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Diana Rene: 0:06

You're listening to The Decluttered Mom podcast, a podcast built specifically for busy moms by a busy mom. I'm your host, Diana Rene, and in 2017, I had my second daughter and it felt like I was literally drowning in my home okay, not literally, but I felt like I couldn't breathe with all of the stuff surrounding me. Over the next 10 months, I got rid of approximately 70% of our household belongings and I have never looked back. I kind of feel like I hacked the mom system and I'm here to share all the tips, tricks and encouragement. Let's listen to today's show. Welcome to another episode of The Decluttered Mom Podcast.

Diana Rene: 0:53

A while back earlier this year, I did an episode about an app that I really like, which is June and it's all about. It's basically like a kid's chores slash, like virtual checklist, I guess maybe you could say and I got a lot of good feedback that you guys liked hearing what types of apps I was using. So I wanted to do another episode today on a specific app I've been using now for about six months. I always make sure, before I talk about anything like anything that I use and love, that I've been using it for a while before I talk about it. So this app is for finances and for personal finances, and I just want to like begin the show by saying that I have no affiliation with this app. I don't have a sponsorship, I don't have a partnership, I don't get a commission. If you download the app, they have no idea who I am. They just know that my name is a paying customer of them. So I just wanted to start out by saying that, because this is not I'm not just talking like wonderful things about this app so that you will buy it and I will get some type of commission or kickback.

Diana Rene: 2:06

So the app is called Rocket Money and I first heard about it, I would say probably a year ago, and I actually downloaded it, but I never used it. And then I heard about it again from someone else about six months ago and I was like all right, I just let me try it, let me just see what it's about. And I connected my accounts to it and I was shocked to find so many subscriptions that I had forgotten about that I was paying on like a monthly basis, and so what this app does is basically like a tracking software for your expenses. So it will show you. It shows you, like your current spend for this month. It tells you if you're trending above or below or equal to last month. It tells you when your next payday is coming. It shows your different accounts and how much is in there. You can also link like your savings and investments I haven't done that, but you can do that and then it has a like upcoming reoccurring charges. So like I see that tomorrow $5.41 is coming out for Amazon Kids for Amazon Kids and in two days I have my Discovery Plus subscription coming out. So like it tells me all of my subscriptions when it's going to be taken out, how much it's going to be taken out. So that's just kind of helpful if you're someone who has a hard time tracking those types of things. But then it also has like you have the option of putting your budget into there and you can. You can do that and you can track it in there as well. So I know like a lot of people used that Mint budget software and then it went. It either went under, was bought or I'm not really sure, but I don't think it exists anymore. So I had heard people were using this for their budgeting. You can like start smart savings so you can do like auto withdrawals into your savings account. But here are the things, the three biggest things, that have helped me using this app. Number one is it just I feel like I have a better handle on our overall personal finances because I have a hard time. Maybe I don't know why. I'm not like a numbers person. I never have been.

Diana Rene: 4:32

I took college, my college. Like you know, when you go to college and you have like the bare minimum requirements to graduate and like there's like one math, like a three credit math class and like a three credit writing class, things like that. My three credit math class was called elementary algebra and I you guys, I failed that class five times, I'm not even kidding you. And so by the time I was getting ready to graduate, that was the one class. I was three credits short from getting everything covered to be able to graduate and walk across the stage, and so I had to take it in summer school, like the summer after my senior year of college, to be able to officially get my degree. And it was. It was a five week, monday through Friday, 8 am to 5 pm, so it was like a full work day, and it was me, the one girl, and like 25 football players who had to pass that class to be able to play football in the fall, and me I had to pass the class to be able to graduate and, honestly, like they were all good sports but they gave me such a hard time for being like the one girl in this class full of like the football team and I swear I probably didn't really pass that class. I think the professor just passed me because he felt so bad for me because I had to like deal with these guys like cracking jokes at my expense all day long.

