Personal Capital Review: 5 Powerful Free Features

Personal Capital Review: 5 Powerful Free Features

by

We may receive a commission for referring new users. If you decide to sign up after reading my Personal Capital review, you’re helping support our free content at no cost to you, so thanks! You should sign up because it could change your future.

The first time I heard of Personal Capital, I was working as a Financial Counselor at the University of Utah. This was back in 2016 and we were working on revamping our website.

We got a call from someone in Denver, Colorado and they asked if we would be willing to place a financial calculator on our website that was created by Personal Capital. I politely declined because I had never heard of the company before and didn’t want a bunch of noise on our website. 

After the call, I looked into it and decided to create an account. I connected a few accounts and then completely forgot about it for about 6 months. It felt very overwhelming at first and I didn’t want to take the time to learn it.

After 6 months, I was reading a post from Millennial Money and saw that he was a big fan of Personal Capital. A lot of bloggers were big fans!

Because of the online positivity, I spent a little more time setting it up and I’ve been hooked ever since.

Here’s my Personal Capital review and why I think it’s the best free financial planning software of 2020.

What is Personal Capital?

Personal Capital is an online wealth management company that believes the power of technology can make the financial services industry more affordable, accessible, and honest. 

You can think of the company as two main divisions:

  • Free financial planning software
  • Online wealth management

I have never used their paid online financial planning and wealth management services and so I’m not going to be reviewing that today, only their free tools. 

They also offer their free Personal Capital app that I’m guilty of logging into nearly everyday.

After the initial set up, and once I became comfortable with Personal Capital, I discovered some powerful features.

Here are 5 powerful features that I love about Personal Capital.

1. Accurate & Visual Graphs

One of my favorite features is seeing my complete financial picture in one simple dashboard.

By connecting all of your financial accounts, it’s able to create a nice-looking picture of your where you are with your finances. And it updates on a daily basis to give you accurate information and visuals.

Seeing how my assets are going up and my liabilities are going down is super motivating to me.

If you set up a Personal Capital account today, in ten years you’ll be able to look back and remember how broke you were and just how far you’ve come. 

I’ve got four years of data under my belt now and it’s amazing to see how thing have changed based on the markets, my jobs, when I borrowed money, etc.

It also integrates with Zillow for property values and over 10,000 other financial institutions.

I’m a very visual person and seeing all of their graphs is very satisfying.

2. Account Aggregation

I love being able to see all of my accounts in one place.

Personal Capital Budget | Personal Capital Review | Simplifinances

As many of my readers know, I’m a HUGE fan of the JARS Money Management System. And this system requires six bank accounts.

It’s nice to see each bank account along with my credit cards, mortgage, and investments.

If I wasn’t able to see all of my accounts in one place I would probably forget that some of them existed.

Seriously. 

It also shows you all of your spendings and compares that with the previous month to see how you’re doing. 

As you can see, it automatically categorizes transactions and shows you what percentage of your spending that category represents. It will compare what you’re spending this month to what you spent last month.

To be honest, I think Personal Capital is lagging when it comes to robust budgeting tools. For that, I use my favorite free budgeting software.

Read: Top Rated Free Budget Software That Will Simplify Your Finances

3. Investment Performance

When I first created an account, I was also in business school learning about investments.

I was becoming very familiar with terms like index, benchmark, blended, S&P 500, DOW, foreign markets, and so on.

Weekly Updates | Personal Capital Review | Simplifinances

At the time, none of these terms meant anything to me personally.

After connecting my investments to Personal Capital, I started understanding these terms better. I was able to see how my portfolio was doing compared to the S&P 500, foreign markets, and so on.

Before that, when I would hear how the markets did today on the radio, it didn’t make sense to me. But because of the Portfolio and the Holding & Allocations section of the app, these things began to make sense.

I could see the percentage change of my investments for the day and see the dollar amount change as well.

Certain days when the markets did well, and I saw how it impacted my net worth, I was a happy camper.

On days when markets are volatile and down, I try not to let it bother me.

Each week, I continue to get a summary email like this. 

4. Net Worth Tracker

When you track your net worth, you’re more motivated to make better financial decisions.

Personal Capital has literally forced me to make better financial decisions because I want to see that graph going up.

I will mention that checking your net worth too frequently can cause undue stress and I do try and limit how much I log into the app.

Anyone else know what I’m talking about?

I also find ways to have a balance between saving and spending. Because of the way I manage my money, I force myself to spend money on fun things as well.

You shouldn’t bee 100% extreme all the time with your savings. You have to have balance.

5. Fee Analyzer

I never really knew how much I was paying in fees until I was able to see the expense ratio for each individual security within the Personal Capital fee analyzer.

