Did you know that there is still one place in the US that requires you to sit in your car and wait for an attendant to get you gas? It’s called New Jersey, and when Oregon passed a bill Last week, by ending its 72-year ban on self-serve gas in parts of the state, it left the Garden State alone in the thin air that evolution and common sense seem to have overlooked.
My industry, the financial industry, is somewhat notorious for its slow pace of evolution and its preference for seniority (read: profit margins). In fact, the New York Stock Exchange still does a small part of its trading manually, in person, through shouting and hand signals; and there it is still a discussion about whether all financial professionals should have to act in the best interest of their clients [insert palm to face emoji]. But whether out of necessity, choice, or thanks to institutional disruption, we’re seeing one of the fastest rates of change in the industry in, well, a couple of hundred years.
I got it thanks.
And what about you? Has your personal financial management evolved? Are you taking advantage of everything you have at your disposal to make managing your money as efficient as possible? and as effective as possible?
While not a complete list of innovations, here are three big ones that could transform your financial footprint for the better:
1. Break the silence – Yes, we will technology in a moment, but we must start with a mindset driven by a cultural shift that may not have fully happened yet. While I tend to think of the money taboo as something from the “Leave It To Beaver” era, the atlantic reported in relatively recent surveys that found “…that in 34% of cohabiting couples (married or not), one or both partners were unable to correctly identify how much money the other makes…and that people feel ‘more comfortable’ talking with friends about marital discord, mental health, addiction, race, sex and politics than money.” policy-In fact?
The answer to the question why? it’s a bit more complicated. While it may have been about a misplaced sense of ownership in the 1950s, it may be today, especially among the wealthy, more about shame or guilt over how much do have. but even if we are not saying it certainly doesn’t seem like we have any problems demonstration everywhere from social media to the church parking lot.
Regardless, my encouragement is not to post your net worth and cash flow on Facebook every week, but to be deliberate about what and with whom you share. Most importantly, with more than 50% of marriages ending in divorce and more than half of separations citing financial disagreements as the cause, it is clear that we do not communicate, or do not communicate well, about money in our marriages. So whether you’ve chosen to pool your finances (as my wife and I did) or keep them separate (and there’s good reason to), I recommend maintaining full transparency if you want to foster that ever-important trust.
The other money conversations that I think are vital are with your children and their parents. Here, full transparency may not help (although in some cases it may), but open lines of communication do. Kids need to know how to earn, save, share and spend as soon as they show curiosity about these topics, and apps like Greenlight have made this much easier for parents. But I also hope that it doesn’t shield your children from their financial challenges or opportunities, since learning to buckle down in a pinch or indulge in luxury in a time of plenty could also be a valuable lesson.
Lastly, it makes sense to talk to your parents about money because, whether the result is an unexpected inheritance or a need for help, their financial situation will likely have an impact on you that will require planning.
2. Automate – While AI is currently grabbing all the technology headlines, the most transformative technology in personal finance has been around for many years: automation. Whether you’re saving for a vacation, paying your bills, managing your budget, building retirement savings, or paying off debt, all of these tasks and more can now be automated. You can make a decision and check off a series of to-dos in perpetuity.
In some cases, you can make a decision that will even worsen in the future. For example, you know you should save more in your 401(k), but you’ve been hesitant to make the jump from 0% to 3%, 3% to 6%, or 6% to 12% because you know you’ll feel it in your paycheck. payment. No problem. Choose the autoscaling feature that is (hopefully, but probably) in your retirement plan at work. This will increase your savings by, say, another 1% at the start of each year, when you’ll also likely receive a higher cost-of-living adjustment payment, allowing you to save more without the pain.
3. Go online – There are still reasons to have a relationship with a bank that has walls and a door, but very little reason to store most of your savings with them. The advertised savings account rates at the three largest banks in the US that you see on every street corner at the time of writing were 0.15%, 0.01%, and 0.01%. On the same day, Bankrate.com reported the top five savings rates, most of which were in online banks, at more than 4.5%.
Let me put that in perspective for you. Let’s say you had $30,000 in your savings account. At 4.5%, your bank is giving you $1,350 per year. For doing nothing. At 0.01%, your bank, the largest bank (and second largest bank) in the world, pays you $3 per year. three dollars. By year.
That’s even worse than making you wait in your car for someone to fill you up with gas.