By Jim Fecca, Penn Community Bank Director of Deposit Services
Imagine that you need to travel to a place youโve never been before. Itโs far away and the trip is going to take some time. Do you head out of your front door and expect to arrive at your destination, even though youโve got no map and youโve made no plans?
Of course you wouldnโt.
Unfortunately, too many people face their financial futures without a map and without a plan. But at Penn Community Bank, we give you the cutting-edge tools to help develop a road map that will ensure that you reach your financial destination.
Next-Gen Personal Finance Tools
Penn Community Bank is excited to offer our customers access to MX Money Management, an award-winning financial management platform that harnesses the power of data to help people make better financial decisions.
Created by financial data analytics firm MX, this free software platform is available to all Penn Community Bank online banking users. It eliminates the need for spreadsheets and simplifies your financial life. No more juggling paper statements or logging into several accounts at multiple financial institutions.
With MX Money, you can:
- Connect all your financial accounts in one place, including credit cards, loans or personal savings and checking accounts with other financial institutions, and even investment accounts.
- Track and categorize your spending, so you can clearly see where your money is going every month.
- Auto-generate a budget based on prior spending, which you can then fine-tune each month.
- Forecast debt payoff, using traditional or โdebt snowballโ methods. Calculate how quickly you can become debt free and how much you can save by snowballing debt payments.
- Anticipate future cash flow by populating a chart or a calendar with upcoming bill payments, paychecks, and more.
- Set financial goals on a timeline, including paying off individual debts; saving for an emergency fund, college tuition, or a new car; and saving for retirement.
- Analyze and then track over time your net worth, which is the total value of everything you own minus everything you owe; net worth is the single most important indicator of overall financial health.
Use a Budget to Make Better Financial Decisions
MX Money Management helps people improve their financial well-being, from paying down debt to saving for a home to planning for retirement. The platform collects the data of your financial life, enriches it and presents it in easy-to-understand charts and graphs. That data then enables users to act upon the information to make better decisions regarding their personal finances.
Most people know that itโs a good idea to take a clear-eyed look at how much money is coming in each month and how much is going out to mortgage payments, the electric bill and gas for the car. We know that following a monthly budget will help us make better spending decisions. Unfortunately, fewer Americans today are doing that. A recent survey conducted for the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) found that only about 4 out of 10 Americans reported following a budget each month in 2018, about a 20 percent drop from the nearly 6 out of 10 who reported doing so in 2015.
Setting up a budget is one of the keys to maximizing the benefits of MX Money Management. A budget is like a roadmap that tells your money where to go. Thankfully, the days of sitting down with a yellow legal pad, a pencil, and a calculator are long gone. MX Money makes it quick and easy to start a budget, to adjust budget amounts on the fly, and to track your spending as the month goes on. The website portal and banking app allow you to monitor your spending and compare it to your budgeted amounts in real time, making it easy to stay on course.
Whether your goal is to get out of debt, buy a home, or retire with dignity, the only way to reach those financial destinations is to make a plan and stick to it. Fortunately, MX Money Management gives you the tools you need to get there. Simply log into your online banking portal and click on โMoney Management,โ found under โManage Moneyโ in the top navigation bar.ย To access MX Money Management via our Mobile App simply click on the โMoreโ menu.
To learn more or for questions about MX Money Management, call the Penn Community Bank Customer Care Center at 215.788.1234.
