When Tech Meets Personal Finance, You Win

Using technology to your advantage can mean thousands of extra dollars in your pocket every year. People who use apps to save money, work with robo-advisors, go online and refinance their student loans, and check their credit scores regularly are among the savviest consumers out there. Do you know how to pull off all these high-tech financial maneuvers? If you don't, check out the list below and find out how powerful the mixture of personal finance and technology can be.

Sign Up for Automated Credit Score Reports

There are numerous reputable websites where you can sign up for regular credit reports. Most update every month and show you a breakdown of just what factors affect your numbers. A few also suggest ways you can improve your scores and apply for low-interest credit cards, home loans, and more. Most of these automated services are either done via app or an online function. Either way, it's a smart way to know where you stand in terms of creditworthiness at any given time.

Use a Robo-Advisor

Robo-advisors have been around for a few years but are only now becoming common, and price-competitive for average investors. Once you complete a financial profile by outlining your risk parameters, amounts you want to invest, and the types of securities you prefer, the robot uses a complex algorithm to create your portfolio from scratch. At the end of each year or quarter, as you indicate, the bot will rebalance the basket of stocks based upon which ones have grown and decreased in value. Robo-advisors do much more than rebalancing and are one of the best ideas to come along in years for the personal finance industry. 

Take Out an Education Loan Online

Taking out a student loan online is a simple and relatively fast process. Lenders have short forms for applicants and can return a decision in a matter of minutes. For adults who need an advanced degree to get ahead at work or to find a new job, the need to fund higher education is an immediate one. Fortunately, the entire process can be completed online, thanks to sophisticated, cloud-based technology that crunches all the numbers and calculates loan offers at the speed of light.

Invest in Drips

Dividend reinvestment programs are offered by hundreds of corporations. Once you sign up, you buy stock directly from the company, not from a broker. Most DRIPs have no or very low fees, offer automatic reinvestment of dividends each quarter, and have low opening balances. DRIPs are an ideal way to get into the market via a few of the best blue-chip securities, which means both cost and risk are quite low for the investor.

Use Apps to Build Your Savings Account

Savings apps are getting sophisticated. Just a few years ago, you had to input data for about an hour just to get started with one. Now, it's a two-minute sign-up process and you're off to the races. You can use the apps to add x amount of money to your savings account with every fuel purchase, for example. Or, instruct the app to place a set amount of money into savings at the end of each month. The decisions are yours, and so are the savings.