Hi, and, welcome to this week's episode of Money with Alpha. Today I wanted to talk about something pretty pragmatic. Um, and it's financial apps. Everything these days seems to be all about apps. It gets overwhelming, to be honest, when you sort of have, oh, there's an app for this and an app for that and what are they all?
So I actually thought, I'm going to write them all down and take you through what I use and why I use them, because over time I've. I've used some and then stopped using them because they just didn't really work very well or some have just gone away. There were some really awesome apps that was an app called Money Brilliant.
It was, it was brilliant. Um, but it doesn't exist anymore. So what have I found in place of it? Because it's a bit time consuming, especially with some of them where you link bank accounts to them as well. So you have to be careful who you're doing that with and how it works.
And is it actually helping you achieve what you want to achieve and manage the things that you need to manage and also harnessing AI. So I've to be honest, I've been a bit of a. And I like, just as a caveat, I'm not a early adopter when it comes to technology and devices and all of that.
It took me a long time to give up my Nokia phone, um, to go down, ah, the smartphone path, um, and now I just sort of stick with iPhones because it just makes getting a new one. The whole process is so seamless and we've got, um, iPads and it's, yeah, it's so much easier.
So anyway, so I'm just going to caveat with that. But I'm not an early adopter, so it does take me a little while to warm up to technology and I like to see how other people use it and, you know, I like them. I like them to work out their bugs and kinks first before I will really dive in.
So these are, ah, these are things that I've been using for a while and that I like and where I haven't been using it or I'm still on the fence, I will let you know. Um, so there's a couple of different sort of purposes to using apps because they're very much on your phone.
A, um, lot of them I don't really use on my desktop anymore, primarily because I do a lot of things on my phone, these little computers that we have in our pockets all the time. And it makes life a lot easier and faster. So I pay bills on my phone and I don't automate a lot of bill paying.
I automate some, um, but I prefer to. I'm not a huge, I mean, I have some things where I pay them monthly, um, and they're just like on a subscription type thing. But if I can, I like to pay stuff annually. Cause I just find it, I just get it done and I.
Cause I save up for it. Um, so I'm saving for it monthly and then I pay for it and it's done. I don't have to worry about all of these little itty bitty things coming out of my account every month. So I still actually do use my phone to pay bills.
Um, and I also manage my mum's finances and my dad's finances and I make sure they've got enough money in their bank accounts and all of that. So it's, it's, yeah, there's a lot of money movement and juggling and coordination and organization goes on in my world, so first and foremost, I actually just.
Have on my, on my home screen, I just have like you can on an iPhone, I'm assuming you can do this on an Android as well. I just have a subfolder and I actually put all of my finance apps into um, that folder and I literally just call it finance.
So when I go into it, it has all my apps there and there's the two screens of them, um, and I'll go through what each of them are and what I use them for. So I suppose the first thing is really just transaction accounts or money banking accounts. So I've got, I've got a app, ah, for my personal um, banking, um, and I've, in there, I've also got my father's in the same bank and my daughter's at the same bank.
So I sort of manage their bank accounts in there as well. So I use that for multiple things. Um, so that's, the first one is like the personal banking account. Then I've got a business, uh, my business bank is a completely separate bank and I did that deliberately. So I have an app for their bank, um, and then I also have another bank for savings accounts and I actually use some of my business savings in there as well.
Um, mainly because it's high interest and it's just easier to manage all the savings side of it together. So I have personal transaction account, business transaction account and um, savings accounts and they're managed because you can have some banks, um, like in Australia we have ing who I used to be with, uh, Eubank, who I am now with, um, and you can have one account but multiple sub accounts and you get a, the bonus interest on the whole thing collectively.
And I like the banking apps because they're, they're getting smarter and better at showing you sort of data. So how your spending habits are, the one thing they don't do terribly well is handle transfers well. And as you can see with so many different apps just for like money movement, I have quite a lot of transfers that go on.
