Could your finances use a boost?
A better question is: whose finances couldn’t need a boost?
There are a lot of things you can do to improve your finances, from getting a better job to going back to school for a degree in a higher-paying industry.
But there are also a lot of finance hacks that get overlooked. These overlooked hacks can have a bigger impact than you would think, from allowing you to save thousands on your mortgage to having a secondary retirement/medical emergency fund.
Not surprisingly, I’m a huge fan of these overlooked finance hacks. I talked to a few people just last week about a couple of these and they were shocked that they hadn’t heard of them before.
Here are 8 often overlooked finance hacks that boost your finances.
1) Automatically Tracking Your Net Worth
With most people having a variety of savings, investment, and other accounts, there is typically little motivation to sit down and manually calculate your net worth.
Thankfully there is a free service called Personal Capital that automatically tracks your net worth. Yes, it does take some initial setup time as you link your various accounts, but once you have everything set up and linked you can just log in and see an up-to-date view of your net worth. You can even set your house value automatically to adjust to it’s “Zestimate.”
We have an entire post that highlights the features of Personal Capital.
2) Use Credit Card Rewards for Free Flights
If you aren’t already taking advantage of credit card rewards for free flights, you are missing out on potentially hundreds or even thousands in savings. My wife and I have been using credit card rewards for years to help cover the cost of travel. We’ve taken many flights that were free by using travel and points credit cards.
Here’s an intro to credit card rewards as well as a guide to Chase Ultimate Rewards, which I think is the best travel rewards program out there (and one I have taken full advantage of over the years!).
3) Setting Up Automatic Contributions to Your HSA
Just yesterday I was talking to a co-worker about the benefits of contributing money to their HSA, or Health Savings Account. Anyone who gets to know me knows that I freaking love HSAs! I highly recommend taking a few minutes out of your day (today) to set up automatic contributions from your paycheck to your HSA.
Many are shocked when they find out about all the benefits that come with HSAs. I like to think of them as “an IRA on steroids” and frequently call them the best retirement account.
Not only does money you put into an HSA go in tax free, but it also grows tax free and can be withdrawn tax free for qualified medical expenses. If you reach retirement and decide to use the funds for something other than qualified medical expenses, you can withdraw funds and they will be treated as regular income, just like an IRA.
4) Taking Full Advantage of Tax Savings
One area of finance that I think most people overlook is taking full advantage of tax savings. Think about it: how many times have you donated money or household goods and not kept a tax receipt? Almost everyone reading this can probably think of a few examples where this was the case. But those donations can help shield your income from taxes, so it’s well worth your time to at least keep a record of donations.
Last Spring I wrote a post highlighting 6 Tax Advantage Savings for Millennials where I laid out a number of things you can do to save money on taxes. Overall I think people need to start thinking of our complex tax code as a tool for saving as much money as possible. Every dollar of income you put into an IRA or 401k saves you money in the form of tax savings.
Making sure you are making the right tax moves is just as important as any other area of personal finance that you give your attention to. And to receive the full benefit, tax planning should be something you do year-round, not just at tax time.
5 Investing Tax Benefits to Take Advantage Of
5) Looking for a Job Before You Need One
One thing I continue to repeat is that you should be looking at job postings long before you need a job. There are countless benefits to integrating this hack into your life, including:
- Knowing what skills are in-demand – and having the time to develop those skills before you are actually looking for a job
- Knowing what jobs are in-demand (the more postings for a specific job the more demand there is)
- Seeing what you gravitate towards. If you aren’t excited about job postings in your area of expertise but are drawn towards postings in a different area, it may be time to start working towards a career change.
Besides looking at job postings regularly, I also highly recommend going to a site like glassdoor and plugging in various jobs at companies in your area and seeing what salaries people are reporting. In this day and age of technology and big data there is no reason to be in the dark about what the salary range is for a job you are interviewing for.
Read my post on how to make more money at your 9-5 for more tips and hacks on this topic.
6) Proactively Raising Your Credit Score
Another often overlooked area of personal finance is your credit score. We rarely make efforts to improve our credit score until it’s too late. Either we applied for a loan or credit card and got denied, or we were given a bad interest rate.
By being proactive about raising your credit score you will have a solid score when you need it down the road. If you have a limited or bad credit history, or just want to increase your credit score, consider checking out my review of Self Lender, which has an innovative credit builder product that has helped people quickly raise their credit score.
If you really want to focus on increasing your credit score, perhaps in anticipation of applying for a mortgage, read 7 steps to take to fix a bad credit score and 4 ways to improve your credit score.
7) Paying Attention to the Interest Rate on Your Debt
Along the same lines of focusing on increasing your credit score, focusing on the interest rate on your debt can quickly give your finances a boost. But most people overlook this.
