The Smart Money Awards highlights the latest innovative solutions for all your money management troubles. Whether you're looking to cut big purchases into to bite-size payments or support for your small business, there's an app for all that! Lauren Ianotti, editor in chief of Real Simple, joined Cheddar News to discuss.

Cheddar's News Wrap

'Smart Money Awards' Highlights Apps to Make Your Finances Easier

Welcome back to Chester's News drop if you're looking for smart and realistic solutions to make your life easier when it comes to personal finance problems look no further because the Smart Money Awards is highlighting all of the latest innovative solutions for all your money management troubles, whether you're looking to cut big purchases into to bite size payments or get accounts accounting, support for your small business, there's an app for all that and more joining me now to discuss is Lauren Kennedy editor in Chief of Real Simple Lauren welcome to the show, I'm so intrigued. What are the Smart Money Awards? Why does Real Simple put it all together for you? Well, thanks so much for having me first of all. Um so yes, Real Simple is all about practical solutions for our readers who are mostly women. We welcome all readers of all genders to our to the table, but mostly women and we help them with solutions, money solutions every single issue, we have financial content, personal finance content in every single issue. Um and we annually do our Smart Money Awards which is our big package to test out all the new financial products and bring them the best of the best. There were eight categories 32 winners. As I understand, we're going to highlight some of your favorites, let's start with the banking category, what banking app to our viewers need and tell me why? Well, so let me first of all say that we outsource a lot of the a lot of the help for this. We have an independent panel of financial professionals who do a lot of this stuff for us. We ask all the banks, all the big companies, smaller companies look around for what the new apps are and evaluate hundreds of them. And yes, we broke it down to 32 have a couple that I want to highlight here that I'm excited about and there are tons more in the issue that your readers that your viewers can pick up if they want to check them out. But what I love is majority um it is basically banking for also a lot of immigrants and refugees come to this country and they actually can't get a bank account because they don't have citizenship. Majority opens the opens the tent up to refugees and immigrants and all. Um it's digital only, it's a banking service, it's $5 a month. All you need is a government issued I. D. From whatever country you're from from improve of residency here and you've got a bank account. And what I love especially about this is that one of our reviewers was an immigrant herself 20 years ago and could not get a bank account. And now she is a financial professional and an expert and she thought this was one of the coolest things. It sounds pretty cool. There's also an app that rewards users for earth friendly purchases. I absolutely love this. Tell us more. Don't you love it. So what, you know, we all think of sort of sustainability as a markup right? It costs more to be earth friendly and that can be a deterrent for some people. So here's a card, it's the future card from Visa and it rewards you for all eco friendly purchases. And what's especially cool about it is it like includes things like plant based meat, it includes Renting, you know city bikes or renting, you know bike rentals, it includes charging, charging, you know, going to the charging station for your car. Um really it's like a very broad and you get 5% back for all of these things so really it ends up netting you out like a little bit better on being eco friendly. It encourages it if you're already there it's gonna get you some cash back. It's great. There's also an apps reward that we were talking about. Speaking of credit card rewards, what are some of the most surprising credit card benefits, people should know about that. They simply don't. So when you're going to get a credit card, please do your research because there's a card out there that's just for you and has certain benefits that you wouldn't necessarily get. For example, Bank of America has a card that gets you access to access to 200 museums around the country and that's that's saving. Like if you try to take your family to a museum, it really adds up. So it's that includes like the met in new york and philadelphia Museum of Art and so many others? Um American Express has this um has a card that gives you $200 for writing for Uber's per year, which is really cool because that also adds up. Or if you're a vinyl file you can get a Visa signature card and it'll get they partner with 50 different wineries in Sonoma and it'll get you like, you know, free tasting upgrades and discounts on the wine. I mean it ends up being worth it for you. Yeah, just the Uber alone I think would help me a lot. So what healthy habits can people develop to use credit cards wisely safely and of course to their advantage. Right? So say it with me now do not charge what you cannot pay off at the end of the month. Um that is the main thing no matter what those points, you know, you hear the siren song of those points calling for you and you want to charge a big thing. Only if you can pay it off and if you can, it's great charge it and then you know use your, use your, you know pay it off and use your bank, banking accounts paid off and then you have you get those points but only if you can um no your limitations. No. Um you know know what your, what you what you can afford and what you can't afford and don't go overboard. Um and then I would say leverage those benefits and that's not just points. So what other benefits sneaky benefits does your card have? Do you have an Amex that actually covers um rental car insurance always use that Amex then because then you don't have to pay additionally for the rental car insurance and your ex protected. You have a check, you can check the fine print on your cards, you can call your credit card company. It may offer roadside assistance, it may offer rental, it may offer travel protection, fraud monitoring protection, find those things because those things are totally cool and worth it very quickly 30 seconds if you can in general, what are some of the best people that can organize their money? What are some of the like the best kind of types of people that can do that the the everyone. Um I think you know for me I'm very type a and I want to be in control of everything you know and I, what you have to do is sort of learn to love your money and want to control it. And there are a myriad apps that will help you do that. They are out there. Pick up the issue, we have all kinds of idea for you. It will help you feel more empowered because you have control of your finances and the smart people are out there. They're already benefiting from all these things. Be one of them. Don't let the points go away. Don't let the rewards go away, grab them up and enjoy them. I love that Lauren and Adi editor in chief of Real Simple. Thank you so much.