Um, and I still have other banking apps as well that I use, like I said, to help with my parents stuff. So theres a lot of m money that gets moved around for various things to try and optimize where it should sit for the longest time, especially at the moment our interest rates are higher so theres more likelihood to get interest or earn uh, money on cash, which hasnt been the case for a very long time.
So its made me even more kind of savvy in the money movement space. But the apps themselves, theyll try and categorize. They dont always get it right. Like I said, they dont handle the terribly well, but they'll tell you, you know, where you're spending in your groceries, how much money came in that month, how much money went out that month.
Keeping in mind that in the ins and outs will include transfers, um, but they'll also tell you sort of where you're spending more of your money. Like this month you spent more on groceries and that month, and da da da. So they'll give you a little bit of that.
The main thing I don't like about it is that it's all stuck in the app. I can't extract it. And there's also another way, like I started to use Frollo recently, um, which is a, it's a, it's a budgeting app, really. And you can connect, uh, and this is mainly for my post.
Personal finances, uh, because they don't do things like this for business finances, because that's what accounting systems tend to do, is sort of help you manage the money management side of it, although I don't find a lot of accounting systems do it particularly well. Um, but Frollo does it for personal finances.
So you connect your bank accounts to it, your investment accounts, um, your superannuation or retirement funds to it, and it will suck all that information in and it'll start to categorize it for you and you'll get to see what your net worth is. Not 100% accurate, um, because it also doesn't handle, it's better with transfers and things like that, but, um, doesn't pull it.
Like, I've got my superannuation fund. There's a bit of it that's self managed, sort of, um, and a bit of it that isn't. And it doesn't handle the self managed one terribly well. Um, and so some of it I have to actually put in manually, which is okay, because I can just, I'm in there updating it every month, all my sort of net worth details anyway.
So I just put that in there if I want an accurate view. Um, but the thing I was testing it out for was to see how its categorization, um, was going. It's okay. But again, I can't extract that information because I have a money management system that I use and it's a tool which is in Excel, so it's nothing overly fancy, but I need the raw data, and I can't get that raw data out of an app like Frollo.
And even banks, they've made it really difficult. You can get it as a PDF. You used to be able to download your transactions in Excel, um, or into some sort of like Google sheet or CSV file. They don't seem to offer that anymore because any clients that have given me some of their information, I've had to use, um, converting tools because they all seem to come in PDF.
Um, so that's the only downside really, of, of an app, like for lo. But if you really just want to like manage it visually and you don't want to do anything else with it, it's not bad. Like, it's actually probably better than most of them. And, um, there's privacy.
They don't hang on to any of your data, um, all of that. So there's, there's a whole lot of stuff there that you can look at if you'd like to. So they're, they're sort of my like, transaction style apps, primarily, um, focused on. On personal finances. Then I've also got a, uh, and my business bank account's in there too.
Again, they try to categorize stuff, especially with a lot of, um, companies that you pay, the name on the account doesn't necessarily reflect the company and what they do. So when you're categorizing, it makes it really challenging to try and figure that out unless you've trained some sort of a tool.
But anyway, so that's, um. But again, accounting systems will all quite often do that, and bookkeepers will help you with that too. So that's where the business side tends to get taken care of more. Anyway, um, the only other app, so from an investing perspective, I have a couple of different apps.
So I micro invest. I have two micro investing apps that I use. One is raise. And, um, I've been using them now for, oh, I imagine it's about seven years. And then that's probably the only thing I've ever been an early adopter. Um, when they were still called acorns, when they first came to Australia, that's what I used.
I thought, oh, it's, it's change, you know, I did the roundup feature. So again, you have to link bank accounts to it and it's, it pull. It rounds everything you spend up, and it basically pools the investment. I have a, I have a free guide on this if you would like it.
Um. Um, so just, yeah, I'll put a link to the free guide in the, in the notes to this. Now, that one, it's changed its name to raise. Um, and that one, I still do roundups, but I also do a little bit extra. So I watch the portfolio and they're, their stuff's actually quite good.