My wife and I graduated with $100k in student loan debt, and it became very apparent that student loan interest rates can vary greatly. My wife and I listed out all our student loans (you can steal our spreadsheet for your own use) and filtered on interest rate, high to low. We have focused on the higher rate loans first as they are eating up more of our payment in interest costs than the others.
Student loan debt isn’t the only type of debt that people incur, of course, but regardless of what debt you have I always recommend attacking higher interest debt first. This can be a huge win long-term.
There are a few tools to look into if you have a high level of debt. If you have credit card debt you can look into balance transfer credit cards. Student loans can be consolidated through a service like SoFi at a lower interest rate, potentially saving you hundreds or thousands of dollars.
8) Making a “Bridge” to Your Finance Goals
It’s easy to say “I’m going to be a millionaire by 30.” It’s not easy to lay out exactly how you are going to make that a reality.
Creating a financial bridge forces you to think about how you are actually going to hit your financial goals. It forces you to stare your financial situation in the face and reconcile it to both your short- and long-term goals.
Creating a financial bridge is something that is done often in corporate finance, but I think it can apply to personal finance as well.
To bridge to your financial goals you put your current situation at the top of the bridge and your desired “future state” at the bottom. It helps if there are timetables on the bridge, i.e. 6 months, 1 year, etc. In the space in between you have to lay out how you will reach your goals.
If my goal is to have $1,000 in side hustle income, it might mean starting a blog that can bring in $500/month in advertising, getting consistent freelance writing gigs that make $400/month, and reffing sports one Saturday a month for an additional $100.
Bridges can get as detailed as you want, so you don’t have to stop there. Perhaps you would then lay out what sort of things you would do to get the traffic that would allow for $500 in advertising fees, what blogs/publishers you’d target for freelance gigs, and what you have to do to get the reffing side hustle started.
Hack your Way to Better Finances
The big takeaway I want to leave you with is this: thinking outside of the box and taking action that is sometimes “overlooked” can give your finances a big boost. I’ve done all eight of these hacks and they are powerful both individually and as a whole. Pick one and get ready to boost your finances today.
Here’s some helpful articles that will help you improve your finances:
What have you done in the past to give your finances a boost? What on this list have you done?
Check out some of our favorite personal finance resources:
Are you getting the best credit card rewards? Check out the top cash back credit card offers (updated daily)
Make extra money: 15 ways to make money from your computer
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really nteresting and informative post, thanks for sharing!!!
Glad you liked it! I hope you can use some of these hacks to help boost your finances!
Great, great finance hacks! We’ve done the majority of them. This year we got round trip airfare for our family of 4 to FL – that’s huge savings! And I love the benefits of the HSA too. We max ours and are able to invest it in Vanguard funds. Really, HSA’s are one of the most fantastic finance hacks out there.
Thanks Amanda! I’m not surprise you haven’t overlooked these hacks : ) I couldn’t agree more on the HSA. It’s such a wonderful tool and the benefits are huge. I love the options of funds you can invest in, too, at least with my current HSA. I have more options than my 401k!
I’m guilty of not looking for a job until I *need* one. The problem with this approach is I’ve taken a job that weren’t a good fit and ended up switching jobs later on. It’s honestly best to have the odds in your favor. Good reminder. Thank you. =)
You aren’t alone, Lila! I would be surprised if more than 5% regularly look at job openings even when they don’t need a job. It really can help you avoid that “take whatever is available” mindset, though sometimes those situations are unavoidable.
Being in a not-so-ideal employment situation, I have been searching for a new gig for 11 months now. However, I have turned down countless second round interviews, and offers. I do not want to go from a bad situation to another bad situation. I like your suggestion that people should continue to look for better jobs. This keeps a person up on their interviewing game and skills. It also can bring greener pastures, ideally. Great post.
I definitely have to applause the fact that you are turning down interviews and offers! When some people are in bad employment situations they are ready to jump ship for the first offer that comes their way. I am confident you will find a great opportunity.
Thanks for the feedback on the post, always appreciated!
Its crazy how much some pay in interest without realizing it. That is great way to boost finances, indeed!
Agreed! Especially if you plan on paying back over a long period of time (5, 10, even 30 years) the savings just keep adding up month-after-month.
Improving your credit score is something I’ve been doing regularly for quite some time now. I found out that my credit card company allows you to automatically increase your credit limit every 6 months. The only thing is, you have to request the credit limit increase yourself. Realizing this, I set a reminder in my calendar to notify me every 6 months to just log in and increase my credit score. Thus, my credit utilization continues to go down since I keep inching up my credit limit twice a year.
Oh great idea! I think a lot of people would benefit from regularly requesting an increase. My wife started to do this and it’s definitely helped her credit score.
I love number 8. Too often we have dreams of what we want to accomplish but don’t take the steps necessary to get there.
I love the concept of a financial bridge to force us to realistically look at the end goal in relation to where we are. I am definitely going to start incorporating the financial bridge when I set up my goals for 2017.
Thanks for sharing.
