If you are looking for financial advice, you probably don’t have money just lying around to be spent.  There’s a lot you can do before you shell out for a financial advisor! So, how can you get that advice for free? Here are five different websites with excellent financial advice available at no cost.

Rockstar Finance

Subscribe to Rockstar Finance to get your feet wet in a little of everything financial. Rockstar Finance has a great blog, a list of money saving challenges to consider, book reviews on great financial reads, and a whole slew of reviews and information on financial apps and services. Whatever you are looking for, they probably have right on their website free of cost.

How Do I Money

Check out this awesome finance website for great blogs, podcasts, books and more. One thing that makes them unique is their video series on Budgeting; definitely worth giving a watch. How Do I Money also offers four money spreadsheets on their site that help with budgeting, dealing with debt, saving money and more. These sheets are a great tool for those trying to get a better handle on their finances. Print them off and use them each month as you budget.

Making Sense of Cents

If you want to make sense of money, this is the blog for you! Michelle has a consistent blog that covers a wide variety of topics: saving money, making extra income, paying off debt, and tips for traveling. She loves to travel, and gives expansive advice on how to do that while sticking to your budget. If you have struggled in the past with your personal finances, this blog has plenty of tips explaining what you could be doing wrong and how to turn things around. Check out 15 Reasons You’re Broke and Can’t Save Money for a personal favorite of mine.

Stefanie O’Connell

Stefanie is an expert on helping millennials become personal finance professionals. Her blog and videos are interesting and informative, covering topics such as “Three Mental Roadblocks to Making More Money” and “3 Ways to Earn a Pay Raise.” If you’re a millennial looking to achieve financial greatness and to be money savvy, she’s the gal for you!

Burke Does

I may be slightly biased, but Emilie Burke has some great financial advice. (Yep, that’s me.) My website offers tons of free advice that will help you get your budget on track and find better ways to save money. Burke Does is a lifestyle blog that specializes in personal finances and millennial struggles. I write about the balance between overcoming debt, staying healthy and enjoying life along the way. Check out my latest blog, Knowing Your Why When Paying Down Debt, to discover the importance of knowing your motivation while freeing your life from the weight of debt.

Bonus Tip

Pinterest has tons of resources for financial advice. A little searching can lead you to endless financial tips and tricks to help you save money and budget well.

Whether you’re started a fund for emergencies, splurged on a trip you’ve been dying to take, or paid down debt; Digit is the money saving resource for you. Besides the fact that Digit is completely free to use; what I found most appealing about Digit was you can move your savings to other accounts (for investments or retirement) as often as you wish! Digit also automatically figures out when and how much is safe to save based on your lifestyle. It doesn’t require you to figure out an arbitrary amount to transfer every month. I’m sure you are thinking, is this app safe? The answer is yes, extremely safe. Digit takes state of the art security measures. When you enter your personal information, it is encrypted, anonymized and securely stored. If you still have some precautions, rest assure that the funds held within Digit are FDIC insured up to a balance of $250,000. Now do you feel better? Last thing you need to know before we get into the set-up process and fun facts, Digit is only available in the U.S for now. Good news for our foreign friends is that they are hoping to expand in the future!

Now let’s get down to the 10 facts and steps to start your savings:

1. PSA: You do not need a savings account to sign up with Digit.
2. Digit is completely free to download and sign up! You can find the apps in both the Apple Store and Google Play.
3. Connect to your checking account. Digit will analyze your income and spending and find small accounts of money it can set aside for you. The nice thing about Digit is they won’t store your blank log in!
4. At this time, Digit supports of 2,000 banks and credit unions.
5. Digit saves a little every week. Every 2 to 3 days Digit will transfer some money usually $5-$50 from your checking to your Digit savings account. The nice thing is they will never transfer more than you can afford.
6. Don’t be alarmed when you see “Hello Digit Inc.” on your bank statement, that’s just Digit moving funds from one account to another.
7. Don’t worry about over drafting your account with Digit. Their math skills and ability to identify money you can afford to save is so strong that if they do over draft your account they will cover the fee!
8. You can purchase your savings at ANYTIME! It’s as easy as sending a text messages to Digit and your money will be in your checking account by the next business day! There’s no minimums, no fees and they allow unlimited transfers.
9. Every 3 months you will receive “saving bonuses”. You’ll receive 5 cents for every $100.
10. Digit will send you text updates to let you know your current account balance and how much you have in savings.

The app is simple, just sign up and let Digit handle the rest!

