原文: HOW TO: Reorganize Finances Using Social Media

The current economic climate has been draining for everyone, both economically and mentally. You have probably been trying to stick to a budget and avoiding looking at that 401k statement for some time now. But this is a very difficult task - saving receipts, tracking expenses, controlling spending urges, and meeting goals for savings can be overwhelming. However, unlike past recessions, you have the advantage of digital information and social media to make this process a lot simpler.

When budgets, bills, and finances are all simply in a giant pile of clutter, taking a simple, digital approach to reorganization can not only work wonders on your finances, it can automate a lot of the tasks you tried to do on spreadsheets or with pen and paper. This ensures that every dollar is tracked and financial goals are actually met. Reorganizing personal finances using social media should occur in four phases: Assessment, learning, reorganization, and tracking.

First Phase: Assessment

 

Before touching your finances, it’s vital that you understand your current financial situation. How much is your actual debt? How much do you normally spend? And finally, what will you have to do to change your financial situation? It’s time to understand where your dollars are hiding.

The key to this phase is to lay out all of your finances so that you can eyeball them and know your current situation. Understanding that you spend 25% of your budget on shoes will help you understand where you need to cut spending. Here are some tools that can help you with this task:

Mint: Mint connects to your bank accounts and personal finances to lay out all of your spending and income in one place. It also has trends to see in what categories most of your spending occurs.

Wesabe: Wesabe has similar features to Mint, but also includes social aspects where other users provide insight and advice on saving money.

Rudder: Rudder allows for the assessment and management of finances right from the email inbox.

Second Phase: Education

 

Once you understand your financial situation, it’s time to get reacquainted with Personal Finance 101. One of the great things about social media is information sharing - use this to your advantage when educating yourself on personal finance topics. Blogs, news websites, and apps can all be mini-finance education classes. Here are some knowledge resources to get started:

Wise Bread’s Top 100 Personal Finance Blogs: The Wise Bread blog list is a great listing of blogs that discus personal finance topics. It comes from Wise Bread, a blog and forum-based community that discusses how to live on a small budget. Also check out Get Rich Slowly and The Simple Dollar.

Yahoo! Finance: Yahoo! Finance has some of the best news and resources on the markets and business finance. It has customizable portfolios and multiple news streams to cater to your financial interests. Google Finance is also a good Finance tool.

Save Benjis iPhone App: Save Benjis is a tool that educates you on prices by giving you price comparisons and information on good deals.

Third Phase: Reorganization

 

Now with some knowledge behind you, it’s time for the tough part - reorganization. Reorganizing finances means creating a budget and setting goals. In the past, this meant a paper budget, receipts, spreadsheets, and accountants. With social media, it means setting up a few accounts that can categorize finances and help you set new goals:

Freshbooks: Freshbooks is for freelancers and anybody that needs to organize invoices and time tracking. Even paper invoices can be created through Freshbooks.

BudgetTracker: BudgetTracker is a useful tool for organizing bills and tasks in the form of a calendar.

Mint: Mint is included in this step as well because of its superb budget system - set up budget line items and categories and Mint will show you where you’ve met your budget goals and where you’ve failed and by how much.

Final Phase: Tracking

 

Now that finances are in order, goals have been set, and budgets are aligned, you need to track all of that information and keep up-to-date. All of this work will be for nothing if you don’t put in a little effort to keep information current. Even worse, this is all useless if you forget to pay your bills. With that said, there are some great online tools for reminders:

Remember The Milk: Remember The Milk is a task and to-do management system. Use Remember The Milk to have monthly reminders sent to you about bills that are due - it can remind you of obligations via email, Twitter, IM, and SMS.

iXpenseIt iPhone App: iXpenseIt is an iPhone application that not only helps track budgets and daily expenses, but also stores photos of receipts and provides simple reports. It’s an all-in-one tracker in your pocket.

Stick With It

The toughest part of reorganizing personal finances is sticking with it. Hopefully this article gives you a good starting point towards fully harnessing the digital power of social media for financial stability. Finding ways to save and finding ways to control finances are essential to keeping your life organized.

译文: 如何利用社会媒介重组资金

当今经济氛围对每个人而言,都是劳命伤财的.你可能已经试过维持预算,很长时间不去查看你的401K帐户(401K帐户是美国于1981年创立的一种延迟纳税的退休金帐户，由于美国政府将相关规定明订在国税条例第401（K）条中，故简称为401（K）计划.).但是这是一个很艰巨的任务—保存收据,收支记录,抑制消费欲望,实现储蓄的目标会让你干戈、事倍功半.然而,不同于过去的经济萧条,如今你可以利用数字信息和社会媒介来使其变得简单得多.

