For a lot of people, managing money takes up a significant amount of time and effort. But thanks to automation, that need no longer be the case. There are now more options than ever before to put the whole process on autopilot, allowing you to get on with your life without having to constantly worry about transferring money from one account to another. Here’s how.

Automate Bill Payments, But Be Smart About It

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Perhaps the most obvious way in which to automate your finances is to automate regular bill payments, like student loan repayments, rent, and utilities. Automating these payments is generally a good idea because of the fact that failing to pay these bills can affect your credit score and, more damagingly, lead to legal action and repossession.

But there’s still a problem. Though the payments are automated, they’re not on full “autopilot.” What often happens is that people buy a product, sign up for recurring payments, and then forget that they purchased it. Thanks to direct debits, they continue to pay for it anyway, causing them to incur unnecessary costs.

The solution is to use bill-tracking tools. Tools like Truebill and Hiatus can keep an eye on your accounts and alert you of any recurring charges.

Automate Savings And Loans

According to personalloan.co, each person needs to find a way to balance their debt with their savings. Whereas in the past, this was a complicated process involving quite a bit of intuition and know-how, today the same process can be automated away.

For instance, suppose that you’re investing in a retirement account. Some people are lucky enough to save enough money to exceed the amount that they can regularly deposit into these accounts. As a result, some savings count as “taxable investments.”

There’s a trend at the moment for putting savings into different institutions from one’s checking account to make withdrawing money more difficult says businessinsider.com. But this adds unnecessary complexity to one’s personal finances. A much better solution is just to start following a budget and stick to it.

You can arrange automatic transfer switch your bank or credit union. There are also apps which help you to invest money automatically, like Acorn and Stash.

Use Card-Offers, Not Coupons

Couponing is a great way to save money in the here-and-now, but it’s also a time-consuming process. First, you have to go online or to magazines and find the coupons, and then remember to take them with you to the checkout, all of which takes time.

Card-linked offers are arguably far superior. Points build up on cards electronically, requiring minimal effort from the user. With card offers, there’s no need to go digging through your wallet, and no risk that your receipt will get thrown in the wash with your trousers.

Automate Donations

Do you make regular donations to charity? If so, it might be worth automating this too, especially if you want to spread your giving out over the course of the year. This actually helps nonprofits because it gives them a stable source of income they can use throughout the year, not just during peak season in December.