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I love the beginning of the new year. There’s just something about turning the calendar over that revitalizes me. To me, the new year symbolizes a fresh start. Even if the previous year was tough, there’s always hope that things will be better next year. Every December, I outline my goals for the next year in various areas of my life. One of the areas I focus on, and will especially be focusing on in the upcoming year, is my finances. Unfortunately, towards the end of 2016, I fell off track and had to drain my emergency fund as well as acquire new debt by purchasing a new (to me) car. So, where do I even begin with setting my financial goals for next year? Below are some tips on how you can prioritize your financial goals for the upcoming year.

Assess your situation.

Take an honest look at your finances over the past year. In what areas did you excel and in what areas did you come up short? In this step, I look strictly at the “big picture.”

Set a budget for the upcoming year.

This step is key, because without budgeting you can’t meet your goals. I look at my budget spreadsheets from the entire previous year and determine in what areas I overspent and under-spent. If I’ve overspent in a particular area continuously, I ask myself how I can reduce my expenses in that area, and if that is not possible, I adjust my budget to account for the increased expense. I also look at my calendar and make notes on events that will require a budget adjustment, such as buying birthday or holiday presents or traveling. Of course part of the key of budgeting is being flexible, but preparing in advance for adjustments (when possible) is incredibly helpful!

Look at the “baby steps.”

Although I don’t always agree with everything Dave Ramsey teaches, I think his baby steps are a great guideline on setting financial priorities.

Do you have a mini-emergency fund of $1,000-$2,500? If not, make it a goal to fund your mini-emergency fund this year. Having a mini-emergency fund was critical when I had car issues because it prevented me from charging car repairs on my credit card.

If you’ve already established your mini-emergency fund, then take a look at all debts you owe and make it a goal to pay off debt in the upcoming year. I personally use the debt snowball method, which is lining up your debts from the smallest amount to the largest amount and paying off the smallest amount first, regardless of interest rate. It’s very motivating as you pay off a debt!

Once you’ve paid off all debt (minus your mortgage), fully fund your emergency fund. At a minimum you should save 3-6 months of expenses in your emergency fund, but I personally prefer to save 9-12 months.

Then, begin planning for retirement. Determine when you would like to retire and the amount of money you will need to live comfortably in your retirement.

Determine how much money you can put toward your goal each month.

I budget using a zero-based budget, which means every dollar gets a purpose. So, at the beginning of the year, I determine an average amount per month that I can put towards my goal. If you’re in the emergency fund or debt payoff stages, you may want to put extra penny towards that goal, while if you’re funding retirement you may want to put 10%-15% of your paycheck towards it.

There has been a sea change in the supply/demand balance in the crude oil market which has surprised even some of the largest players. The change has helped push oil prices to a 7-month high, and prices could continue to climb if the trajectory of the declines continue. In the latest week, inventories began to decline, predicated on lower production and a gap in imports. The number of drilling rigs also continued to drop in the latest week dipping by ten to the lowest level seen in the past 30-years.

Output has been reduced in a number of areas including Canada. The wild fires that spread near the tar sands was a strong catalyst for the lack of recent output. The current reduction in Canadian crude oil output is due not to direct damage from the fires in Alberta, but more of a function of the evacuation of oil workers from Fort McMurray. Oil sands operations may be seriously reduced by the unavailability of staff in the coming days and week. Many employees are without homes and unable to return to the area which will put a significant strain on output. Slightly more than 50% of the oil output produced in Canada is from tar sands.

Unplanned production output has reached a 5-year high according to the Energy Information Administration. It has moved quickly enough for investment bank Goldman Sachs to change their short term outlook on oil prices. They claim that the global has moved from a robust surplus to a deficit in very short order which could continue to drive the price of oil higher. One caveat is that oil prices above 50 per barrel will bring U.S. producers back into the market place. The hydro-fracking producers can move online very quickly, and levels above 50 might entice them to come aboard.

OPEC is the real wildcard when it comes to outages. Since 2012, unplanned crude oil supply disruptions among OPEC producers have accounted for the majority of the outages according to a recent report from the Department of Energy. These outages, which increased annually between 2011 and 2015, and have averaged about 2.7 million barrel a day in 2015. The stoppage of production at the Wafra and Khafji fields in the Neutral Zone straddling Saudi Arabia and Kuwait caused, on average, an additional 0.4 million barrel a day in outages during 2015. With the exception of Iran, the issues underpinning the outages in most of these cases remain largely unresolved.

Demand in the United States has also continue to surprise to the upside. Low gasoline prices have pushed demand at the pump up a robust 5% on a year over year basis. The unofficial driving season begins in the U.S. on Memorial Day which will likely further boost gasoline demand. Demand has recovered after a relatively weak winter which say distillate demand drop more than 15% on a year over year basis. The weather was the main catalyst for the decline in heating oil demand.