当预算、帐单和资金都堆积如山、杂乱无章的时候,用一个简单的、数字化的途径来重组它们不仅能使将你的经济安排得井井有条,还能自动帮你处理一些你本来试着在电子表格上或者用笔和纸来完成的事情.这能确保你的每一分钱都记录在案,最终实现财务目标.利用社会媒介来重组个人资金需要经历四个步骤:核定、学习、重组、记录.

第一步:核定  

 

 当你着手处理你的财务之前,你必须了解你目前的财务情况.你究竟背负多少债务?你的正常开支是多少?最后,你要采取什么行动来改变你的财务状况?是时候了解你的钱藏在哪里了.

    这一步的关键是列出你所有的帐目,这样你就可以盯住它们,了解你目前的情况.当你知道你花了预算的25%来买鞋的话,你就知道缩减开支该从哪下手了.这里有一些工具来帮助你完成这个任务:

    Mint: Mint与你的银行帐户和个人财务相关联,在一处把你所有的收支都列出来.你还可以看到你在哪一类的开销最厉害.

    Wesabe: Wesabe跟Mint有着相似的特性,但是还包括 “社会方面”这个功能,在这一块区域中其他的用户会提出自己的展望和建议.

    Rudder: Rudder能够对来自电子邮箱中的财务情况进行核定和管理.

  第二步:教育

 

一旦你清楚你的财务状况,就要着手再熟悉<<个人金融>>的入门篇章.社会媒介最主要的事物之一是信息共享—当你学习个人金融的主题时,根据自身需要利用它.博客、新闻网站和组织机构都是迷你型经济教育课堂.这里有一些入门知识的信息来源:

Wise Bread’s Top 100 Personal Finance Blogs: Wise Bread blog list 是讨论个人财经问题的最大的博客列表.这来源于Wise Bread , 一个以博客和论坛为基础的讨论如何在较小预算下生活的社区.还可以查询Get Rich Slowly 和 The Simple Dollar.

Yahoo! Finance(雅虎!财经): Yahoo! Finance 拥有一些市场和商业财经上最好的新闻和资料.它拥有改制的投资组合和源源不断的多方位新闻来犒劳你的财经胃口. Google Finance 也是一个很好的财经工具.

Save Benjis iPhone App: Save Benjis 是一个给出价格对比和好交易的信息来教你如何把握好价格的工具.

 现在,储备好一定的知识以后,你可以开始这个艰难的部分了—重组.重组资金意味着创建一个预算,确立一个目标.在过去,这意味着一个纸上的预算、收据、电子表格和会计师.有了社会媒介,这将意味着建立一些帐目为你的资金进行分类,帮你设立新的目标:

Freshbooks: Freshbooks 是为自由职业者和任何那些需要整理发票和时间记录的人服务的.每一张发票都能通过Freshbooks来创建.

BudgetTracker: BudgetTracker 是一个以日历形式整理帐单和任务的有用的工具.  

Mint: Mint也包括在这一步中,因为它卓越的预算系统-设立分项预算和类别, Mint会展示给你在哪你实现了你的预算目标,而在哪你超出了预算以及超出的数量.  

最后一步:记录

 

现在资金已经排列有序,目标已经确立,预算已经校准完毕,你需要记录所有的信息并且日日更新.如果你不花点力气更新你的信息,一切将功亏一篑.更糟的是,如果你忘记支付你的帐单,这些都是没用的.关于这些,这里有些网上工具来帮着提醒你:

Remember The Milk: Remember The Milk 是一个任务加行动管理系统.可以使用Remember The Milk的功能把你的帐单每月发送给你—它能以电子邮件、Twitter(翻译过来中文的意思是：唧唧喳喳地讲话，它是一个可让你播报短消息给你朋友或跟随者的一个在线服务，在短时间里风靡全球)、即时传讯和短信的形式提醒你履行义务.  

iXpenseIt iPhone App: iXpenseIt 是一个iPhone应用程序.它不仅能帮助记录预算和日常开支,还储存收据的照片,提供简单的报告.它是你口袋里的多功能记录本.

持之以恒

重组个人资金最艰难的部分就是坚持.幸好,这篇文章为你走向利用社会媒介保持资金稳定的目标指出了一个好的起始点.把你的生活安排妥当的最关键的是找到方法来储蓄和控制住你的资金.