Investment companies make it difficult to see what exactly your expense ratio is. The fee analyzer made it really easy to see how much money I was paying for each investment and get rid of the ones that were too expensive.

It was one of the main motivating factors that pushed me to invest in an ETF at Vanguard (VTI) with an expense ratio of 0.03%.

Related: I Don’t Know How to Invest & I’m Scared I’ll Make a Mistake 

You can see that there is a lot to like about Personal Capital. These are only 5 of the many powerful features that Personal Capital has to offer.

Mint vs. Personal Capital

Toward the beginning of the article, I mentioned my favorite free budget software. Which happens to be Mint.

Personal Capital and Mint’s features are quite complementary.

I’ve been using Mint since 2014 and found it to be great for tracking expenses and staying on top of my finances, but it lacked big time when it came to investments.

I now use both because they each serve a different purpose.

When it comes to budgeting:

Mint > Personal Capital

When it comes to investing:

Personal Capital > Mint

Here’s a comparison that Personal Capital put together comparing themselves to Mint. 

Is It Safe to Use Personal Capital?

Personal Capital is safe to use. They use many layers of security to keep your money and your information safe and private.

Like Mint, the don’t actually have access to any funds. You’re simply aggregating the information and then they’re able to analyze it.

Of course, nothing is un-hackable but they definitely take extra safety precautions. So much so that I would have to update my USAA connection every day by logging into my bank with 2FA if I wanted to see accurate bank information.

Because Personal Capital is a free financial planning software, you would think that they sell your information like many of the free personal finance apps out there. But in fact, according to their privacy policy, it states; “Personal Capital’s core business is wealth management. This means that our objective is to win you over as a Personal Capital Advisory Client. We do not rent, sell or trade your Personal Information.“

How Much Does Personal Capital Cost?

After everything I’ve mentioned, you may be thinking, “is Personal Capital really free?”

And the answer is, yes! It really is free. But if it was completely free they wouldn’t be in business. So that brings up the next question.

How Does Personal Capital Make Money?

Personal Capital uses it’s amazing software to draw people in. They’ve been able to amass quite a large amount of users who use their tools frequently. But if it’s all free, how. do they make money.

Once a user has over $100,000 in investable assets, that person then becomes a lead for their wealth management department. You don’t ever have to invest any of your money with them if you don’t want to.

But if you decided to invest with them, they charge an asset management fee of 0.89% for portfolios between $100,000 and $1 million. Which is actually quite high for a robo-advisor. Once you have over $10 million, the fee becomes 0.49%.

Personal Capital is different than Betterment or Wealthfront in a sense because it is more expensive but they promote their Certified Financial Planners being willing and able to meet more frequently.

What Are The Downsides of Personal Capital?

There are two major downsides to Personal Capital:

  • As soon as you have $100,000 in investable assets, their financial planners will start reaching out to you. You don’t have to work with them though unless you want to. You can politely decline and they won’t reach out to you again. 
  • Their budgeting software is not as user-friendly and easy to use as many of the free budgeting apps out there. I recommend using Mint or even Qube Money.

In Conclusion

I’m a big fan of Personal Capital’s free tools and I think it’s the best personal finance software to help you reach your retirement goals.

If you haven’t signed up for an account before, I encourage you to get started by clicking the link below!

Create a Personal Capital account for free!

If you’ve heard of Personal Capital before but have never given it a try, I encourage you to try it out.

Don’t get overwhelmed at first as I did and give up.

Take the time to accurately set it up and I promise it will help you make better financial decisions because you’ll be well on your way to financial independence. 

Let me know your thoughts about Personal Capital in the comments below!

Personal Capital Review | Simplifinances

Top Rated Free Budget Software That Will Simplify Your Money

Top Rated Free Budget Software That Will Simplify Your Money

by

With bills, rent/mortgage, student loans, credit cards, savings, and much more, how do you keep track of all of it? And is there a free budget software that makes it easy?

Someone recently told me, “I know exactly how much I spend each month. I keep track of it in my head.”

Keeping track of your finances in your head, may not be the most effective. Especially if you’re not a budgeter!

The good news is, you don’t need to keep a running tab stored in your brain. We all know what happens when you miss a payment.

Many years ago, I met with a financial planner who wanted to help me set up my first investment.

He said, “We take care of all the confusing stuff for you. You don’t need Mint or other budget software.”

I thought, “what’s Mint?”

After the appointment, I went home, set up an online account, and never spoke with him again.

Since then, Mint has become a huge part of my life and has done more for me than the gold based annuity he was trying to sell me.

I want to share with you why I’ve used Mint so much and the benefits it’s brought to me.

What is Mint and Why Should You Use It?

