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Monday Night Finance- Volume 47

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Monday, 04 January 2021 / Published in Monday Night Finance

Monday Night Finance- Volume 47

4 Simple Ways to Accelerate Your Retirement Savings

What do you think of when you hear the word “retirement”? Do you think of living in Florida and playing golf every day? Or perhaps you dream of spending more time with your grandchildren or volunteering at your favorite non-profit. While we typically associate “retirement” with “leisure”, if you haven’t saved enough money for retirement, thinking of retirement might also make your heart race. If the thought of retirement stresses you out because you are worried about running out of money, you may want to read this post about accelerating your retirement savings.

The key to a comfortable retirement is to think ahead and to have enough money saved up in your retirement savings account. However, you may have fallen behind on your savings and need a boost to get you on the right track. ~Growth Rapidly

The first step towards accelerating retirement savings is to figure out how much money you will need to retire. If you need help, you may wish to work with a financial advisor. A common rule of thumb is that you can safely withdraw 4% of your assets a year in retirement. CountAbout has added a new feature (the “FIRE widget) that plots a percentage of your assets against your expenses. This can help you visualize the gap between the current retirement lifestyle you can afford and your expenses. Once you’ve established your savings goal, the next step is to work towards achieving that number. The first move you want to make is to ensure that you receive the full employer match on your retirement accounts. Check out the article for the rest of the advice!

Become A Shipt Shopper: How You Can Make Money Shopping

We love talking about side hustles on Monday Night Finance. With the rise of the gig economy, it is easier than ever to create your own business. Side hustling can supplement your primary job, or you can scale the side hustle into a full time job. With the gig economy, you can choose a job that fits your schedule. This is especially important if you have family or other obligations that makes it difficult for you to work a traditional job. In this article Melanie of Partners in Fire describes how to make money shopping with Shipt.

One way many people are making some supplemental income is by becoming a Shipt Shopper. For those looking to dive into more gig economy apps, Shipt is potentially a solid choice for you to try. ~Partners in Fire

Shipt is a personal shopping service similar to Instacart. Shipt is owned by Target, but Shipt works with several other partner stores as well. Consumers can place an online order to one of these stores and a Shipt shopper completes the purchase and delivers the items (including groceries and in some states alcohol) to the front door. As a Shipt shopper, you would be responsible for going through the aisles and buying the items and delivering them to the customer. Shipt gives shoppers a pre-paid card to pay for the items so you do not have to worry about “floating” the money while waiting for reimbursement. Shipt shoppers can earn between $16-$22 per hour, excluding tips. Thinking about working for Shipt? The article has an extensive FAQs section for everything you might want to know.

Make Saving Money Fun, Not the Spending

We all know that spending money is fun. Right? Buying new clothes or a new toy immediately gives you a warm fuzzy feeling. Why? Well, it’s fun to imagine yourself enjoying that object. (Even if the shirt ends up in the closet with the tags on until you eventually donate it). We all enjoy the thrill of a new purchase differently- for some people shopping is a compulsion, but for most of us, it’s a happy diversion. The coronavirus pandemic has made the past few months very difficult. And we are all looking for something to make us feel a little bit happier. Clicking “buy” at your favorite online store gives you something to be excited about for a little while- but is it worth it? How many times have you regretted your purchase within a week of making it? And even if you do enjoy your purchase, is it moving you towards the life you want to lead?

Unless you’ve naturally fallen into the habit, it’s ridiculously hard to make saving money feel fun. That’s what it comes down to when you want that dopamine hit getting delivery or future packages will provide. ~We Want Guac

In this article, Darcy of WeWantGuac.com talks about how to set your own incentives to save money. Credit card companies are great at coming up with reward points to help us spend money. Unfortunately, credit cards don’t make any money if we choose to save money instead. So we need to come up with our own rewards. Darcy recommends setting goals with a very tangible reward. For instance, rewarding yourself with takeout from your favorite restaurant after reaching $2,000 in your emergency fund. (Obviously we’re all chasing different financial goals and have different tastes- but you get the idea). Picturing these rewards can help you power-through when times are tough. Still looking for inspiration to save? Darcy has many more examples in her post!

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What you can read next

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Monday Night Finance- Volume 33
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Monday Night Finance- Volume 1
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Monday Night Finance- Volume 22

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Reviews

Barbara Ann Feeney
16-05-2016

I switched from pencil and paper on grid accounting paper, then to a Google spreadsheet, then to CountAbout. Really happy with how this app makes it easy to track how I doing, staying (or not) on budget.

 
‏@davepurcell
15-11-2016

I rarely tweet endorsements, but -- after years of using/hating Quicken, Countabout is awesome for tracking home budget/finances. Thx!

 
David M.
16-07-2016

CountAbout is as easy to use on my mobile as it is on the desktop and it provides me with the same or better information than Quicken.

