How to spend 60 minutes or less on your finances each month

I'm excited to share my Automated Money System with you this week! To view this email as a web page, [click here]() How to spend 60 minutes or less on your finances each month I'm excited to share my Automated Money System with you this week! With a couple hours of work — just follow the easy, step-by-step instructions in the newsletter this week — you'll have your finances completely automated. Say goodbye to late bills, missed savings goals, forgotten investments, and all the hassle and guilt of managing your money the hard way. Once you've automated your finances, you can relax knowing you'll hit your savings and investing goals automatically, you’ll never miss another bill, and you’ll be able to spend your money guilt-free. Or as I like to call it, start living life outside the spreadsheet. If you do what I show you this week: - You'll have a fully automated financial system - All your recurring bills will be paid on time with no effort from you - Your retirement and savings goals will be funded automatically every month - You'll spend less than an hour a month on your money management - You'll know exactly how much money you have each month to spend, guilt-free - You'll have complete control over your money if you ever want or need to tweak your system In short, you'll have accomplished one of the biggest (and most overlooked) [Big Wins]() out there. Your new Automated Money System will keep working for you, automatically, for the rest of your life. Here’s why you should automate your money Before we get into the nuts and bolts of automating your finances, I want to give you a 30,000-foot view of how it works. When you understand how and why automating your money works, it's much easier to set it up. Remember the 85% Solution: Getting started is more important than becoming an expert. Too many of us get overwhelmed thinking we need to manage our money perfectly, which leads us to do nothing at all. Don't worry about perfection. Everyone (including me) has to adapt their automation system to their own needs and goals! The easiest way to set up your money automation is to take it one step at a time — and not worry about being perfect. I'd rather take action and get it 85% right than do nothing. Once your money system is good enough — or 85% of the way there — you can get on with your life and go do the things you really want to do. Your next $100Let’s think about the next $100 you make. Where will that money go? Most people just shrug and don’t take any time to think about it — which means it gets thoughtlessly spent, and I sob uncontrollably. But there’s a better way! Imagine you already know how much money you have to pay for bills ("fixed costs") and how much is left over for investments, your savings goals, and spending money. Here are the spending guidelines I recommend, which you can use and tweak as necessary: [Categories of Spending] So, if you made $100 and your plan resembled the example above, you might put: - $60 toward your fixed costs - $10 into your investment account - $10 into savings - And you’d spend the remaining $20 on whatever you felt like Like this: [Your Next $100] Pretty cool, right? Well, it gets even better, because once everything is automated, that money will be sent from your checking account right into the appropriate accounts without you even thinking about it. "Set it and forget it"I don’t know about you, but I plan to do less and less work as I go through my life. That’s why I love systems: You front-load the work now, then you get to benefit for years and years. By investing a little extra effort now, we don’t have to invest a lot later. Of course, that’s easier said than done. Somehow we just never get around to consistently managing our money — and let’s be honest: That will never change. Because who really cares about managing money? It’s about as appealing as cleaning the garage . . . every week for the rest of your life. I'd rather have an automated system that handles most of my to-dos for me. This is all driven by a principle I call the Curve of Doing More Before Doing Less: [Chart] By spending a few hours upfront, you’ll end up saving huge amounts of time over the long term. Your money flow will be automatic, and each dollar that comes in will be routed to the right place without you really having to think about it. The payoff for these few hours is huge because this automatic system will let you focus on the fun parts of life. No more worrying about whether you paid that bill or if you’re going to be overdrawn again. You’ll start to see money as a tool for getting what you want without the manual drudgery of tracking categories and transferring money from one account to another each week. Step 1: Link your accounts The first step in automating your finances is linking your accounts together so you can set up automatic transfers from one account to another. When you log in to any of your accounts, you’ll usually find an option called something like “Link accounts,” “Transfer,” or “Set up payments.” These are all the links you need to make between accounts: - Connect your paycheck to your 401(k) (if you haven’t already) so it’s automatically funded each month. - Connect your checking account to your savings account. - Connect your checking account to your investment account/Roth IRA. (Set this up from your investment account, rather than from your bank account.) - Connect your credit card to any bills you’ve been paying via your checking account. (And if you’ve actually been paying bills by writing checks with a pen, please understand that humanity has discovered fire and combustible engines and join our modern times. For example, if you’ve been paying your cable bill by check each month, log in and switch it so that the bill is paid by your credit card instead.) - Some bills, like rent and loans, can’t be paid using a credit card. Link these regular bills to your checking account. (Do this by logging in to the company’s website and initiating the transfer from your checking account to the company.) - Set it up so that all your credit card accounts are paid from your checking account. (This is set up from your credit card’s “Transfer” or “Link accounts” page.) You likely have a few payments that simply can’t be automatically drawn from your checking account. For example, if you’re renting from a little old lady, she may not have a sophisticated financial infrastructure including a website where you can enter your checking account information and automatically transfer money each month. However, you can still automate payments using your checking account’s bill pay feature, which is free with nearly every account. Example: If you pay rent by writing a check and sticking it in an envelope each month, log in to your checking account and set up automatic bill pay for your rent. Your bank will then write a check for you each month and mail it to your landlord. Just make sure you schedule it so that it has enough time to reach your landlord via the postal service by the due date. To summarize, these are the accounts you need to link: [How to Connect Your Accounts] That may seem like a lot, but just take them one by one. The best part is once you're done, that piece of the system is set for good! Be sure to get everything linked up today. Tomorrow, we’ll set up automatic transfers. [Signature] WHAT TO DO NEXT SHARE: Know someone who would benefit from automating their money? They can sign up for my FREE automation mini-course [here](). [SIGN UP]() How did you feel about today’s email? [insta]() [Twitter]() [twitter]() [youtube]() [Linkedin]() [podcast]() This email was sent to {EMAIL}. If you no longer wish to receive these emails you may [unsubscribe]( at any time. 548 Market St #89946 San Francisco, CA 94104-5401