Financial Automation

By Lucas Caserez
Level Up Financial Planning

Every financially successful person I know uses automation as a part of their financial habits. Why is that the case? 

Simplifies your life: As your life becomes more complex, it takes more brainpower to keep everything orderly. Even simple decisions and tasks take up your brain’s bandwidth. Automating those simple items will streamline the rest of your life. 

Free up time: Every year that passes, we all tend to be busier and busier than the previous year. Yet, so many times we tell ourselves we’ll do something once we have more time. The easiest way to free up time is to automate your habits, financial and otherwise. 

Build strong habits: Automating your finances helps you do things that you’d otherwise avoid or delay implementing. Starting automatic savings at a challenging amount will gently force you to adjust your spending habits for the month. After a few months, you’ll get used to your new cash flow and it won’t be as challenging. 

Finances that you should automate:

• All loan payments
• Credit card payments (full statement balance is best)
• Savings
• Investments contributions
• Short-term goal savings (ex. Travel, gifting, weddings)
• All utilities
• Cell phone payments
• Insurance premiums
• Subscription services (remember to evaluate annually for use/value)

Lucas Casarez is a husband, father of two amazing kids, and a Certified Financial Planner™. He founded Level Up Financial Planning, which is one of the few fee-only financial planners in Northern Colorado. The mission of Level Up Financial Planning is to guide his clients in taking their financial confidence to the next level. 

Have a personal finance question you would like me to answer in a future week? E-mail askluketheplanner@gmail.com