Are you equipped to take your financial affairs into the next decade? As the 2020s get underway, many working and nearly-retired adults face important challenges like calculating retirement fund gains, understanding how to sell life insurance policies, knowing what to do once the house is paid off, and navigating a new (usually lower) tax bracket. The best way to stay ahead of your money situation is to arm yourself with the right technology. Things like financial calculators, tax apps, and personal finance software are inexpensive, effective ways to get the job done. Here are a few areas in which technology can come to your rescue when you encounter questions about your income, savings, assets, and long-term wealth.
Tax Software
You have a couple of choices when it comes to resolving questions about personal income tax. You can hire a professional preparer and let them do all the work, or you can be pro-active by preparing your own return first and then letting the experts take over. The second approach is a good way to learn how to prepare your own return, which is valuable in itself.
But, using one of the top income-tax software packages can usually save you a significant amount on CPA fees. That’s because if you prep your own paperwork first, you’ll usually pay a much lower preparer fee. Most CPAs, business attorneys, and other taxation experts have low-end fees for reviewing tax returns, as opposes to preparing them from scratch. Choose a product you can use as a stand-alone app on your computer rather than one that forces you to go through a service provider’s website.
Turning Your Life Insurance Policy into Cash
Most people have life insurance coverage but don’t know how to sell their policies if the need arises. Online financial calculators can come to your rescue. How? You can use a simple financial calculator to get a precise idea of how much your policy is worth. But, before doing anything else, make sure you understand the advantages and disadvantages of life settlements by checking a resource like apexlifesettlements.com. It’s essential to initially figure out whether you’re eligible to sell your policy and then know how to derive the maximum cash value from it.
Trading and Investing Technology
Do you invest a portion of your disposable income in the stock market? If so, you might already have a good idea of how trading software works. Some of the products in this niche can help you fully automate chores like selecting the best stocks, deciding how much money to allocate to each part of your portfolio, and understanding the tax implications of every trade you make.
As is the case with taxation software, there are three or four major players in this market, so be sure to read reviews and do free trials for the ones that interest you before buying. The beauty of using these high-tech apps and programs for stock investing is that you only have to pay for them once. After that, upgrades are usually free for life, or available to product owners for a very small fee.
