11 Reasons Why I love Personal Capital

 in Blog / Budget / Invest

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Let’s face it. If you want to become wealthy there are three things you need to do.

Increase your income.

Spend less than you make.

Track your net worth.

These are non-negotiable. These three buckets are what will make you a wealthy person. Almost nothing else actually matters.

I have heard every excuse in the book. “I don’t like budgets”. “Spreadsheet are too hard”. “I just don’t have the time to do it.”

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. 

Until now, these excuses are somewhat valid. They take time and can be a hurdle for anyone who is not comfortable with their finances.

Enter the FREE APP Personal Capital.

This is by far the tool I use the most. Why? Because it can do EVERYTHING. 

You can track your spending and it will alert you if your budget is off. It links to your bank accounts, brokerage accounts, and credit cards. It downloads your transactions in real time.

It pulls all of your accounts into one place. Giving you the power to see your entire financial picture with a push of a button. Whether you want to retire early, track your investments, or take a look at your spending, Personal Capital can help you on the road to financial freedom.

Here are 11 reasons to join Personal Capital. 

1. It is So Easy to Get Started

You click here.  You enter your email, password, and phone number. Then click the (+) to add accounts. It is that easy.

2. The Dashboard is Beautiful 

After you have added your accounts, the dashboard looks like this:

It’s amazing. All of your accounts listed to your left. Your net worth displayed in the middle.

Your cash flow beautifully portrayed below that. You can even see your top investments on the right hand side of the dashboard.

Below your investments, personal capital gives you advice based on your account. Just this week it sent me an alert that I was in too much cash! I need to put more to work. All of this for FREE.

3. Track Your Net Worth 

I’ve discussed the importance of tracking your Net Worth before and Personal Capital is the best tool for this (by far). Your net worth is your financial scorecard. Millionaires know where they stand at all times and make sure they increase their net worth every year. Why would you not use Personal Capital to track your net worth?

4. Reduce Stress 

I used to log into 10 different accounts and add up all the numbers in a spreadsheet to get an idea of what my overall financial picture was. This ranged from my brokerage accounts, retirement accounts, and bank accounts. This was extremely frustrating. Worse, I started not to check my accounts anymore because I hated this process. My finances were a mess. Now, I just log-in to Personal Capital and it pulls all of your accounts, in real time, so that you can have clarity and peace of mind. I’m organized, efficient, and have a clear picture.

5. Helps You Budget 

Every Millionaire has one. Most people hate the word: budget. They know they need one, but don’t want to spend the time in a spreadsheet, and don’t even know where to start. Personal Capital shows you where you are spending your money, and gives you a picture in comparison to how much you make. If you ask yourself “Where is my money going every month?” you are not alone. Personal Capital will guide you through your spending habits.

6. Helps Reduce Fees 

Fees will kill you when it comes to investing. Personal Capital has a state of the art fee analyzer tool that will tell you if you are getting ripped off.

I ran my 401K through their fee analyzer and realized I was paying $1,200/year more than I should have in fees. I was invested in an S&P 500 mutual fund that had a 0.71% fee. I immediately found another through Vanguard that paid .05%. Even though it doesn’t seem like a lot. This saved me $24,000 over the next 20 years. All with a free tool, amazing! Fees will rob you if you are not on top of them. Personal Capital will save you that headache.

7. A Top of the Line Retirement Calculator

The retirement planner is the best out there. Using your actual financial data from the accounts you’ve linked to the Personal Capital Dashboard, you’ll see how prepared you are for retirement based on your ideal target retirement date.

It automatically calculates your monthly income and projected Social Security distributions. You can easily include additional sources of income such as rental income, pensions, inheritances or other windfalls – a feature unique to their Retirement Planner.

8. Keeps You on Track 

Make sure you are always in financial shape by using real data in your account. You can assess the impact of unplanned events such as college, an illness, or even a new baby.

You can make changes by looking at live data to make sure you are ready for anything life throws at you. You can add any of these events to your retirement calculator to see their impact on retirement.

That’s planning with a purpose.  

9. Actionable Advice

I’m about that action, Boss. 

Personal Capital gives you actionable advice that will help you optimize your money. You may need to re-balance your portfolio, invest more cash, or pay down some debt. 

Here’s a breakdown of the accounts I used to log-in to check how they were performing.

My 401K with Wells Fargo

My wife’s 401k with Charles Schwab

Our checking account

Our Savings account

My business check account (two different accounts)

My business savings account

 My Roth IRA

My Wife’s Roth IRA

My Rollover IRA

My Fidelity taxable investing account

My wife’s taxable investing account

My Robinhood account

My credit card statements (there are way more than one)

My wife’s credit card statements (there way more that one)

Our mortgage

 My budget app

As you can see, with this many accounts to worry about, it would take forever to check in on things. Now, with Personal Capital, I can see them all on one screen. It saves me hours of time per year.

 

10. It’s Free 

Do I need to elaborate? Free is my favorite number.

11. All Your Information is Extremely Secure

 

It took me a few years to sign up for Personal Capital. I was worried about the security connecting my accounts in one place. I decided to look further into their security and discovered some awesome information.

✅ They have A rated Encryption (a stronger rating than most Banks).

✅ Not a single individual at Personal Capital has access to your accounts information.

✅ Personal Capital has Security Testing completed 24/7 by Whitehat Security

✅ Personal Capital is audited for compliance by the Securities and Exchange Commission to ensure they meet cyber security regulations.

After reading about how secure their network is, I joined Personal Capital. It was one of the best decisions I have made.

Conclusion 

There is almost no excuse not to sign up for Personal Capital. If you are truly serious about your finances you must take action. In order to take action, you must have data that will help you make decisions. Personal Capital is the road map I am using towards my financial journey. Come join me on the road to financial freedom. Click HERE to get started. 

andrew
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