Video Transcript
Ken: Okay, we know you. You’re outta shape. You’re spending too much money. You’re lazy. You’re unorganized. He’s gonna help you. Ryan’s here with Nerds on Call to get all that stuff taken care of.
Ryan: Okay, according to the Sun newspaper in the UK, the top three things that we all wanna do in the new year is get organized, save some money, and get fit. So we’re gonna address two of those right now.
Ken: Okay.
Ryan : So first, I got a calendar. I got notes, I got to-dos. I got all kinds of crazy stuff, none of it syncs together. Well, I got something that’ll fix that, keep you a little more organized. This is called 24me, it’s a personal assistant. It’ll sync your calendar, your to-do lists, also has this really cool thing where you can just speak into it, and tell it, “Hey, remind me later to call Ken.”
Ken: That’s perfect.
Ryan: Tell him that I need more money. But you can also pay bills directly from here. So when you link it all up, you can say, “Oh, you know what? I need to pay my electric bill. I need to pay my, you know, credit card bill,” or whatever. You can all do it from the app itself. It’s free to use, which is super cool. There’s a pay for it version that you can use. It lets you change fonts and get extra notifications. Just do the free version. It’s really awesome. Now let’s say you’re managing your home. You gotta do laundry. You gotta make the kids’ lunches. You gotta wash the car. You gotta vacuum, all kinds of stuff. And creating a to-do list every week’s kinda a pain for that. So this is called HomeRoutines. It’s an app for iOS and Android. And the great thing about this is you can put your recurring routines on there, and every week, it’ll refresh. So if you say, “Oh, I’ve already done the laundry this week,” it’ll just make that task go to sleep until next week. And if you’re like me, when you do laundry, you find out the last week’s laundry’s still in the dryer. So this will remind you of that too.
Okay, so Acorns, so let’s say you go… Remember the old days when you’d buy your coffee with cash, and then you’d have the change, and you’d stick it in your car or whatever. And you’d go, “Oh, my gosh, I got like 30 bucks.” This does that, but for your phone. So you go in and you buy coffee for like 2.15 or whatever, if you’re going to Starbucks, and you get the, you know, you get the Ken cash. What this will do is it will round up that transaction to 3 bucks, and take that extra 85 cents, and toss it into a savings account. And then you can take that savings account, and depending upon your desire for risk, you can make it invest it directly into the stock market or…
Ken: I love that.
Ryan: It’s super awesome.
Ken: I love that.
Ryan: And it’s free for students, otherwise it costs about a buck a month if you have under 5,000. If you go over 5,000, the rates can range, check the website. But it’s super cool to save money. Last but not least, everybody needs a budget. A lot of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, simply because we don’t pay attention to what we’re spending our money on. This will download all of your transactions from your bank account, from your credit cards account. Create a budget for you, and then you can stick with it. And if you suddenly move money from, let’s say you spend an extra five bucks going to the movies, you have move that money literally from another part of your budget in order to afford it. And that action will make you go, “Okay, no popcorn. I’m just not gonna get the popcorn.” I just can’t afford it. I’m gonna get socks. I need socks.
Ken: We’re outta time. It only took him three minutes to fix your whole life. You’re welcome. All this stuff is linked to our site at gooddaysacramento.com. Bethany, back to you.
Bethany : Thanks, guys.
Are you already struggling to keep those New Year’s resolutions? According to The Sun, “Get Organized” and “Spend Less/Save More” are the 2nd & 3rd most popular resolutions for the New Year. We’ve got some apps to help you keep those resolutions!
A Personal Assistant in your Pocket to help you get organized
24me includes a calendar a to-do manager and platform for reminders, but it goes deeper. You can sync your utilities, service providers, banks and social networks directly into the app. Putting them all together will create an “At a Glance” day plan. The voice add function lets you speak your notes/tasks and the app will understand & add it. You can pay bills when they come due, right in the app. It also reminds you automatically about upcoming birthdays & important dates, you can then post a Happy Birthday wish via Facebook or Twitter, or send a last minute gift, right in the app. The basic version is free or you can get the pro version for $3.99/mo, which lets you have custom label colors, more nag alerts and much more!
Stay on top of repeat house projects, from cleaning to making lunches to laundry
HomeRoutines can help with your organization resolutions. The app helps you stay on top of repeating tasks like: making the kids lunches or cleaning the fish tank and you can make a plan to organize your house room by room. You can set up daily, weekly and monthly tasks. Regular tasks will automatically reset at the start of a new day or week. It also lets you manage individual to-dos for example “make a vet appointment”.
Automatically invest your spare change
The best path to successful savings is to make it automatic and incremental. Acorns is a free app that automatically invests for you on a micro level. When you buy something, Acorns rounds up the transaction & invests the “spare change”. For example: You buy $3.15 cup of coffee (yes…expensive, right!). Acorn “rounds up” your purchase to $4 and puts the $.85 in a savings account. Users invest on average $30-$180/month in “round ups” alone. Acorns has established investment portfolios based on your risk tolerance. The fees start at $1/mo for accounts under $5K or 0.25%/year for accounts $5K+. If you’re a student then it’s free, just use your .edu address. All accounts allow unlimited deposits & withdrawals. There is no fee for $0 accounts.
Make & stick to your budget
You Need a Budget walks you through using your recent transactions to establish a realistic budget. It syncs with your bank account & credit cards and every dollar is tracked. If you go over the amount you allocated to dining, you have to move funds from another account (like “entertainment” or “clothes”) to cover it. It prompts you to put money aside for large expenses (like Christmas or a down payment on a new car). The intent with this app is to get you off living paycheck to paycheck by spreading your spending out over the month, you’ll be spending money earned 2 weeks ago. The service is free for 34 days, then it costs $50/year.
About The Author: Andrea Eldridge is CEO and co-founder of Nerds On Call, a computer repair company that specializes in on-site and online service for homes and businesses. Andrea is the writer of a weekly column, Nerd Chick Adventures in The Record Searchlight. She prepares TV segments for and appears regularly on CBS, CW and FOX on shows such as Good Day Sacramento, More Good Day Portland, and CBS 13 News, offering viewers technology and lifestyle tips. See Andrea in action at callnerds.com/andrea/.