 
Nate E.
05-02-2016

Fantastic! I finally found a great replacement for Quicken! CountAbout is entirely cloud-based, so you can access it from whatever OS you happen to be using. And the mobile app isn't hamstrung like Quicken's. No looking back for me, this is a great app and a great service!

 
My Bank Tracker
24-11-2016

...you won’t be bombarded with ads when you log in. Mint, for example, uses targeted ads to help keep the platform free. All in all, CountAbout could be a good choice for Quicken and Mint users who want to start fresh with their finances without losing their past transaction history.

 
Mark Goldfarb
20-01-2017

I love the software – nice and clean – the categories was a must have that your competitors are lacking.

 
Widgets to Compare Monthly Spending in Active Categories
17-02-2017

Huzzah! I can add widgets now and already made one to compare my monthly spending in my active categories to my budget. Excellent. That tool is one of my favorite features in a personal finance product.

 
Shirley Hou
CountAbout was Perfect
15-03-2017

I was looking for finance software to use as treasurer of the parent-teacher association at my child's school. CountAbout was perfect - it had all the register features and download capabilities that I was familiar with from desktop Quicken, but it has the advantage of being in the cloud so I can use it from any computer.

 
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Steve P.
22-09-2017

My search for a cloud-based alternative to Quicken is over! Very easy to transfer my Quicken data and customize my account. Thank you CountAbout!

 
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Jim Powell
17-03-2018

Vastly superior to the execrable Quicken, which caused me to have to choose a new bank password every time I used it. CA is fast, simple, and all you need unless you have a complicated investment portfolio. Its almost fun!

 
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Jeffrey Wilk
02-04-2018

Great product and great customer service. Thanks!

 
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Nancy
10-08-2018

I love CountAbout! I have hated Quicken for years, but didn't have an alternative. Now I do! I love that the cost is only $9.99 per year for the basic service (which is all I need). You can upgrade for more features, if you need them. But for personal use, the basic plan is just fine. When I found CountAbout, I gleefully gave Quicken the boot and I haven't looked back or missed it at all. Bye bye Quicken!!!

 
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Dana Linder
29-03-2019

This is an incredibly well thought out program.

It imports QIF files perfectly. I tried a number that failed miserably.

It has a function that emails reminders about scheduled transactions. That is an extremely useful function that I hadn't seen anywhere.

Tech support is second to none. All my questions were answered in detail within hours (sometimes minutes).

The companion phone app is very simple. You can browse, search, enter transactions and see scheduled transaction. That's really all you need on the phone.

It's one failing for me is that I have a transaction that I have a transaction that occurs on the 3rd Wednesday of the month, and it's not possible to set that up. It's easy enough for me to change the date of next transaction when I enter the current one.

I am extremely impressed with the company. The trial is free for 15 days. You have nothing to lose.

 
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Keith Hurst
22-05-2020

I've been trying to ditch Quicken for years, finally a worthy replacement, but it's so much more, so clean and intuitively designed. I was really surprised and delighted to find a full featured iphone app that meets all my needs.

 
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Amanda Sherlock
25-08-2020

I started using Quicken in 1987, before I had my own PC. I continued using it for years, frustrated by the frequent breaks in the synchronization. Finally I took the leap and used Mint for a year or two. Free software is worth as much as I pay for. Finally, in 2019 I found Countabout. The synchronization is great and I am happy to have a product that's easy to use and reliable. The customer support is excellent and very responsive to my questions.
There aren't as many bells and whistles as Quicken but the simplicity outweighs the complications.

 
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Richard Luna
03-02-2021

I'm a one-person real estate brokerage and having accurate financial records and being able to easily search transactions and generate reports is crucial. I'd been using Quicken for Mac for 10+ years and wanted to migrate to using a Chromebook instead of a Mac, to do that I had to find a replacement for Quicken.

The replacement had to be online; available from my phone, tablet, etc., and no software installations almost every year. I immediately dismissed any 'free' financial software (Mint, etc.) - I believe that you get what you pay for and there is no such thing as 'free.'

I settled on Tiller and CountAbout and subscribed to both; I quickly decided that a spreadsheet is not what I wanted. I wanted something that worked a lot like Quicken and CountAbout fit the bill. It took me awhile to fully embrace it but once I did I've been very happy and would not go back to Quicken even if they offered a fully online version. The few times I've had a question about using CountAbout I've always gotten a response by the end of the day - and often in an hour or less. If feels like I'm working with a small enterprise that's interested in putting out a superior application, improving it and solving issues and responding to questions. I'm very satisfied!

 

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CountAbout® is an easy-to-use online personal finance application that imports data from Quicken and Mint and automatically downloads data from banking, credit card, and retirement accounts. With no software to install, we’re anywhere you have an Internet connection. Our platform is stable, secure, and totally private. Our dedicated customer service team is friendly, knowledgeable, and quick to respond.

Never lose track of your finances, or the big picture, with CountAbout. Sign up for a free 15-day trial today.

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