There’s an App for That!

Some of the lessons we have learned thus far from Project Money are:

• Mind your spending
• Mind your savings
• Mind Coach Laura

Everyday we apply at least one of these towards our thoughts, behaviors and decision-making. But we have a dirty little secret to share…we are getting help from an online expert that never sleeps and always tells the truth: Summit Money Minder!

Heather and I do not consider ourselves tech-savvy. Although we own electronic devices, when it comes to having the hottest new apps we are some of the last to get on-board (meaning our daughters are always a step ahead of us)! Thus, when we were introduced to Summit’s Money Minder tool, we were definitely not sure if it would be a boost or a bust.

Today I can tell you that Summit Money Minder is now among the ranks of Facebook, Snapchat and Yahoo…except it’s a whole lot more useful in maintaining our financial health. It would be easy to fill many pages gushing over its features and benefits, but for the sake of brevity (and keeping your attention), here are three of our favorites:

1. Complete Financial Picture
   Since Summit Money Minder is embedded within Summit’s online banking, we have access from both our phones & computer. It not only shows us our active Summit checking/savings account balances & activity, but also includes up-to-the-minute balances for our emergency credit card, mortgage, automobile and investment accounts! I can tell you nothing makes me feel better after seeing dollars go out the door for a bill, than viewing our Merrill Lynch investment account and seeing we are up for the month.
2. Reminders
   It is definitely not by choice, however we are a multi-calendar family - shared iPhone, Outlook and one giant wall-sized paper beast. Trying to keep everything organized across them all creates a time-sucking headache, but Summit Money Minder helps ease the pain. We have setup reminders for when both automatic bill-payment drafts are hitting, as well as reminders for when we need to transfer funds from one of our sub-savings to our Bill Payments account. This feature has eliminated us missing payments and/or having to make late payments, and enables us to manage all of our bill payments online instead of through paper (I can’t tell you what a stamp costs, but we are no longer buying them)!
3. Cashflow
   This one blew me away! For years I’ve struggled with trying to time expenses throughout the month so that that we don’t have to ‘borrow’ from savings to cover them. The Cashflow feature of Summit Money Minder has helped me once-and-for-all setup a monthly schedule that enables us to balance big & little expenses with our bi-weekly payroll deposits. Now we know our exact cashflow position by day, so that we’ll never come up short again.

I know we have mentioned Summit Money Minder in previous posts, but since it has been an absolute boost for Team Duncan, we chose to dedicate an entire blog towards it. In fact, we’ve also named our Project Money blog racehorse Money Minder as well…yes, she is bringing home the money and minding it as well!