Stop worrying about money — it’s bad for you.
Studies show that financial stress can aggravate all kinds of health issues, like migraines, insomnia, heart disease and weight gain — not to mention our old pals anxiety and depression!
Money worries can rip apart relationships and ruin your peace of mind. If you want to stop worrying, what you need to do is take action. That’s right, TAKE. ACTION. And we’ve got an action plan for you.
You’ll feel better once you take these seven simple, strategic steps. They’ll give you a real financial edge, and you’ll be on your way to paying off your debts and building your wealth for real.
1. Stop Paying Your Credit Card Company
A big part of this is forming new habits and thinking of new ways to do things.
For instance: Credit card debt is the most expensive kind of debt, and your credit card company is just getting rich by ripping you off with high interest rates. But a website called AmOne can help you fight back.
If you owe your credit card companies $50,000 or less, AmOne will match you with a low-interest loan you can use to pay off every single one of your balances.
The benefit? You’ll be left with one bill to pay each month. And because personal loans have lower interest rates (AmOne rates start at 3.49% APR), you’ll get out of debt that much faster. Plus: No credit card payment this month.
After 20 years in business, AmOne has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau. It takes two minutes to see if you qualify for up to $50,000 online. You do need to give AmOne a real phone number in order to qualify, but don’t worry — they won’t spam you with phone calls.
2. Get Paid Every Time You Buy Groceries
Groceries are so expensive! But a free app called Fetch Rewards will reward you with gift cards just for buying toilet paper and more than 250 other items at the grocery store.
Here’s how it works: After you’ve downloaded the app, just take a picture of your receipt showing you purchased an item from one of the brands listed in Fetch. For your efforts, you’ll earn gift cards to places like Amazon or Walmart.
You can download the free Fetch Rewards app here to start getting free gift cards. Over a million people already have, so they must be onto something.
3. Stop Overpaying for Stuff Online
Wouldn’t it be nice if you got an alert any time you’re shopping on Amazon or Walmart.com and you’re about to get ripped off?
That’s exactly what this free service does.
Just add it to your browser for free, and before you check out, it’ll check other websites, including Walmart, eBay and others to see if your item is available for cheaper. Plus, you can get coupon codes, set up price-drop alerts and even see the item’s price history.
Let’s say you’re shopping for a new pair of shoes, and you assume you’ve found the best price. Here’s when you’ll get a pop up letting you know if that exact pair of shoes is available elsewhere for cheaper.
In the last year, this has saved people $160 million. You can get started in just a few clicks to see if you’re overpaying online.
4. Knock $540/Year From Your Car Insurance in Minutes
Cutting necessary expenses can make a huge difference. So when’s the last time you checked car insurance prices?
You should shop your options every six months or so — it could save you some serious money. Let’s be real, though. It’s probably not the first thing you think about when you wake up. But it doesn’t have to be.
A website called Insure.com makes it super easy to compare car insurance prices. All you have to do is enter your ZIP code and your age, and it’ll show you your options.
Using Insure.com, people have saved an average of $540 a year.
Yup. That could be $500 back in your pocket just for taking a few minutes to look at your options.
5. Have an Emergency Fund
Are you worried about losing your job? Nervous about what’s going to happen next? That’s why it’s crucial to have an emergency fund as backup — just in case.
An emergency fund is a stash of easily accessible money that equals three to six months’ worth of salary, in case you unexpectedly lose your job. And millions of us unexpectedly lost our jobs in 2020.
With the Aspiration Spend account, you can earn up to 5% cash back on your debit card purchases. With the Aspiration Save account (where you can funnel your tax refund), you can earn up to 20 times the average interest on your savings balance. (The FDIC reports that the average account earns just .05%.)
It takes five minutes to sign up.
6. Become an Investor — Really
Ultimately, investing is how you really build wealth.
If you feel like you don’t have enough money to start investing, you’re not alone. But guess what? You really don’t need that much — and you can even get free stocks (worth up to $200!) if you know where to look.
Whether you’ve got $5, $100 or $800 to spare, you can start investing with Robinhood.
Yeah, you’ve probably heard of Robinhood. Both investing beginners and pros love it because it doesn’t charge commission fees, and you can buy and sell stocks for free — no limits. Plus, it’s super easy to use.
What’s best? When you download the app and fund your account (it takes no more than a few minutes), Robinhood drops a share of free stock into your account. It’s random, though, so that stock could be worth anywhere from $2.50 to $200 — a nice boost to help you build your investments.
7. Leave Your Family up to $1M
There’s been a surge of interest in life insurance during the pandemic, as more Americans are realizing they probably need it.
Overall, Americans purchased about 10% more life insurance policies in 2020 than they did in 2019. That may not seem like a lot, but it’s actually the biggest increase in nearly two decades.
Also, more people are seeking out no-exam life insurance because they don’t want to go to a doctor’s office for an in-person exam. Companies like Bestow use algorithms instead of medical exams to evaluate applicants.
Rates start at just $16 a month. You could leave your family up to $1 million. The peace of mind knowing your family is taken care of is priceless.
If you’re under the age of 54 and want to get a fast life insurance quote without leaving your home, get a free quote from Bestow.
Mike Brassfield (mike@thepennyhoarder.com) is a senior writer at The Penny Hoarder. He tries not to worry too much about money — aside from writing about it, of course.
This was originally published on The Penny Hoarder, which helps millions of readers worldwide earn and save money by sharing unique job opportunities, personal stories, freebies and more. The Inc. 5000 ranked The Penny Hoarder as the fastest-growing private media company in the U.S. in 2017.
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