And because they're grabbing all of your, um, transaction as well, they also do a little bit of analysis for you if you'd like it as well. And I actually find their analysis quite, quite good. Um, they also have an ability to have a sub account in there for kids.
So I have a sub account in there for my daughter. So, I mean, I have an investment fund for her as well. But I also have like, um, this one was kind of just a bit of a playground, which sounds kind of funny to have a financial playground. Um, but I thought, oh, I'm interested in seeing what these particular shares do, so I'm going to do them under her name and they will be for her eventually.
And then she can take that over and play with it as well. So she can have like, a proper investment, which she's got, she's got her savings, and then she's got this as like a sand pit, in a way, for investing. Um, she's only nine, so she kind of gets the concept of investing, but she's not really ready yet to actually be let loose on her own.
That's probably a few years away. So the raise app is another one that I find pretty good. Um, then what else have I got on my list are for managing payments. So I have paypal and stripe. So I have both of their apps on my phone because again, when I'm on the go, if I need to check on a payment from someone or I need to issue an invoice, um, I can do it both in there.
So I have my business, um, accounts for PayPal and Stripe, and I also have a personal account for PayPal. So, um, I'm quite often leapfrogging between the two on PayPal. Depends on which one I've logged into last as to which one comes up. But they're handy to see, especially sometimes if you are, um, buying something online, you're like, oh, did that payment actually go through?
Um, I jump on the app and check, or for instance, if you get an email and a lot of emails these days are scams, so I will just go straight onto the app and check and make sure it's legitimate. So that's. So I have those two, um, um. And I also invest through, I started, it's probably about almost two years ago now.
I'm trying to think of the timeline, but I have the, the vanguard Australia investing app. Um, um. I tend to do most of my investing through the website, um, um. But the app I usually go on just to check balances and to make sure that a trade I've put in has gone through, um, um.
Things like that. I used to invest through bell direct, um, but their trade fees were getting too high and most of what I was investing in was in vanguard anyway. And they have, it's free when you, um, buy vanguard, um, through there. Investing platform. So I have their app as well.
Um, so I can, I can check my, that's part of my, my quarterly net worth review that I do. Um, but it's, it's not a bad app. It's getting, their, their functionality is getting better. But, um, if you'd like to sort of keep track of it, if you're using them, then that's, that's a good one as well.
But, um, if you are investing through another platform, definitely have their app on your phone, because it's, it's very helpful. Another app I have on there, which I highly recommend. And I'm always surprised at how many people don't have, this is their superannuation app. Um, or if you're in any other country in the world, whatever your retirement fund is with, have that app on your phone.
Um, because that way you can check what your performance is. How is it going? You know, what's your, how much is, has the money that you've put in actually gone through? Um, especially if you're outsourcing that to a bookkeeper or an accountant, you just, you need to double check.
As a business owner, you have to be on top of that. Because the amount of times I get, um, clients coming to me like, oh, my bookkeeper hasn't done this for so long, and it's like, I haven't been paying into super, I didn't know. It's just, or when do I pay it?
Do I pay it monthly? Do I pay it once at the end of the year? What do I do? So if you have the app on your phone, you can very easily go in there and get that information, and information and knowledge is power. And that as a business owner, you have to be on top of.
And you literally cannot outsource that to anyone else 100%. You can outsource, you know, the doing part of it, but you still need to do the checking and the reviewing as well. So having that superannuation app on your phone is really good, because then you can also check on things like, do you have insurance inside your super.
Um. If so, are the premiums going up? How much of it is actually dragging on your balance? Because I know a lot of us think that, oh, we have insurance inside there, and yes, that's great, we need that. However, that there is a premium attached to that. There is still a cost, and that cost is coming out of your retirement balance.
And even if that is $500 a year, that's $500 a year per year for like 1020, 30, 40 years, potentially so it does add up over time, which is why I personally, actually have my superannuation. Sorry, my, um, personal insurance is outside of my superannuation for that very reason.
