It’s true that we don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow.
A crisis can happen at any time from a medical emergency, pandemics, natural disasters, or something just as crazy. When this happens I doubt the first thing we think about is our finances and if all of our payments were made. During a crisis, there is no time to wonder if your car payment is due.
It is always important to stay on top of your finances, this is especially true in hard times. It is so easy to start amounting compound interest due to late payments and overdraft fees. This could take years to pay off.
Set yourself up for success by making sure you have all your financial information on hand when you need it. By having your financial information on hand you can avoid any lasting financial catastrophes due to crisis.
A sure way to help you start protecting your finances is using digital apps for your banks and lenders.
How to Use Your Phone to Protect Your Finances
Nowadays pretty much every financial institution has an app to download on your apple phone or android. As long as you have all the information you need you can protect yourself from crises in little as 15 minutes.
1. Find All Your Bills
Start by writing down a list of all your monthly, quarterly, and annual bills, as well as the companies to which you send those payments. Sometimes trying to go off the top of your head can make you miss even the simplest bills.
An easy way to make sure is to go over your bank and credit card statements so you don’t miss anything. Some things to remember are credit card yearly fees, business expenses, car registration, gym memberships, and extra phone storage plans.
As you are writing down all your bills make sure you keep track of all your banks and credit cards and how much you have in each. During a crisis, it’s nice having this information handy so you’re not stuck calling companies to find your credit limit or your balance.
2. Use Official Apps
No matter which company you are using make sure you download the company’s official app. They will offer you access to the correct information, more security for all your sensitive information and you know you can trust them.
Many of these lenders will have options like applying for financial help if you are struggling with paying your bills. This comes in very handy when you are in a hurry and do not have time to look for phone numbers or apply on their website.
THE MONEY SKIM TIP
Make sure you keep all your logins and passwords in a secure location. Change your passwords every six months and never reuse passwords, this will help keep the damage to a minimum if a thief ever gains access to one of your accounts.
We never know when a crisis might hit us, so we never know what we will need to access all of our finances or need to contact a lender. By downloading the app you can have the information you need in seconds instead of minutes or hours. Plus if you need loans you can usually find all your information right there in the app.
It is better to have all your information on hand instead of letting bills go unpaid. This could cause problems for your credit report and add more debt to bills.
3. Use App Features to Help Protect Your Money
If you have not set up automatic payments for your monthly or even yearly expenses then you need to do that right now. We mean it! This could save you a lot of financial stress in the future.
If you do not want your electricity to turn off while you’re already in a middle of a crisis then set your utilities to automatic payments as well. Because we can tell you now that during disastrous times you will not remember if you have paid your bills.
Banks and credit cards also have alerts for spending limits, low account balance, overdraft alerts, and security alerts. This will help you stay a step ahead of your financials.
If you are not sure what the financial institutions’ app has to offer you can always check out the app reviews to see all the features they offer. Some have options to dispute items and credit score monitoring. This allows you to stay on top of your credit report any time new changes appear that affect your credit negatively.
If you have a credit card app then you might even have the option to lock your account if your card ever gets lost or stolen. Some even allow you to dispute discrepancies if something does not look alright.
Sometimes we are not able to prevent or change how crises happen, but we sure can try to prepare for one so we can keep our money in the end.
