5 Ways You Can Use The Pulse App To Better Manage Your Finances

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Planning your finances for your life goals, while necessary, can be daunting. Depending on which stage of life you’re in, your personal goals and aspirations will be different. Also, because many of us own and use more than one bank account, credit card and investment account, it can also become difficult to keep track of our finances and understand our financial situation.

However, having a financial game plan with goals, sooner rather than later, is crucial especially if we want to achieve our dreams of retiring comfortably, and perhaps even, retiring early.

While there are a wealth of apps designed to keep track of our daily expenses and budgeting, few actually help us to think through our financial planning goals.

A recent addition to the Pulse app, Wealth@Pulse, provides solutions to make the financial journey simpler, letting users get started on planning their finances at different stages of their lives.

Here are 5 ways in which you can use Wealth@Pulse feature in the Pulse app to help better manage your finances, no matter where you are in life.

#1 Round the Clock Financial Support

Our financial matters can be a personal subject and some of us may have questions about finances that we may not be comfortable with asking or sharing with others.

Perhaps, you may be a young graduate with a few years of experience under your belt and may be looking at making your money work harder for you by investing. Or, now that you are earning a stable income, you plan to take on greater responsibility and contribute more back to the family. For young couples with children, you could be thinking of your children’s education and need help figuring out how much to set aside.

Regardless of where you are in life, Wealth@Pulse can support you through Ruby, your personal AI Digital Assistant. Simply tell Ruby how you want to start your financial journey and she can then support you with personalised suggestions based on your needs, goals and aspirations.

When you tap on Ruby, you’ll see 3 topics:

• Retirement
• Saving
• Enhance my experience

Say you’ve just started working and you want to save for a house. The app takes you through a guided process, asking you questions on how much savings you currently have, and how much you should target saving each month to hit your goal.

You can play around with the different options to get a realistic sense of how much you need to budget and save so that you’re on track to achieve your various goals.

#2 Track Your Financial Goals

It pays to think ahead. For those beginning their careers, setting financial goals is crucial as it can help ensure you have sufficient savings and grow your wealth to protect yourself and your loved ones for a better peace of mind.

This Goal Setting feature can help you set and track your financial goals and provide personalised planning suggestions for you based on the information that you provide.

Let’s say you have a 3-year-old child, and you want to save for his university education. University fees don’t come cheap and by the time your child turns 18, the fees will be higher than what it is today.

For example, we assume a three-year course costs about $40,000. You can input the figure to find out how much you need to save each month to hit that amount. In this case, it’s $224.26/month as the most achievable amount for you to save for the duration of 134 months. The app also gives you options for easy and challenging target amounts. By the time your child turns 18 in 2036, you would have already saved enough to cater for this expense if you are able to fulfill the monthly savings amount.

#3 Bird’s Eye View of Your Overall Financial Health

One of the reasons why financial planning is perceived to be complex is because there are quite a few things to keep track of.

For Prudential customers, the 360 View dashboard gives you an overall view of all your Prudential insurance plans across protection and savings and investments so that you can easily see what you have already covered and what aspects there may be a gap in and make plans to cover your needs accordingly.

This comes in especially useful for young working adults who are just getting started on their financial planning and may be inundated with all the different types of financial products that they have to keep track of.

If you do not yet have an investment plan, you can consider getting started with a policy and thereafter, track and manage your investment plans with Prudential.

Families can also benefit from this nifty feature and start planning for their children’s coverage and savings needs and to manage all of it on the app. This way, you have a holistic overview of the different areas of your life through the app.

For those who are preparing to enjoy a well-deserved retirement, the dashboard’s overview of your existing policies allows you to keep track of and stay on top of your desired financial goals.

#4 Improve Your Financial Knowledge

Knowledge is power, the old adage goes. This is especially so when it comes to financial planning. Yet, a lot of this crucial information is difficult to read and understand, and sometimes dry and boring to read.

Thankfully, you can find an abundance of financial education resources about a wide variety of topics from savings and investments to spending wisely under Wealth@Pulse.

For beginners, you can find topics such as investing basics to help you get started on building your investment portfolio. For young parents, there are also topics for parents such as how to teach your kids to manage their money, including a Money Parenting Guide and even Cha-Ching, a financial literacy programme designed for 7- to 12-year-olds. For more seasoned investors, there are also topics on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing should you wish to find out more.

With a variety of topics for beginners to parents, Wealth@Pulse’s financial knowledge resources can provide you with a wealth of information at your fingertips.

#5 Make Use of the Budgeting Tool

One new useful feature within Wealth@Pulse is the budgeting tool. It allows you to track your expenses to manage your spending across a variety of categories including Utilities and Mobile expenses, Groceries, Shopping, Entertainment and more.

Based on your monthly spending, you can set a budget target based on how much you spend in each category. As you input your actual spending, the app shows you how much of your budget you have left. You can also input your recurring transactions for each month such as mobile phone, utilities, insurance payments, etc. This way, you get to keep an eye on where your money goes each month and stay on top of your spending so that you don’t exceed your budget.

Financial Planning Made Simple and Convenient

Financial planning can seem daunting and difficult for some to start the journey. Yet, it is an important and necessary undertaking, no matter what stage of life you’re in. Wealth@Pulse makes planning your finances that much simpler. It can help you get started by taking small steps towards planning for life’s milestones, identifying gaps in your financial planning and providing you with helpful suggestions based on your goals and preferences.

And of course, remember that you don’t need to undertake this journey alone. Just hit the Call Me Back button on the app and leave your number for one of Prudential’s trusted Financial Consultants to get in touch with you for an in-depth conversation on your financial planning.

Keen to get started? You can find Wealth@Pulse on the Pulse by Prudential app. Download the Pulse app today.

This article is for your information only and does not have regard to the specific investment objectives, financial situation and particular needs of any persons. Information is accurate as at 24 November, 2021, unless otherwise indicated.