I don't want to drag him down my bills. Um, but that's, that's just me. And there's other reasons for it, too, but I won't, I won't go down that rabbit hole today. Um, what else was on my list? Oh, stocks. This one is a little bit of fun, because while I invest, I don't trade.
I do still like to know what's going on. And if you have an iPhone, there is actually a stocks app that's already built into it. So if you haven't removed it, it will be in there somewhere. If you've got lots of apps. I go through my apps relatively regularly.
I'm trying to say that fast. Um, and then I go through and say, I don't use this one anymore, get rid of it. Or this one doesn't work anymore, get rid of it. Um, but the stocks app I keep there, and it's in my finance folder. Um, and I just like to have a look.
Like, for instance, we had a real dip, um, about two or three weeks ago in the stock market, and I first. Thing I do is I go on there, I'm like, oh, yeah, everything's red. Oh, wow, look at how much that one's gone down. Um, I don't use it to make decisions, though.
It's purely an information because you don't want, and I don't check on it too often because I don't want it to influence the emotional side of my decision making. I have a very clear, um, strategy of what I do with investing, and I want to stick to it, but I do like to be informed.
So that's, that's why. That's the only reason I use the stocks app, is just to have a look. And some of them are aspirational, you know, I'll look at, like, the Berkshire Hathaway, um, uh, share price, if you don't know who that is, that's, um, Warren Buffet's company. Um, and it's like tens of thousands of dollars for one share.
So I look at it, I was like, oh, so how much is that worth now? I wish I bought some of that. I wish my parents had bought me one share of that when I was born. Now it would probably pay for a house. Anyway. Um, so that one, I'm, uh, just making sure I check my list so I don't.
Two, like I said, I had two different micro investing ones. I forgot about the second one. The other one is called blossom. I started this one probably about a year ago, and I'm still bit on the fence, still trying to figure out how its returns are going, but it focused on fixed interest.
So, again, to kind of balance out your portfolio, if you've heard of the word diversification, um, it's sort of having lots of different asset classes, and fixed interest is a sort of form of cash, um, but it's still subject to the stock market. So it does still fluctuate and go up and down, and there is still more risk attached than just purely cash in a bank account is.
Um. But, yeah, so that one. That one I have in there as well. Um, and it's, yeah, so I have, and I like having the apps because it's easy to go in and check things. Um, there's other ones as well where, you know, like, I have credit savvy on there, which is where it's.
It's, um, there's a few different sort of where your credit score gets locked down. Um, and this one's to try and avoid any kind of fraud or identity theft. Um, there's, um. I'm trying to think of the names of them now. Um, but yeah, credit savvy is one of the ones that kind of connects them all together where you can lock down your credit score for about, I think it's twelve months at the most that you can do it for.
But what that basically means is that nobody can apply for finance in your name without you finding out about it. So that's another one that I have on there as well. Uh, and there are other apps that you can get that help you find deals, so like for fuel, for groceries, coupons, all of that kind of thing.
Um, to be honest, I tend to be very specific about what I buy and, um, I subscribe to the people that I want things from, so I find out about the deals through their being on their list. And this is the value, as a business owner, of having your email list, so.
And I, because I like to buy local, I like to support specific people as well in their business, um, especially when it comes to grocery stores. Cleaning products, I'm very particular about. So there's things like that. So I don't have any of those sorts of apps that I could recommend, um, because I don't use them.
Um, I like to, like I said, I'm quite specific about what I do. So to sum all that up, to try and make it as simplistic as possible. Look at money in and out. So if you banking app really handy, you probably have them on your phone already because you're probably using them to pay for stuff.
Um, I'm old school, I can't tap my phone to pay for things. I don't have a, one of those watches that do it either. Um, I like to, yeah, I just do things manually. Um, as fancy as I get as I have. But, you know, I'll tap my card.
That's about it. Um, so yeah, so there's the transaction apps delve into your, uh, whatever apps you have through your accounting system as well, because they can all at least give you a little bit of an indication of where your profit is going to cash flow as well. Um, it's very important to look at that, um, if you want to look at net worth.
