What Apps Do You Use? (Part 1)

Welcome to real financial planning cast on K L available

wherever you get your podcast.

I'm Matt Robison.

I'm joined as always by Mike Morton, the host of financial planning

for entrepreneurs, the Mike Morton podcast, and also the proprietor

of Morton financial advice.

He's a personal financial planner advisor, Mike, welcome him back.

Yeah, thanks, Matt.

I love how you do that in one breath.

It's really great.

How you can just get all that

You know What's weird is I can't hold my breath for a

word I say on the air on radio.

I have terrible lung capacity, but for reason on the air, I'm able

deliver your entire bio in one breath.

I'm not sure what that says about me.

Or about frankly, Mike,

we are having a conversation offline.

This was actually a return of a feature we've been doing recently

of listener questions and reached out to a few regular listeners.

I said, so we've been on a run of episodes.

Did a deep dive those really cool kind of a masterclass type episode.

And we wanted to go back to covering some more listener questions.

What do you have on your mind?

And we got like 50 questions and so you were sort of diving through them,

trying to decide where do we go first?

And we found one that really appealed to me because I think this

is super useful for dopes like me who are not financial planners.

And just maybe in, in the course of listening a podcast or a radio

show like this, just want to make things a little bit easier in

their fine financial planning.

So here was the question.

here was the listener question.

What apps or programs do you use?

To make your financial planning a little easier.

And what do you advise that your clients use?

So Mike, I wanna get to that question first.

Let's just remind all our listeners, if you wanna submit

yet, we now have a long list.

So it's probably gonna be a few before we get yours.

But if you wanna submit a listener question, what's the best way to do that.

Best emails, .

Cool.

And you can also go on the Facebook page for beyond politics with Paul hos

and Matt Robeson, which is the page for the show that we appear on WK XL.

All right, Mike, what do you use?

Yeah, it's a great question.

I use of course, like many people, a variety of tools to try to have

different viewpoints depending on what I'm trying to accomplish.

You put it in the realm of, you know for finances, know what apps

do you use to govern your finances or get insights into your finances

or budgeting or all different items.

So Happy to talk through what I personally use and then also what I've seen my

clients use and what's been successful.

So I broke it down a couple categories, Matt, between budgeting investments and

then logging into you know wherever your credit cards or banks are, of course

you're gonna use kind of portals as well.

So you wanna start with the

Yeah let's do budgeting first, cuz that hits absolutely everybody,

at some point I think everyone listening to this has had to figure

out am I gonna go broke month?

So Very super basic thing to try to out.

Yeah.

So budgeting, what do you what you do or what do you advise

Yeah.

So I'll talk about a couple different things.

One, you don't have to have a budget.

All right.

Now that might sound like very bizarre coming from financial Pfizer.

Like you don't a a budget, but here's the way I always position

it because many people hate.

Tracking all that are expenses and spending it.

Doesn't bring a lot of joy to most people thinking, oh, do I

really have to track my budget?

And then you're just immediately coning.

This just means I have to find places to spend less money And I

don't like spending less money.

I like spending money, so you don't have to have a budget.

What you have to do is sure you have the right.

amount of savings.

For now and for the future.

So you need to look at your yearly, I would say that the start of the year, just

look at your yearly income and come with yearly expenses and savings off the top.

So you want to target about that 15% to save for the future.

The mathematics I've gotten into this other podcast, just the

mathematics kind of work out.

If have a regular career, if you're saving 15%.

throughout time.

And so save that off top in your 401ks, your IRAs, your 4 0 3 BS, automatically

these away or into a brokerage account.

If you save off the top.

Then you can spend what's left over now.

Maybe you also need to save for a down payment for a home, or you to

save, up your emergency savings.

So figure out things, not only for your retirement or for later, but if

there's other things You need to save for maybe a travel budget, you like to

save, know ahead your travel budget, put together those 1, 2, 3, 4 items

you're saving for make them automatic.

So you're saving off the top straight from your income, then

everything else left in your checking your everyday checking account.