In evaluating the fundamentals of oil, the real question for crude oil investors is whether the trajectory of the recent declines will continue pushing inventories lower and back into the 5-year range. If there continues to be unplanned maintenance this is likely to happen as imports stall and U.S. production continues to drop.

Many of the trading platforms out there nowadays offer options to leverage trades. While on the surface it may seem like a no brainer – the decision on whether or not you should actually leverage trades is actually very important and should be given a lot of careful consideration.

“What is Leverage?”

Essentially ‘leverage’ refers to the practice of ‘borrowing’ funds to invest based on the capital that you have already deposited into your account. The exact amount that you’re able to borrow will depend on your current balance as well as the ratio of leverage.

For example, if you have a balance of $1,000 and a leverage ratio of 50:1 then you’ll essentially be able to invest up to $50,000 (since you’re ‘borrowing’ $50 for every $1 that you have).

The reason why leverage has become commonplace in the financial world is that it allows investors to place bigger trades – which is generally a nice benefit to have. That being said, there are risks involved too.

Risks of Leverage

At first glance, leveraging trades may seem like a great idea. After all, you’ll be able to place bigger trades and make more profits – which is definitely going to appeal to any trader. However you need to remember that leverage can cut both ways, and while bigger trades can mean more profits, they can also mean greater losses too.

For example, if you have a balance of $1,000 and you were to make a trade and end up losing 2% then you’d be left with a balance of $980. In short, you would’ve lost $200, which is painful, but not devastating. On the other hand if you’d leveraged your $1,000 balance at 50:1 and made a trade of $50,000 – then losing 2% would mean a loss of $1,000, which is your entire balance.

To put it simply, you could accumulate heavy losses by leveraging your trades if you aren’t careful.

When to Leverage

The most common market on which leverage is employed is the forex market. Because most movements (particularly in short term trades) tend to be small, leveraging a balance is a way to maximize the result of the trade. Needless to say, you are still at risk of making a relatively big loss – but it is less than in more volatile markets.

If you do want to leverage your trades then it would be best to test the waters a bit first. By choosing a platform that you’re comfortable with such as ETX Capital, you can make several trades without leverage and see how much you profit or lose, and if the results are encouraging you can try to leverage your investment. Just be sure to keep an eye on how much you’re actually risking, and be ready to cut your losses if things go south. All said and done it is better to bite the bullet and accept a small loss, than end up losing your entire capital and being unable to recover.

A terminal illness is never a pleasant feeling. All the stress and pain that comes with it makes money the last thing on your mind. But you have to discuss some important financial issues before the worst happens. This article will show you what you need to do to plan for terminal family members.

What Goes Where?

The first item on the agenda should be the will. Hopefully, your terminal family member already has one in place. But even if they do, if they are of sound mind and body they should have the opportunity to make any last-minute changes, if they so desire. It can take over a year in court to reclaim belongings if there’s no will. Without a will, the US government claims the items until the family members can come forward via the justice system. Naturally, this is costly and time-consuming.

Any Dependents?

Dependents are a big issue. For example, an elderly grandparent taking care of a grandson or granddaughter may need to send them to someone upon their deaths. This should be planned ahead of time, but if you are still early on in the process it’s good to talk about this now. Dependents should be helped to make the transition as early as possible. You also need to address the financial side of things, such as how much the new guardians will receive towards the cost of their upkeep.

Wrapping Up Medical Fees

The chances are you’re facing a bill when your family member finally passes on. This bill will come to the surviving family members, who will have to find the money from the deceased’s estate. Make sure there is ample cash set aside to ensure that these bills can be paid. You should also look into any existing insurance policies for help with paying medical fees. Take note that most medical care programs only cover a certain amount of your treatment, so make sure you are aware of this so you don’t receive any nasty surprises later.

What about the Funeral?

The cost of dying is now well into thousands of dollars. Again, this will have to come out of your pocket. Your relative should have some form of funeral or burial insurance to cover the costs. If they do, check to see what their package covers. They may only cover certain types of funeral, or they may only account for part of the cost. Burial insurance exists specifically for funeral costs, so it’s worth looking into this as early as possible.

Debts 

You should be made aware of any outstanding debts well in advance of the person’s death. These debts may or may not be passed on to surviving family members. Check the terms and conditions of each debt to see whether this applies or not. Ideally, the person should be able to pay their debts out of the costs of their estate.

Conclusion

Financial planning is tough at such a difficult time. But it’s a vital part of the process of saying goodbye. Make sure you aren’t surprised by a large bill because you didn’t plan in advance. Discuss these issues today.