Frollo is a really good way to do that because it will combine lots of different things and it will put it in there. You can add things manually. So if you wanted to even add the value of your business in there, if it's a business that you plan on selling eventually, then you can at least put an indicative price in there as well.
Um, and then any investing that you do, I highly recommend you have the apps for that, because it's not just about looking at the, the value of them at the time. If you've got them on there, you're more likely to invest as well. So if it's easier to do something, we will do it.
It's so like we look at habits and how our habits impact our lives and the results that we get, and the easier we make something for ourselves, the more likely it is to happen. And that's really the key behind habits. Um, I'm, my life is entirely set up around making life and things.
It's easy, easy as possible. Like, for instance, if I need to, I know this sounds really banal, but if I need to change the towels, I will put the fresh towels out in the bathroom, and then the next day I'll be like, oh, that's right, I wanted to do the towels today.
Um, or in the morning, I will have my clothes ready, I'll have my exercise gear ready. I'll even go so far as to get, if I'm going for a bike ride in, like, the morning, to have my helmet, my hat, and if I'm going to the markets, I'll have the bag and everything ready at the back door, which is all I need to do is get up in the morning, grab the clothes that I have already laid out, put them on, you know, half asleep, and then walk to the back door, put everything on, and out I go, um, that way.
Also, if I see them sitting there and I don't do anything with them, the guilt factor kicks, um, in and I'll be like, oh, no, I have to do this. Because I've committed to myself to do it. I have to do this, I'm doing it. Um, and then the more you get into the habit of committing and delivering on the things that you've committed to yourself, the more confidence you build and the more momentum that you get.
So this is all very much a habit linked activity, too. And this is where the apps come in really handy, which is why I wanted to talk about. So I've gone down my a little bit of a mindset, um, direction with the habit side, too. But yes, I'll just go through those apps.
Once again. So your personal, um, bank account app, a business bank account app, if you have a savings account, um, in one place, an app for that, um, a consolidated view of that. If you've got like Frollo, for example, your micro investing apps, um, as well as an investing platform app as well, because it'll make a lot easier both to see your balance and, um, invest as well, um, the stocks app, just because it's nice to kind of see what's going on.
Especially I have the stocks that I invest in there, so I get to see what they're doing. Um, PayPal and or stripe if you've got both. Um, especially if it's a payment gateway for your business. Whichever payment gateway you use primarily, put that in there, uh, your super fund or your retirement fund app, and that should pretty much keep you going.
Um, and it's, it's really a matter of just streamlining and, and putting eyeballs on it. The more you do that, the less scary it will feel as well. Like quite often what holds us back from doing something is a, we don't know what to do, or secondly, we think we're going to be depressed, scared, um, or not, like the result of what we see.
So the more we see it, the less surprise that surprises that we get. Uh, and it makes it a bit easier for us to stay on top of it and connected. And especially if you're co managing finances, it's really important that both of you are on top of it.
But I'm talking to you, so I'm more interested in what you're doing. Um, you need to be on top of it. Don't let a partner completely take over this process, because you need to be in charge, or at least in charge of where your lifestyle vision and what your habits are and what you want to achieve out of life.
So if you don't have your own personal bank account, which I still recommend, you have some money set aside anyway. But again, that's a different story. But at least know what's going on. Um, you don't want to get to the point where you have no idea and it becomes too overwhelming to even start looking, um, because the longer you leave it, either the bigger it will get or the bigger the idea of it in your head will get, which will make it even more difficult to do something about.
So dive right in. If you have any questions, please reach out to me. If you want to know if I've tried a certain, because I get questions about apps and programs all the time, you know, robo advice to, you know, um, robo accountants, like all of that sort of thing.
Some of them I know, some of them I don't and if not, I can research it because I understand the terminology and I can, I can, um, translate because quite often I find they tend to stick with the terminology to make it a bit more bamboozling. M anyway, so, yes, if you have any questions, please email dm me.
Um, I'm happy to answer them for you. So I hope you found that useful and yeah, go forth and I become informed. Have a lovely week.