You can go ahead and spend that cuz you've already saved for future

What I like about this is that this is a shortcut that's of click above even.

All right.

What app do you use?

it's an inversion of the way.

I think most are forced to think about especially if if there's a stat out

there that gets very distorted, that 80% of Americans paycheck to paycheck.

paycheck.

And if you are in the mode, Where, you are pretty tightly balanced

what's coming in and what's going out.

Then the mindset that you have to adopt is all right, I'm going pay the bills

and then anything that's left over.

I will save.

But what you're saying is if have the ability to get a little bit ahead of

that maybe you've hit a phase of life where you're not in that mode as much,

and you can do a little bit of planning.

Then just the script, just start with, I'm gonna set this target savings and

I'm gonna automate it so that it happens.

And then I don't really need to worry about a budget.

And the easiest hack for the whole process.

If it applies to you, if you're able to do that

I also think.

You know you say, if you're able do that, I think everybody's able to do that.

you have to do Even if you don't have enough to save, then you know

that that's your awareness like.

Geez.

I'm really living a paycheck to paycheck.

There will be nothing at the bottom, but I would flip the script

and say what do you save first?

And this applies to business as Well, own business.

business It's like the a profit first mentality.

I.

wanna pay myself first, pay your future self first, pay yourself for your travel

budget, your emergency savings, your future self and save those things first.

And you will find ways to, make that happen because once it's gone and outta

your bank account, can't spend it , so you will find a way to make happen.

And look, if you're in the situation you really can't start super small,

with like 10 bucks a month, 20 bucks a month, whatever you can do

start just a tiny bit go from there.

But definitely look at that

first

I, I, what I like about that is that, I always advise people like

young people who are considering doing a sport or an activity in college and

they're, I don't really have the time.

actually what you find is that if you do something that you really

have to commit to, it's a major time commitment, effort, commitment.

It actually focuses in the rest of because you're forced

into that kind of discipline.

And so what you do is you make the commitment to, you know let's

you were a rower or whatever, and then whatever's left over.

That's the time you've got and you're gonna make it work

for the of your schoolwork.

All right.

But to the extent that you do use a tool, let's you you, do want

to dive in little bit further.

What do you use

All right.

So let's talk about budgeting?

apps.

I use one that's called Tivity, and this is for the Mac.

And I ran it quite a few years ago.

And I really like it now.

I've used it.

off and on Right.

now.

I'm not using it, but I have used it religiously for

tracking all of my expenses.

So every week I would download.

You know It would hook to my accounts that I it to.

This is again called Tivity and they have a it's for the Mac

and the iPad and the iPhone.

I think it's only apple products

Got it

And you know every week it would hook to my accounts that had set up either

my credit card, my checking account, pull down, you know what those latest.

Transactions were and I would categorize them.

So I'd spend my time categorizing every transaction.

And what I liked about it is they do have a budgeting tool, but I used it more for

reviewing my expenses monthly, quarterly, and definitely at the end of the year.

So I just aggregate all of my spending for the entire year

and see all the categories.

How much was I in each category and really what it's useful, or I

find it this is looking backwards.

, I'm not setting a budget.

I'll talk talk about some other tools where you set a budget, but

this one I'm looking backwards as what did I actually spend?

It's not related to having a particular budget in mind.

It's really categorizing on my past expenses.

What I like about that and for clients as well is building awareness.

Are you spending your money?

And how much money are you spending on those things?

And I always recommend don't get too granular with the categories I did.

I probably had 20 or 30, which is probably fine.

But you could go smaller than that.

You only want to have categories where you might make a change.

So If you're thinking well my dining out.

May, maybe I wanna make a change there.

So I want to track that if you're thinking your coffee shops uh maybe you know I get

the daily coffee I make a change there Well then have a category daily coffee.

If you're not changing your kids' tuition, then you can bucket

that with other kids' expenses.

I'm gonna buy my kids' clothes and tuition and other then put it all under kids.

You don't know need to break it out so granular because you're

not gonna make a change on it.

Anyway.

Okay.

So just that's what I like about those budgeting.

