Helpful $ Tools
Welcome to my financial tool box. On this page you’ll find products that meet the following criteria:
- I pay for (or have paid for before being offered a free copy/subscription) the product.
- I have personally used and tried the product.
- I think it is a good product.
The problem with the items on this page is that you and I are not financial clones. Thus, in a couple of places I do refer you to other products that don’t meet the criteria above. These are products that offer alternative options based on your financial needs and preferences. I’ll clearly mark those products with an *.
Please note, some of the links below are affiliate links so I will receive a commission if you purchase them via a link on this blog. If you prefer not to use this method just Google the product name and go directly to the product.
Investing
Top book suggestion: For beginners, I recommend The Sound Mind Investing Handbook.
Lending Club
Over the last year and a half, my Lending Club returns have yielded between 9-11% . Of course, my returns are no indication of what returns you could expect.
What is Lending Club? Lending Club is a people to people lender where individuals can loan money to others who need a loan. Sounds crazy, right? Well, Lending Club lets you view important lender credentials, such as their purpose for borrowing the money and their credit rating and history. If you choose wisely, Lending Club can be a good way to diversify your investments outside of traditional stock, index fund, and mutual fund ownership. Personally, I wouldn’t put a substantial percent of my investment dollars in Lending Club, but as a tool to diversify investments, it can be a great addition.
Read my people to people and Lending Club review and my guide on how to invest with Lending Club.
You can join Lending Club as a lender, or you can get a loan through Lending Club as a borrower. You might want to consolidate loans or lower their interest rate.
Sound Mind Investing
About a year before I started blogging, I signed up for the Sound Mind Investing Newsletter. I think their information is very valuable for anyone who is interested in handling their own investments via an online broker. They provide recommended mutual funds as well as index fund investing options. Here is my review of the Sound Mind Investing Newsletter.
Here’s a list of discount online brokers if you trade online. Right now I use the following online brokers: TD Ameritrade and Charles Schwab. I recommend Schwab if you’ll be buying some of their fee free ETFs, but I think the rates at TD Ameritrade are high (I have a special discount through a program that no longer exists).
Banking
ING Direct Bank
I’ve been an ING Direct customer for over six years.
I’ve had about 10 banks in my lifetime, and ING is my favorite. You can read more about ING Direct by clicking on the link below. The three things I love most are: (1) I’ve never paid a single fee to ING. (2) Their Electric Orange Checking account allows me to sign into their account and send a paper check for free (they even pay for the stamp). (3) They have a competitive interest rate.
If you send me an email (mhforc at gmail dot com), I can even send you a link where you’d get $25 for signing up. If you want to read more about ING, you can read what I have to say about ING.
* This is one of those banks I don’t use, so it doesn’t officially fit on this list. However, several friends have this bank and love it. Their main advantage is that they offer up to 2% cash back when you use your debit card. I’m a credit card user so opening another bank account just for the cash back doesn’t appeal. But if you are a debit card user, you might want to check it out.
Personal Finance Software
Moneydance
I discovered Moneydance when Quicken was trying to force me to pay for an upgrade to one of their products. After doing some research (documented here – best personal finance software), I chose Moneydance because (1) They offer a free trial so I thought it was worth a try (I ended up really liking it). (2) They have the absolute best system for budgeting/accounting in multiple currencies. (3) The cost is much cheaper than other similar products.
In my post on the best personal finance software, I discovered the best is only determined by your needs. In my case, Moneydance is the best, but it might not be for you. Read best personal finance software to find what product is right for you.
Credit Score
You can read my thoughts about credit scores here and here. Basically, I’ll monitor it in a general way, but I won’t obsess over it. I use Credit Sesame and Credit Karma (a free tool) to get a general idea of my credit activity and credit score.
Taxes
For the last seven or eight years, I’ve used Turbo Tax Home and Business to file my taxes. Of course, if you don’t have a business you wouldn’t need the same product version of Turbo Tax. I like knowing what is happening with my taxes. Here’s why I file my own taxes.
Blogging Tools
I’ve recently started combining two online SEO tools and I’ve seen some great results. I use Market Samurai to see what keywords I should target, (keywords I can rank for) and then I use Scribe SEO to make sure that the on page structure is optimized. Since using these two tools together, I’ve found my articles are ranking very well in Google – typically page one or two before any link building.
The Thesis Theme for WordPress
Before I bought Thesis I was thinking about paying someone to customize my site. Then I discovered the Thesis Theme and I decided that even without any css or html background I could customize MH4C by myself. I bought Thesis and have never looked back.
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