Mint is a free money management software that was acquired by Intuit in 2009, the same company that owns Quickbooks and Turbotax.

It’s super easy to use with a clean user interface. It gives you a clear overview of your finances.

It connects to all of your existing accounts to help you stay on top of managing your money in one place.

“Every time you visit their site, your financial data gets updated automatically. It presents your financial information in a slick easy-to-use web interface, with pretty graphs and all.”

– Investor Junkie

Mint has helped over 10 million Americans reduce their debt, pay their bills on time, and increase their overall net worth.

You’ll find boatloads of other great software to use for your money, but none of them really come close to Mint.

So, what are the features?

It’s Free

It’s incredible that Mint offers this budget software for free!

They receive their funding through companies that offer deals such as credit cards, investments, and recently, loans, and many other offers.

You can ignore the advertising links, but if you really are in the market for different products, it’s a great place to shop around.

Bank-Level Security

With the amount of online fraud, it’s common to worry about your personal information being stolen.

It’s usually a concern for people to connect a third-party to their bank account. However, Mint uses bank-level security.

They cannot transfer funds or access your account. They can only view it as read-only. Kind of like taking a picture of your bank account balances and putting it all in one place and giving you a quantitative analysis.  

Mint is also analyzed and certified by prominent third-party providers like TrustArc, VeriSign and other trusted professionals in online security.

Free Budget Software | Simplifinances

Financial Dashboard

We love having everything in one easy-to-see dashboard. Mint gives you a complete overview of your finances and having it in one place brings peace of mind.

Imagine the days before Walmart when you went to multiple stores to buy what you needed.

Now you get everything at one store.

Mint does the same. No need to go to each bank, loan, or credit card website separately to view your balances.

Free Credit Score

Mint gives you a free credit score!

But you’ve probably heard of free credit scores and how they are not really accurate.

Let’s be honest, what credit score is actually accurate?

Once you sign up for the free credit score, it may be off, but the biggest benefit is the summary of your overall credit situation.

From payment history, credit limit and usage, inquiries, and more information that explains why your credit score sucks or is really good.

Although it may not be your exact credit score, it’s smart to have a rough ballpark estimate of where you are.

Alerts

How easy is it to forget when your bills are due?

It’s a good idea to set up automatic payments, but for those bills that are variable, set up an alert to be sent to your phone or email a number of days in advance so you’ll never miss a payment.

Mint has more than 20 types of alerts to notify you of fees, warn you if you’re going over budget, or let you know if something seems suspicious.

I get an alert every time a purchase of $200 or more is made with one of my credit cards, in case it get’s stolen.

Trends

One of my favorite things about Mint is the Trends section.

Have you ever had these questions?

  • How much did I actually spend last month?
  • What categories do I spend the most on?
  • Or how has my net worth changed over the past year?

You can answer all of these questions and many more in the Trends section.

 “You can’t manage something you don’t measure”

A few years ago, I was asked to write down all of my expenses for the month. I wrestled with myself to think of everything I spent my money on. It seemed like things changed every month.

When I finished with my expense sheet, I knew in my mind that it was not accurate.

With trends, you can take the average amount spent each month throughout the entire year, or multiple years. This gives you an idea of the actual amount of money that is spent on different categories each month.

This is a great way to get started with a budget and setting goals to spend less and save more. Which brings me to my last point.

Mint Budgets and Trends | Simplifinances

Goals

Each of us has goals:

  • Going on a vacation
  • Saving for a home
  • Paying off student loans
  • Saving money for Christmas gifts
  • Etc.

Mint helps you reach those goals by assessing the amount the goal requires. It then gives you a specific date in the future and tells you how much money each month needs to be allocated to that goal.

It will let you know each month where you put enough or not enough money towards your goals and whether or not you are on track to achieve it.

Conclusion

With all the services this free budget software offers at no cost, why wouldn’t you use it?

I’m not affiliated with Mint, I’m simply a raving fan. Whenever they release an update, I get excited. And I love it when other people tell me they started using Mint and that I was the one that introduced them to it.

The only downside with Mint I’ve found is the investments section.

I haven’t understood how my investment accounts are aggregated and how I did compared to the market.

Mint is great for basic money management and budgeting but if you’re looking for something a little more in-depth that gives you a clear idea of how your investments are performing, I use Personal Capital. You can read more about my review of Personal Capital.

If you haven’t opened a Mint account yet, I urge you to do so.

Stick with it for a few months or years and I hope to hear from you on how your experience has been.

It’s safe, free, accurate, easy to use, and convenient. This free budget software has many more capabilities and features that I didn’t mention, but that you’ll soon discover.

It’s time to be good with your money.

Pin It on Pinterest