That it's a budgeting tool, but again, I'm not using it per se as

a budget, just for looking at past expenses and to build awareness.

So I use the tool called Tivity.

And it stood out me in what you just said is it's useful

under certain conditions, right?

Because your first piece advice still applies, which is, look, if

you can, you know focus on savings first and then that up alone.

Can take the place of a detailed budgeting process, which who

wants to get into all that.

But I do there's some value cuz I've done the same that you just described,

which is I've done a backwards look.

But with that really important caveat in mind of, I really

wanna focus in on the things.

That can change.

We've talked on this show before about the buddy tape principle, which

is, it's only worth doing something.

If it's going to change what you do in the future, right?

Like it's only worth evaluating something if you're gonna change behavior.

And know so for me, I've had that same thing.

Am I going to really change our grocery store budget?

I probably could.

I probably could, like we could spend a lot more time finding coupons.

We could, change the things we eat a little bit, but on the margin, we've

decided that I I think there's enough savings that we can find in that

category to make a huge difference.

In our overall financial picture, we could make a much bigger

difference if we said, you know what?

We are gonna really limit on, on entertainment.

We're gonna really limit, we're gonna have one streaming service

that would save us some money.

So I could see the value in an approach like this.

If you really stick with the caveat of like, where are the areas that

truly make a difference forward?

Yeah.

And the other point I'll raise about building awareness is that you may find

you are spending, isn't aligned with what's bringing you the most value.

So in your example of groceries and entertainment, you could say,

geez, maybe I can cut spending there cuz I don't really care if I have

rice or beans or like the greatest steak it doesn't bother me, whereas

my entertainment, no, no chance.

I'm cutting out those services.

I use all of 'em every night.

And I love it.

I to sit down with my partner and watch something and this is

perfect time so there's very clear where you wanna be spending money

and that's the awareness piece.

All right.

me mention some other apps, cuz they're really useful ones.

Mint.com is a very popular one.

I've used that in the past.

You can track your past expenses, but you can also set a budget.

And then expenses get automatically categorized into that budget.

So can see oh, I'm gonna spend 500 a month on groceries.

And as you spend it, it's tracking against that 500.

So towards the end of the month, can see how close you are, if

you're under or over on all the categories in terms your budget.

So that would really help you in making sure you stay within spending on

different

Yeah.

I've used mint a little bit a matter of fact, I stopped using

it and it's like quitting the gym.

I, they keep sending me and I can't like, and I'm like uh I should

keep it you know anyway, go on.

Yeah.

Mint.

You're still

paying

like I like them

Um

Well that's a place I could economize if I did but.

there you go.

that's great.

You should have a line item for that in your,

there's 72 bucks a year that I could do without

That's right.

So there's some other ones there I've tried also one called YAB.

You need a budget.

Y N a B.

YAB.

You need a budget.

And what this is based off the whole idea, the envelope system.

So the way the envelope system works is that you get your a paycheck, think of

actual cash, so you get your paycheck and you take it to the bank And now

you've got a thousand dollars of cash.

You cashed in and you have a thousand Dollar bills.

Then you eight or 10 different envelopes.

get the mortgage, you get the groceries.

You get the clothing, and you put some dollars into each of those envelopes.

So you put, $50 in here, $150 in this other envelope and $20 in this envelope.

And then as you go when you go out, dining out, you take your out envelope.

And you use the money from that.

Okay.

So in other words, you're taking your income and assigning every dollar, a job.

You're putting it into an envelope, but this dollar's for the mortgage.

This dollar's for dining out.

This dollar's for my entertainment cost.

And then when you have those B those bills expenses, you take

the money out of those envelopes.

So it's pre saving for all your expenses for your budget.

And That's how YAB works.

You assign every dollar, a job.

It's all digital of course.

Okay.

No actual envelopes, but you assign every dollar, a job.

And then as you take money out, it's automatically tracking all those budget

Well three things First all, I can already see that this conversation

is going to be a lot deeper and longer, and it gets into all these of things.

So I'm just gonna tell our listeners.

