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For a while now, I have been meaning to update my recommendation page And when I say "for a while," I mean 6 months or more. I found another blogger, who used an article to share their recommendations as a blog post. I thought, "What a great idea!" So, here it goes! All of the things that I recommend as great resources for my readers.
The Best Blogging Sites
Mr. Money Mustache - MMM is the blog that got me excited about personal finance. Sure, my wife and I were already out of debt, but MMM allowed me to realize that extreme measures can lead to a possibility of early retirement! Check out his blog and join the Early Retirement Cult!
Keep Thrifty - During my time as a blogger, I have run into some amazing blogs! Over the last year, my new favorite is Chris and Jaime at Keep Thrifty. Their family is currently enjoying a mini retirement! Chris and Jaime got us excited about mini-retirements and buy nothing new challenges! Take a look at their website, they produce a lot of great information each and every month.
Dough Roller - With this blog, I don't really visit the website for the articles, however, I do listen to every podcast that Rob produces. He is a big numbers guy who dives deep into investing and other financial topics. Listening to Dough Roller is what led me to find MMM, so I definitely need to give him a shout out!
Budgets are Sexy - How can you not love the name? J. Money has the motto of making finances fun. He does with each and every blog post. Check it out, he has a lot of stuff that is worth the read!
Budgeting Resources
Quicken - I have been using Quicken for over 10 years. Sometimes, habits can be hard to break. However, I love that all of my data from the past is built up in the program and I can look back on years of financial data. I have heard of a lot of new budgeting software out there on the web, but I have never made the jump. A lot of the newer budgeting software requires a monthly fee, however, with Quicken all you do is buy the software and keep using it for years. I am still using the 2015 version of Quicken and I don't have any plans to buy the newest version.
Thrifty - Thrifty is budgeting software that was created by Chris at Keep Thrifty. I have not taken the time to dive into this budgeting software (I plan to). I have seen Chris use his budgeting data on his blog post and I like what I have seen. Look for my review article on Thrifty in a future post!
Personal Capital - Personal Capital can be used as a budgeting software, however, I mainly use it for net worth tracking. I enjoy the dashboard, the weekly e-mails reporting the results of my investments, and much more. For more information on Personal Capital, you can read my article, "7 Reasons we use Personal Capital (And you probably should too!)"
Investing Companies We Use
Vanguard - This company allows you to invest in very good no load funds and does a good job of keeping the expense ratios down. My non-taxable investments are with Vanguard and I am planning to open my wife's Roth IRA at Vanguard.
Fidelity - My wife's 401k is at Fidelity. This company has good options and also offers a good retirement calculator.
TD Ameritrade - We have our daughters ESA (Education Savings Account) opened up at TD Ameritrade. We made this decision with a lot of help and research from my father-in-law. We have been happy with our decision.
Stockpile - I use stockpile for extra investing outside of retirement. You can get fractional shares of stocks in companies. They even offer you $5 free to invest if you sign up! We took the free $5 dollars and invested even a little more. You can read about my experiment with Stockpile (here and here).
Some of My Other Favorites
Amazon - For almost everything, you can use Amazon for all of your shopping needs. We use Amazon for most of our shopping and we find that Amazon beats most prices.
US Legal Forms - We used US Legal Forms to help us write our will. The documents they send you are easy to follow and allow you to write your will with ease. The most difficult part was finding the time to write the will (I promise an article sometime soon).
VRBO - Also known as Vacation Rentals By Owner. We have used this resource to rent out a house for a trip or two. Depending on the amount of people, a VRBO can be cheaper than booking a hotel. (Note: Check the link below - - you can enter to win a $10,000 award vacation)
Roku - In the Summit of Coin household, we use Roku to stream music, live TV, Netflix and etc. I find the dashboard easy to use and downloading a new app is simple. If you haven't cut the cord, but are thinking about it, Roku is a great way to stream everything to your TV!
Streaming Live TV - This has varied for us. We have used Sling TV, Playstation Vue and currently we are using DirectTV Now. To read about our journey to different live streaming services, you can read the following articles:
- Tips to Saving Money on TV - Dec. 8, 2015
- Sling TV Update: The Olympic and Big 12 Edition - Aug. 3, 2016
- How Do Cord Cutters Still Watch Sports? - Aug. 14, 2017
- Could DirectTV Now offer the best deal for Cord Cutters? - March 14, 2018
- Should We Rethink Streaming Live TV? - March 19, 2018
The Arbor Day Foundation - This may seem off the wall, but growing up in Nebraska, Arbor Day was a big deal (since the holiday was invented in Nebraska). I believe that the Arbor Day Foundation does a great job of promoting tree planting! The link above will allow you the opportunity to gift a tree.
There you have it - things I use often enough to recommend. From financial to the randomness of the Arbor Day Foundation, I hope you found something in this article that you can use.
