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Resources

There are two types of Resources featured below: Financial Tools & Blog/Social Tools. 

FTC Note: this page includes affiliate links. If you use my link and purchase a service on a site mentioned here, I’ll get an affiliate payment. Thank you for considering supporting me through these links. 

 

FINANCIAL TOOLS

MyFico has many useful calculators from paying off credit cards to closing cost estimates on a mortgage refinance. 

Investor.gov has great calculators for investments and retirement related questions. 

 

BLOG & SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS

Instagram Graphics. I use Canva to design content for Pinterest and Instagram. They have a freemium model (free version and Pro paid version). I’m still learning how to automate and streamline content development. Canva has tons of templates. You can make an Instagram graphic and then copy and resize for Pinterest, and schedule the Pin with the Pro version. 

 

Hosting. I use Dreamhost for my WordPress-based site. I bought my domain through Dreamhost too and I believe paid $15.99 for a 3-year domain registration. Shop around and use the best price for your hosting. If you’re just starting out blogging, the basic option will usually suffice. Know that customer service matters too. I haven’t yet reached out for help, but I expect to if I have latency questions. I will continue to update this page with my experience.  

 

Online Shopping. I’m all about using a list and shopping with intention aka no impulse shopping! That said, I do use the Rakuten browser extension and it helps to bring in a little extra cash. I like to save up my summer and fall cash back and use it as an extra holiday gift sinking fund.

Around the holidays, especially Black Friday, retailers often have double or triple their usual cash back amounts. If you join with my link, once you spend $25 through a Rakuten link to a retailer, we each get $25 added to our Rakuten accounts. Payments are made quarterly; mine goes to my PayPal account. 

 

Responsible Credit Card Usage.

The only debt I have is our mortgage and a few more car payments. I am able to use credit cards with rewards programs responsibly because I can stick to our household and fun budgets, and pay them off in full. If you have credit card debt, do NOT open new ones. If you manage your money better with debit cards only, do not open credit cards just for signup bonuses. 

But, if you are able to use credit cards responsibly and plan to travel, even if to just drive and stay in hotels, this is a great card that’s new to me. Chase Sapphire Preferred has a signup bonus that’s now 100,000 points after spending $4,000. Consider using my referral link  if you are interested. I will get 20,000 points that  have monetary value when redeemed.