While millennials may get some bad press here and there, they are surprisingly adept at managing their money. As many in the millennial generation grew up during the burst of the housing bubble and the recession of the late 2000s, money issues remain primary concerns in their lives.
Even those who managed their finances wisely until the pandemic were undone by its effects and took on various amounts of debt. This has spawned the use of powerful debt management methods, like using a debt avalanche calculator or debt snowball method.
6 Online Tools
Whether you have always kept a close eye on your money or you aspire to, here are six of the most popular online tools millennials use to track their money.
1. Budgeting Platforms
Budgeting can be incredibly complicated, but there are sites out there like Mint and Personal Capital that not only help create budgets but also monitor bills and bank accounts. Using one of these is a great automated way to quickly get a very detailed breakdown of your spending.
2. Micro-Investing & Savings Apps
These are apps like Acorns, Stash, Robinhood, and others that allow millennials to invest pennies at a time, as well as to automate much of that saving and investing. Most of these apps have the option to invest as little as $5 on a recurring basis so that you are always contributing to your future.
3. P2P Payment Platforms
P2P or peer-to-peer payment platforms like CashApp, Venmo, Zelle, PayPal, and the Bitcoin lightning network allow you to send money instantly with zero or near-zero fees. You can send money to friends and family for everything from splitting the dinner tab, to paying rent, and everything in between.
4. Credit Monitoring
Credit monitoring services like CreditKarma are indispensable to those millennials who are trying to recover from credit damage and maintain good credit alike. Services like these monitor your credit report continually for changes, updates, and errors, and often facilitate simple disputes.
5. Robo Advisors
While most millennials aren’t in the earning brackets to afford a financial planner, many can afford the services of robo advisors like Betterment. This tool and those like it use machine learning to help provide affordable investment guidance.
6. Digital Lending & Insurance
Just like many other things, obtaining insurance, loans, and even mortgages are often done digitally with millennials. Nearly all major insurers, large mortgage lenders, as well as many other financial services providers, offer digital applications that can be completed at any hour of the day. Even some life insurance firms like Ethos are able to provide a fully digital application and quote process.
Online Tools For Millennials To Track Their Money
There is such a wide variety of tools that can benefit the average millennial that there is no reason not to have a large degree of insight into all aspects of your finances. Whether you need some help setting up an effective budget, automating your savings and investing, or even obtaining loans, there is an online tool, website, or app to help.