Awesome glad you left with that takeaway! I’ve applied this concept to many goals in my life and it’s helped me realize what a realistic timeline is, what I’d have to give up to accomplish it, etc. Really useful.
I love number 8 – “Making a Bridge to Your Financial Goals.” I’ve been doing this, and I’ve realized that small steps can lead to big changes!
Absolutely! It’s definitely an overlooked way to boost your finances. It puts everything in perspective.
I have done everything on this list!… But number 5. I’ve been reading on Vault that I should be interviewing / talking to HR of other companies to make sure I’m up to date with industry trends, even if I’m not looking for a job. However, this takes a lot of time off my hands, so the least that I can do is at least go online and read up on skills that will give me an edge.
Honestly I think you can easily look at a job query on indeed in just a 2-5 minutes a day. I’d encourage you to give that a try before abandoning #5 altogether due to time constraints.
Number one is my favorite here. There’s something about keeping track of our net worth that motivates us to be better and better with our money. It helps us hang on to the big picture dream!
Absolutely! I think it’s important to know where you are at as well as how the past month and year have impacted your finances.
Great hacks! Paying attention to the interest rate on your debt is so important and I’m always trying to boost my credit score since we’d like to get a mortgage some day. When I found out my husband’s new job offered medical plans with HSAs, I practically told him we must sign up for one of them. The company matches contributions as well so it’s nice.
Yeah a lot of companies will match your HSA contributions up to a certain amount, which is super nice! We also get up to $600 deposited in our HSAs, per person, for doing a biometric screening. It’s a really great system.
Yes, you’ve got to take advantage of tax savings! I know most people hate and despise thinking about taxes because the topic can be pretty dry and boring. But saving a lot of money is exciting so I’ve found the topic pretty interesting. I’ve known people try to increase their returns by switching bank accounts or investing in this or that, but never consider tax savings which would boost their finances might more significantly.
It’s definitely overlooked! The tax code is incredibly complex, so I think that deters people. But if you can spend a little time understanding what proactive actions you can take to protect your money from taxes you can save/make quite a bit.
HSA ftw! Love the tax advantages of HSA’s and the fact that a lot of HSA banks have great investment options. My plan is to invest aggressively in my HSA and try not to use it while I’m working so it can be my own personal healthcare expense fund in retirement.
It’s amazing how many people completely dismiss the HSA.
I’ve nearly ripped my hair out when I find out people are not contributing a dime to their HSA! Like you said, best case scenario you won’t need it until you are retired and it’s virtually guaranteed you will need a lot of $ for medical costs at that point.
Hey, DC!]
Another great post.
I really like #1. I don’t automatically track it, but I do regularly. I wish I’d known about it at your age.
Back then if I was asked what my net worth was, I’d have probably replied, “Which net? Basketball, volleyball, or fishing.” I had NO clue.
We don’t fly much, so #2 doesn’t really fit. We’d much rather travel by land and see the “See-nery.” :-) I am hacking my credit card with cash back and Debitize attached.
Can’t do #3, the HSA thing, as our insurance doesn’t meet the qualifiers.
As for #4, we regularly meet with our CPA to discuss our tax strategies. I recommend it to everybody.
#5 “Look for a job before you need one.” I learned that one when I got into my professional career. Can’t say that about my early years.
#6 hasn’t been on my forefront, as I don’t buy much on credit. We’re in the last house that we’re going to purchase, and I don’t plan to ever finance a car again. Really don’t plan to finance anything in my Older Adult Money years.
Now, paying attention to the interest rate on my debt is something I look at. Don’t have much debt, though. Our mortgage, which has a lower rate than the earnings on our investment is the only one I look at, and I probably need to look at what I can do about that.
Now, #8 is one I REALLY need to take a long and hard look at. We’re pretty well set in retirement, BUT, I have a number of things that I want to work on and I need to set some goals and strategies in place to achieve them.
Man! I wish the inter-web was around when I was in my ’20’s, allowing me to easily access info such as this.
Thanks for putting it out there. I sure hope many young folks will find you.
All the best! KS
Thanks for the comment Keith! Yes it’s difficult for me to imagine life without the internet. Information is just so readily available and it’s up to you to consume it now and apply it to your life.
The nice thing about credit card hacking is that there are a number of hotel and cash back cards that have decent sign-up bonuses, so those are definitely good options if you don’t fly.
When I was younger, I didn’t pay attention to interest rates at all. That’s part of the reason I’m in the predicament that I’m in now. I stress to my students the importance of knowing how much debt you have and the interest rates.
Agreed Jason! Interest rate is something you really don’t think about until after college, if at all. There is a lot of money to be saved if you can get lower interest rates on your debt.
Love all your tips DC, particularly always looking at places like Glassdoor to see if there’s something else out there. I’ve recently applied for something on there which would dramatically increase our side hustle income if it comes off. Fingers crossed!
Tristan