How Personal Capital Changed My Financial Life

It’s no mystery that I was in a deep financial hole some years ago. Not only did I have a sizable amount of credit card debt, but I also had car loans, and even a Jetski loan. Yep, I was a spending machine with no regard to how much was in my bank account. Everything went on plastic and I mean everything. I paid the minimums and went along with my self-perceived lavish lifestyle. I thought I was doing it all right. There were so many other people in debt and still living, so why did it matter if I was in the same place? Apparently, I didn’t get the memo that I was not supposed to jump off the bridge that everyone else was. That debt bridge was high, but who doesn’t like a little thrill in their life?

With the help of my wife, I decided to turn my life around back in 2008, right during the financial crisis. It was the ultimate wake up call for me and my spending lifestyle. The hard part for me is I didn’t know any better than what I was doing. I didn’t know what to do with my money. I wasn’t investing for my future and I surely wasn’t saving it. Good thing there were awesome personal finance blogs around when I looked for information. The internet actually saved my butt financially, all thanks to personal finance blogs. It’s amazing what you can do when you have a little bit of information.

From Darkness to Light

When I first started reading about personal finance, I didn’t know how to budget. I understood the concept, but I never really knew where to start. Remember, starting your journey out of debt is often the hardest part, but the most important. I was in a dark financial place in 2008, along with many people. I didn’t want to become another statistic from the collapse, so I decided to make a change and get out on the other side in a much better place. I did this with the help of Mint.com, the free online budgeting service. Most people know it very well as it’s the most popular service out there.  Mint allowed me to put all of my credit cards in one place and see how bad I really was. It also allowed me to create a budget and set goals. I stayed with Mint.com all the way through my payoff journey, so four years.

After paying off my last credit card in July of 2012, I decided it was time to start investing my money. I had been saving money along with paying off my debt, so I would have a small emergency fund. If you don’t think you can save and pay off debt, you most certainly can! I did it for four years. It took me some time to get up to speed with investing. Instead of going a typical brokerage route, I decided to put my money in at Betterment, which houses my Roth IRA. It was relatively new to the investing world, but I liked their very little touch approach and what they like to call “robo investing.”  My decision has paid off well as my account is up nearly 20{6fac3e6a3582a964f494389deded51e5db8d7156c3a7415ff659d1ae7a1be33e} since inception. Not bad at all.

The biggest problem I had once I started investing was getting my account into Mint.com. They could handle my Betterment account, but they couldn’t import my 401(k), which had more money in it. I had started getting the full match available right near the end of my credit card payoff, so the account was growing. I needed to see what was in there and Mint wasn’t doing it for me. That’s when I found Personal Capital.

Personal Capital Changed My Financial Life

That’s a pretty bold statement, I know. How can a service like Personal Capital change your life? Well, simply put, it gave me access to see every part of money money flow, from credit cards, bank accounts, and now all of my investment accounts. Personal Capital is similar to Mint in a lot of ways, but they do one thing much better: investments! They do tell you that you shouldn’t look at your investments on a regular basis, but Personal Capital provides so much more than that. When you’re a new investor, you need to make sure you have your funds in the right places. This was especially important for me when it came to my 401(k). I don’t have a huge selection of funds to pick, so I needed to know I was in the right ones. That’s where Personal Capital came in.

Check this out – Mint vs. Personal Capital – The Ultimate Financial Tool Throwdown

I was given the insight into my investments that I didn’t get before. Mint didn’t do a good job with investment accounts. They have budgeting down pat, but their ads were getting overwhelming to me. You couldn’t log into your account without getting pushed credit card offers, bank accounts, and even saving on your mortgage. It was getting to be too much. One of my favorite reasons for switching to Personal Capital is there clean and usable interface. I log in and find exactly what I need with no filler and fluff. That allows me to make better financial decisions without seeing things which could lead me down the wrong path.

@PersonalCapital makes it super easy to manage your money and get the big picture!
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I’ve been a user of Personal Capital’s free service for some time and I wouldn’t switch back to Mint now. While Mint was there for me in one stage of my financial turn-around, Personal Capital is there for me now and has shown me many things about my money and my investments that I wouldn’t have received from Mint. Better yet, Personal Capital finally added a budgeting tool for it’s iPhone users, but it will be added to the desktop version soon. That just takes the cake in my mind, as I thought budgeting was where Mint easily beat Personal Capital. Now I can’t use that argument.

It’s been amazing to see where my financial life has gone since I found so many free tools. Personal Capital is just one which I love and I recommend along with many others. It’s amazing what you can d with free tools and you never know where you can go. You don’t always have to spend money to use an app or a site. There are plenty of options out there to help you get your finances back on track. If it weren’t for personal finance blogs, I would have never found Betterment, Personal Capital, Motif Investing, or Digit. The list can go on, but I think you get my point. Whatever your goals and financial desires, there’s probably a site that can help. Trust me, I found them and you can too!

Did a free service like Personal Capital change your financial life? What’s your favorite free tool to help with your money?

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