Diana Rene: 6:12

Anyway, total side note, sorry, tangent, I've just never been great with numbers and so just logging into my accounts and looking at things on a day-to-day type basis, it's hard for me to envision and see the full picture of our finances and it's hard for me to just see, from a 30,000 point view, how are we doing. And so having this is really really helpful for me because it not only shows me how much we're spending, but it shows me the categories that we're spending. It shows me that maybe this month we spent way more in this specific category and we need to dial that back. So it just helps me see a bigger picture when it comes to our personal finances. So I would say that's the first reason I really love it.

Diana Rene: 6:59

The second reason I really love it is that hidden subscription thing. Like obviously they're not really hidden, but we all know we sign up for subscriptions, sometimes, like I am notorious for doing a free trial and then I just forget to cancel and so we get charged for this subscription that we're not even using. And so I have saved myself a lot of money by just looking at the overview here of the upcoming reoccurring charges and just canceling them. And a lot of these you can actually cancel from within the Rocket Money app. You don't even have to go to that website. A lot of them not all of them, I found out, but a lot of them you can cancel from within the app. So that has saved me money.

Diana Rene: 7:47

And then the third reason I really like it is the lower your bills feature. So it will show you, it will alert you. If it's like, hey, this seems this specific charge. Maybe it's, for example, for me right now it's saying our auto insurance is really high for our area and so it will. You can actually have them shop for you on your behalf to get like a lower rate for that bill and then it will, like they take basically like a cut of the savings. So that's like how they make money, but it it saves you the work and the hassle of having to go through the process and doing it for yourself. Now I will say I have not done that yet and, to be honest, we actually are getting new auto insurance, but I probably will do that on my own, just because I want to make sure I'm doing all the right coverage and all of that. But I do like that it shows me when something is higher than the average for my area so I can check and see. It's just basically like I'm alerted to the fact that we may be overpaying for this specific type of bill, and so I think that's pretty cool. Also, and I think that I just think that's like a really helpful feature.

Diana Rene: 9:10

A couple other things that it can do that I just really haven't taken advantage of. It can track your net worth. Again, we don't have, like our savings or investments or anything in here, so it doesn't really give me a good picture, but it can, if you want, to put all of those in there, and then it can also track your credit score for you. So, and then it does show you also, like you can tell I'm scrolling through the app as I'm talking about this where your current spend is this month, like I said, and where it is as far as like, is it trending higher than last month? Is it trending lower than last month? So, again, if you're like working on actively saving money, but you log into this and you see like, oh shoot, we're actually 5% above where we were last month on this date, then you can click through and you can see where, oh, I'm spending 9% on dining and drinks and I want to have that be closer to 4%. You know, like it just is really helpful to see it from that big picture angle. So I hope that's helpful. Again, this is just one of those things where it's something that has been very helpful for me.

Diana Rene: 10:17

Rocket Money has no idea who I am. I don't get anything. If you want to check it out, it is a paid app. I'm not sure. Let me check how much. It is. Okay, I think there is a free version and a premium version. I'm not really sure what comes on either version, but I'm on the premium, paid version and it's $8 a month. So for me, it saves me more than that every month by a lot, and so that's totally worth it to me. For you, I don't know if it's worth it to you You'll have to make that determination. But just a cool app, just something to help you.

Diana Rene: 10:53

I really love the idea just like the title of this podcast that you can declutter your finances.

Diana Rene: 10:59

You can declutter all of those extra expenses and subscriptions that are coming out every month that either you didn't even know were there in the first place, or you kind of knew they were there but you didn't really know to what extent, and so you're just getting rid of them. You're decluttering all of those extra expenses that are taking your money away that you just aren't really utilizing or taking advantage of. So I hope this was helpful. I know this was a very short and sweet episode, but let me know if you have any questions over on Instagram at the decluttered mom and I will see you next week. Thanks for hanging out and listening to the decluttered mom podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, it would mean the world if you could write a review or share this episode with a friend or your Instagram stories. And if you're on Instagram, be sure to follow me at thedeclutteredmom and send me a DM to say hi. I'd love to hear what you thought about today's episode. I hope you'll come back next week and hang out with us again.