Financial Spring Cleaning Checklist

Ah, spring time. Tax-refund season – whoopee! (Well, hopefully it’s a tax-refund season for you.)

Regardless, this is the good time of year to reset, to recheck, that all the efficiencies, security enhancements, and money-saving opportunities for your accounts and finances have been established.

Efficiencies are the automations you will want to incorporate that could simplify your life, which in turn reduces stress, and in some circumstances saves you money – IE:  No more late fees.

A good spring-cleaning checklist for your finances should include:

1. Online Bill Pay
2. Alerts
3. Manage My Cards
4. Mobile Wallet
5. eStatements
6. Crunch the Numbers
7. Device Updates

The majority of this checklist can be established through your financial institution’s online banking platform and/or mobile app., a great convenience for you!

Online Bill Pay

Paying your bills online is more secure than writing and mailing checks. With Online Bill Pay you decide when your money leaves your account. You are no longer tied to the post office’s delivery timeline and/or lost check scenarios for bill payments that are done by electronic payment. You can also schedule when payments will be made, which ensures no more fees for past due expenses!

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Account Alerts

Account alerts, otherwise known as account notifications, provide you with important information relating to your credit cards, debit cards, and bank accounts. As an example: 

If your account balance dips below a level you deemed appropriate, a Low Balance Alert will be sent to you. This alert helps ensure you have sufficient funds in your account to prevent overdrafts or to maintain balances to qualify for rewards.

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Other alerts you can establish for your benefit:

• Direct Deposit Alert. This advises you when funds have been deposited into your account, so now you know you can cover whatever expenses you have coming up.
• The Big Purchase Alert and any unusual purchases (typically called an Unusual Activity Alert)  help identify fraudulent activity. If you truly didn’t initiate these purchases, you can turn off or stop any further access to your account, saving you a lot of time and money.
• Related to above is a Transfers Alert. When large incoming or outgoing transfers post to your account, you’ll know about it.
• Most banks have a limit for how much you can withdraw each day from an ATM. The ATM/Debit Card Alert helps ensure your transactions and changes are legitimate.
• Get alerts when deposits, checks, or withdrawals post to your account when you activate Transactions. This may get a little annoying, but it is gratifying to know if your transaction was successfully received and processed.
• Another notification that potentially identifies fraudulent behavior is the Profile Change or Security Alert. It lets you know when someone changes your information or is trying to get access to your online banking accounts.

Alerts may be referred to by different names at different financial institutions, but they are relatively the same. Do yourself a favor; turn on all of the notifications related to your financial accounts and cards. They can help save you money, avoid possible fraud, and keep you informed of your spending.

Manage My Cards

If you have a Credit or Debit Card through your financial institution, ask if they have a Manage My Cards mobile phone app. (Actually, you DON’T HAVE to use your financial institutions mobile app; there are options.) Familiarize yourself with the options, conveniences, and security features offered and pick one.

With a Manage My Card app, you’ll know when, where, and how your cards are used. Most will allow you to turn off a misplaced card with just a touch, spot fraud almost instantly, limit your transactions by merchant type, transaction type, and monitor or establish spending limits.

You can also restrict a card’s usage to a designated region, which means if someone tries to make a purchase outside your selected region, it will either be denied or an alert is sent to you. Card management apps should be able to provide you with transactional summaries and detail, a visual breakdown of your spending, the ability to turn cards on and off, and to report a lost card with a touch of a button. Alerts to ensure on-time payments are always a plus too.

The app you choose should be free with the ability to upload many different cards.

Mobile Wallet

How is the Manage My Cards app different from a Mobile Wallet?

A Mobile Wallet is a mobile phone app that stores your credit and debit card payment information. Once your cards are uploaded, you can pay for purchases at participating merchants by holding your phone (the mobile wallet) over the payment device instead of carrying and physically pulling out the desired plastic card from your (now obsolete?) wallet.

Mobile Wallets are extremely secure because your smart phone ‘talks’ to the credit/debit card device via encrypted codes, and these encrypted codes change automatically with every use. Your personal information and card number remain private and protected.

Depending on the Mobile Wallet app you choose (many financial institutions offer them), your identification cards, event tickets, boarding passes, and many other items could be stored too.

A Mobile Wallet app is independent from a Manage My Cards app. The Mobile Wallet app provides the ability to make secure purchases. The Manage My Cards app tracks and helps manage your spending.

eStatements

The purpose of an electronic statement is two-fold. It provides you with:

1. On-demand access 24/7 of your financial statements for downloading or printing.
2. eStatements provide an additional level of security (protection from identity theft) because the only way to access your personal and financial information now is through your online banking portal. (A printed bank statement can easily be stolen while it is in-route or sitting in your mailbox.)

An eStatement contains the same information that a paper financial account statement does; most financial institutions offer them free of charge.

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Crunch the Numbers

Let’s try to keep as much of your hard-earned cash in your wallet…. Let’s crunch some numbers.

Many people struggle with credit card debt at one point or another, and the higher your balances get, the harder it can be to pay them off, especially when you consider compounding interest.

Should I consider a credit card debt consolidation?

Debt consolidation makes the most sense when:

1. Your new total payment is less than your current total payment.
2. You can acquire an interest rate that’s lower than the rates you’re paying now. 
3. The total interest paid over the life of your debt is now less.
4. You have multiple monthly debt payments.

What is a balance transfer credit card?

Rolling your credit card debts onto a balance transfer credit card (also called credit card refinancing) requires good to excellent credit (typically a 690 credit score or higher) to qualify.

The primary benefits of a good balance transfer credit card are:

1. It doesn’t charge interest for a certain length of time (an introductory period), typically 15 to 21 months.
2. The good ones don’t charge an annual fee.

But you may expect (the likelihood is high), a one-time balance transfer fee of 3%-5% of the total amount transferred.

The primary goal of utilizing a balance transfer credit card is to pay down your balance as much as possible (preferably to zero) before the 0% introductory period is over. After the introductory period, any remaining balance (or any additional balances added to the card) will likely incur double-digit interest. We want to avoid double-digit interest; it adds up! (This is why paying off your credit cards every month is considered a best practice.)

Most people, when they consolidate, want to reduce or get out of debt. If this is your circumstance, it is critical that you do NOT refill those credit cards that were just transferred to a balance transfer credit card. Turn them off!

To help you decide if consolidation is right for you, consider NerdWallet’s balance transfer savings calculator.

Credit Sense is a free service offered to all Prevail Bank customers. It will monitor your credit health, provide tips for improving your credit score, and it will ‘crunch the numbers’ to help you identify if credit card consolidation is an option for you to consider.

Device Updates

Smartphones, tablets, laptops, and computers make life easier. They most certainly deserve a spring cleaning as well.  Delete any unused apps and clear out any downloads you aren’t using any more. Check for old files that can be archived or deleted, and don’t forget to empty the recycling trash bin.

Make sure your device’s security and anti-virus software is up to date and working properly.  Be sure all devices are set up for auto-updates relating to these security features, and if you haven’t already done so recently, change all your passwords --- every device should have its own unique password. (We don’t want to make it easy for the cybercriminals.)

If you have a difficult time remembering your passwords, there is Password Manager software out there that will keep them secure (like a vault) and accessible only to you when you need them.

In Conclusion:

Spring is considered the season of renewal. It inspires us to purge, cleanse, and organize. For many it provides an emotional benefit, the sense of control. Extend your spring cleaning beyond your closets, home, and garage. Your financial wellbeing is important too.