We are planning for this to be about a 20 minute conversation

to go onto the radio broadcast.

I'm gonna just go ahead and that like LeBron calling his own number on a play.

I'm gonna say, we're gonna turn this right now into a two part episode.

So we're gonna keep going with conversation Second of all, I love the

idea of stuffing money into envelopes.

It reminds me of everyone attending my Bartz.

And third of all, do think

How

How big

were those envelopes at

They were really small.

My bar mitzvah was you know what it was we could do.

It was what we could do.

It was nice for some reason all of my friends had heard about a tradition of

throwing candy As soon as you finish you know giving your bar speech um

you know throwing like hard candies little hard candies Um at the speech

giver like at their head And apparently this is a tradition that only applied

at my mitzvah I dunno It was weird.

Anyway, the point is we're way off track here One of the interesting

things about YAB is that it does kind connect to what we were saying a moment

ago is look, if you're in a position where you can set savings first.

you're in a tight budget situation let's say you're earlier in your

career, here a little bit younger.

It's not this app particularly good for you If you wanna impose little little

bit of that discipline on yourself and you have very specific like look it's

not like you wanna like sit in the dark you know doing absolutely nothing.

Like you have a little bit of money to spend but you just keep Pretty

tight control over it And this seems like a good system for that.

well I've found, it's interesting.

This one particular actually resonates with some people and and other

people totally don't understand it.

So I always recommend like check out the website, try it out.

Because for the people it resonates with, they just love it.

I know people that make.

Quite a bit of money that still use YAB.

Just because they want keep track.

It's so nice to be able to keep Where am I spending my money?

I said I only wanted to spend this amount on these categories, so I only

put those dollars in and they're gone for that month or whatever it is.

So It's a really unique

tool

Yeah It's like It's like the weight Watchers of budgeting right

It's like you so many points you know to use up on things, use it.

done And uh if it works for you is awesome Um alright And and there

were a couple others, I think you wanted to throw out from clients,

right

Yeah, So on the budgeting, just to round out the budgeting category

here which we can probably do some other ones I've heard of but I don't

have firsthand experience is simplify.

And that ends in an eye.

So simplify with an eye at the end, of It is the internet,

to spell things differently.

And then true bill, which does not have an E I believe T R

U

B I

L

you should only spell

things the way that they're spelled in modern life.

If you want people be able to find them, if you wanna say

mysterious you know call it

whatever like it's it's spelled with this Z Um

That's right with four Zs.

So those two are I've heard really good things about, cuz a lot

of people mint turns 'em off.

Oh, I tried make, cause that one's been around for a long time.

People have tried it and so they've kind of moved on to something else.

So those are a couple other ones check out.

True.

Bill, I think is pitched kind of a a bill payment system or

really keeping track of bills.

But I've heard it's really great for budgeting.

As well, and very simple and easy

to use So I've heard good

You know and before we um we're gonna have to wrap up um we're gonna have

to wrap up for a moment But in in just a moment is that another do is that another

to automate your clients to automate as many bill payments as that you you their

bank spending side you kind of have the spending side as preset as possible.

Yeah, I don't get into too much the bills per se, cuz most of

those are going, you know you when you set up these recurring things,

whether know an entertainment bill or something like that, it's always

just coming your credit card, right?

Like you just put in your credit number and it goes there.

What I do recommend and this is what you're getting.

at Is

Any of your credit cards when you set up credit cards or you have credit cards?

Make sure you have the auto pay feature turned on, pay your credit card off

every single month using an autopay feature to pay off the entire balance.

And if you're not there yet, if you can't do that focus on that first,

always get your credit card debt down.

First the interest is super high.

you're just building, more debt there's tons and tons of how to work on that.

So if you find yourself in situation, but for everyone everyone else.

Just make sure auto pay on.

You don't wanna miss a payment cuz that's easily 10, 20, 50 bucks that

you're just paying an interest.

just from missing you know

All right we're gonna break here for radio gonna break here and we're

gonna be right back be right back Mike Morton with Mike Morton or even next week.

If you're listening

That's right.

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