M is for Money

Let me guess, you don’t have enough time in the day. Work, home and family require a delicate balancing act, still not everything gets done. Despite being busy, you can’t forget your finances. Bills have to get paid, budgets need to be balanced and savings built up. So how can you stay on top of your money in a busy world? The answer is to automate as much of these tasks as possible, the set it and forget it approach to personal finance.

Automate Your Obligations

There are many ways to make paying your bills less of a chore. First, look for bills that can be paid in advance rather than monthly. Auto insurance often costs less if you pay for 6 months up front, plus it’s one less bill to remember each month. Other bills can be set up for automatic payment, the money will be deducted from your bank account without any action on your part. If none of these approaches work for you, set up a bill pay account through your bank. This service will put all of your bills in one place and allow you to pay each online. You will still have to take action to pay your bills, but having all of them in a central location will cut down the time it takes to pay each. Plus you don’t have to write out checks, find your stamps or fill in addresses.

Automate Your Savings and Investments

It’s easy to automate your savings and investments. Almost all banks and brokerages offer automatic investment plans which allow you to transfer a set amount of money on a regular basis. No more putting off that emergency fund or IRA, once you set up the regular transfer you are done. Personally I have automatic investments going into both a Roth IRA and a taxable investing account. Even if I never lift a finger again I am building up savings for the future. Most online banks offer automatic monthly transfers from your regular bank along with better rates, the perfect place to stash that e-fund. Vanguard and T Rowe Price offer free automatic monthly investing for that IRA or investment account.

Autopilot Dangers

Of course there is some danger to a set it and forget it approach, what if something goes wrong? I’ve heard many stories of people ending up in collections or with a pile of late fees after an automatic payment doesn’t process. You still need to monitor your money with automatic payments to see that bills are actually getting paid and that you aren’t overcharged. You still need to monitor your savings and investments to see that they are growing as you expect. You still need to rebalance your portfolio at least once a year, though some investment houses now offer automatic rebalancing as well.

Set It and Forget It

We are all busy with our daily lives, it’s easy to forget to monitor our money. Fortunately there are many financial tasks that can be automated to save time. Even someone who finds finance interesting, like myself, doesn’t handle each and every financial detail. I prefer to automate my savings and investment so I can spend my energy doing other things. While set it and forget it might be oversimplifying things (you still need to monitor your money) this approach will help you achieve your financial goals while caught up in your busy life.


Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this post consider subscribing for updates.