchants to offer a 10% kickback when you use your card at their stores. And that’s not even the best part!
Aspiration is a green-focused company. When you swipe your card, they plant a tree. When you buy gas, they buy carbon offsets. It’s guilt-free spending with fee-free ATM withdrawals and you get to pick your own monthly fee—yes, you can pick $0. I believe that’s what we call a win-win-win situation.
One Easy Way To Never Pay More Than You Need To
When you own a home, you’re required to have homeowners insurance. It’s just one of those things in life you can’t get around. However, few people take a step back and ask: do I really need to pay this much? Chances are, you don’t. With PolicyGenius, you can cut the fat from your insurance plan while retaining the parts that are absolutely necessary as a homeowner, saving tons of money a month.
How does it work? First, you decide which parts of homeowners insurance you need (Personal property? Liability?) and cut what you don’t. Then, PolicyGenius will help you find a policy tailored to your needs and set you up with it—but it doesn’t stop there. PolicyGenius will also help you re-shop your policy every year, making sure the best rate is always at your fingertips.
Even if you don’t need homeowners insurance, there’s a chance that PolicyGenius can help you. Renting? No need to fear a flood caused by those flighty upstairs neighbors when you’re insured. Got a pet? Never have a vet-bill-related heart attack again. If it can be insured, PolicyGenius will find the best policy for the lowest price—which will save you $$$ in the long run.
Invest Like The Pros Do For Pennies A Month
Anyone with even a bit of financial freedom should immediately think of investing their money. It’s not as hard as it seems! There’s one app that makes getting started in investing super easy. And luckily, the very same app can get you free shares of stocks of wildly profitable companies like Microsoft and Facebook. Free!
Imagine getting stock for free? There’s only one way: Robinhood. You may have already heard of it—not only has it been around for years, but Robinhood has also made its users boatloads of money. There’s a reason why it’s beloved. First, you can start investing with just $1. But the best part of all? Unlike basically every other method of investing, Robinhood doesn’t charge commission fees. That’s pretty much unheard of.
And, as if that wasn’t enough, there’s the bonus. When you download the app and put some money into your account, Robinhood will drop a free (my favorite word) share of stock into your account to get you started. They pick the stock, so it’s kind of like a fun lottery—will it be worth $5? Will it be worth $500? There’s only one way to find out—by signing up for Robinhood!
Make Money For Something You Do For Free Each Day
How many news stories do you think you see, even incidentally, per day? Even if you’re not a news junkie, there’s a chance that they number in the hundreds. And if you are a news junkie, why not make money for it? You can, through a program called InboxDollars.
All you have to do is sign up for a free account, and before you know it, you could be earning up to $225 a month. It’s simple. Once you’re all signed up, InboxDollars sends you a selection of short news clips every day, along with some questions about each. All you need to do is give your honest opinion—that’s it!
I’m sure you’ve heard of consumer survey programs like this before, and maybe even participated in one, only to realize you don’t get enough for the time you put in. InboxDollars is different. Most survey programs pay out their rewards in gift cards or points. Who needs ‘em! InboxDollars pays cash. Its users have already earned over $59 million—and counting. When I originally wrote this article, that figure was $56 million! Every minute you’re not signing up is a minute you’re missing out on that sweet cash.
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Make Money The Way That The 1% Does
What’s one thing that the world’s most profitable companies and people have in common? Real estate. They’ve all got a piece of it. McDonald’s, Walmart—a huge part of their assets is the real estate that they own. And that’s not to mention those real estate tycoons who give the Monopoly man a run for his money. It all seems pretty out of reach for us normal folk, however.
There’s a common belief that you have to be wealthy to invest in real estate. Maybe in the past this was true, but with DiversyFund that’s no longer the case. Anyone can invest in real estate!
As with any form of investing, there are no guarantees—but in the past, DiversyFund has shown its users fantastic returns rates of between 17% and 18%, versus ~7% for regular stock market investing.
If you’re looking to get into high-returns investing in a sector where money moves fast and grows even faster, you need to get into real estate. But how? All it takes is a $500 investment to start, and DiversyFund will get you into the commercial real estate game. Talk about Fortune 500! (Sorry, I had to do it!)
There’s Only One Way To Save Yourself From Disaster
Financial safety. Financial security. Doesn’t just saying these phrases feel like getting hugged by a warm blanket? Unfortunately, life is full of unexpected disasters that can jar you out of a state of financial security—but there’s one way to prevent it.
Having good insurance can save you from the type of savings-draining emergencies that can happen to anyone at any time. Someone break into your apartment and take your computer, camera, and TV? No need to start a GoFundMe to replace them when you’ve got renter’s insurance. Basement flooded during a storm? Homeowners insurance could save you from paying for a new floor. Use a bad situation to take lemons and make Lemonade.
See, some people buy insurance, pay through the nose for it every month, and forget about it. Other people don’t, and regret it. Both, frankly, are straight-up dumb financial moves. There’s an easy way to avoid the fate of both of these types of people, and it’s Lemonade. With Lemonade, you’ll find the most affordable quote for the insurance policy that suits you best. It takes 90 seconds to sign up, but that’s not the best part. When it’s time to make a claim, there’s no paperwork or arguing—it’s an easy, hassle-free, three-minute process. Anyone who’s ever had to make a claim with an old-school insurance company will tell you that makes Lemonade worth it alone.
With Lemonade, there are no brokers, no banks, and no bonkers paperwork. Just straight-up savings that you can start reaping right away—and the sense of safety that’ll help you sleep at night.
There’s An Easy Way To Stop Sinking Your Money Into Credit Card Payments
Do you have credit card debt or multiple credit cards? How are the interest rates on them? Unless you were born a millionaire, the answer is probably: not great. For many of us who haven’t got a hand up in life, we’re stuck with high-interest rates on our credit cards than can make paying down debt impossible. It’s a real two steps forward, one step back situation. Or maybe more like 1.99 steps back.
If you’ve spent years paying off your credit cards only to see your balances barely budge, you’ve got to stop sinking your money into that hole right away. And forget calling them for help—why would they make it easier when they’re the ones making money? The best way to get out of this vicious cycle right away is with AmOne. They specialize in matching consumers with low-interest loans for debt consolidation—leaving you with one payment a month.
You’ll be able to watch the numbers go down in a way you never could before, and AmOne makes it easier than any other service out there. It’s free to check online if you qualify, and when you’re ready to sign up, there’s a live team of experts available to guide you through the process if you need it. It’s like lifting a weight off your shoulders, with almost zero effort.
