Friday Financial Five – February 22nd, 2013

Friday, February 22, 2013

Dan Forbes, GoLocalProv Financial Expert

Your iPhone and Droid are not just for updating Facebook and playing Angry Birds. There are some worthwhile applications available that can save you money or help organize your financial life.

Mint

When you traditionally think of mint, you think of pleasingly refreshing gum or the delicious Girl Scout cookies you bought recently. Conversely, Mint, the application, forces you to face possibly horrifying details of your monthly spending habits. This is healthy though. Categorizing and confronting expenses is an important part of putting yourself on the road to financial wellness. You’ll be able to estimate current expenditures and make cuts where possible, while providing a roadmap to future retirement spending.

Grocery iQ

Staying with the budgeting theme, Grocery IQ is an application that helps control food costs, a major monthly expenditure for many of us. This app allows you to enter items by keyword or barcode, and also allows you to store grocery lists by store. It expedites the shopping process, helps you stay within a weekly or monthly food budget, and makes it easy to use coupons to save money.

Invisible Hand

Adam Smith would be proud of an application that allows buyers to search for the lowest price. Just type in a specific item you might buy and let the app do the rest. It also allows you to scan a barcode while in a store to quickly compare prices online or notify you when the price of a saved item drops.

Morningstar
Morningstar allows you to keep an eye on portfolio holdings by providing constant market updates and news releases. The research giant also includes its rating service, along with historical performance and expense information on mutual funds, exchange traded funds and individual stocks. Enter your portfolio holdings and you’ll be able to keep track of them on a daily basis.

Bank of America

Almost all of the major banks have a mobile application presence, but Bank of America is one of the few that allows users to make a deposit by taking a picture of a check with a phone. It also has user friendly features to perform all of your other banking needs.

Dan Forbes is a regular contributor on financial issues. He is a CFP Board Ambassador. He leads the firm Forbes Financial Planning, Inc in Providence, RI and can be reached at dforbes@forbesplanning.com.

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Friday Financial Five – February 22nd, 2013

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