Personal finance can be tricky and intimidating, but Fearless Finance is here to help you get a grip on your money. The DC-based financial service recently launched an iOS and Android app to let users track and take control of their spending habits.
Money, and the pursuit of it, has has been named one of America’s top stressors by the American Psychological Association (APA) for more than a decade. In a 2017 APA report, money was listed second as the most common source of stress for Americans — only behind “the future of the nation."
Fearless Finance is a financial advisor platform that calculates a summary report through an algorithm that Atwood uses for her in-person clients. Atwood advises users to create a summary report on the platform once a year or when they experience a life change such as losing a job or having a baby. Users should track their spending on Fearless Finance app every few days.
The summary report shows users their current financial situation tracked against five points of financial security: cash flow secure, rainy day fund, emergency fund for total loss of income, retirement savings, and credit card debt. Users can also purchase a one-time summary report for $32.99.
Once users input their financial information, Fearless Finance provides specific recommendations for each user that can be implemented immediately to achieve their financial goals. The Fearless Finance web app and mobile tracking app are $6.99 per month or $59.99 per year.
“The system that I put together for my in-person clients works really well for an online platform,” Atwood said to DC Inno. “The key to the system is that there are no budgets — you only have to monitor two things to know that you’re okay.”
The app monitors monthly full discretionary spending and groceries. Full discretionary spending includes clothes, dining out and other entertainment. When users spend less than their grocery and discretionary spending targets, then they are on track toward their financial goals.
The easiest way to track your spending is by linking your bank card information to the app; however, it is not required. Users can manually input spending data into the app to monitor their progress.
“Most of my clients are between the ages of 25 and 45,” Atwood said. “My younger clients are super diligent and they are much better off linking their accounts because they don’t want to manually put in every transaction. When you link your accounts, it’s great.”
In a market flooded with other financial apps, Atwood said Fearless Finance is easy to understand. She currently works with private clients on retirement savings, planning, budgeting and forecasting. After spending more than 20 years as a financial planner and an investment banker, Atwood noticed there was a hole in the industry for easy-to-understand financial mobile apps.
“My clients would come to me with the app of the day and they still weren’t getting what they needed from it,” Atwood said. “Some of them weren’t getting what they needed from other apps because they didn’t understand what they were seeing.”
If popular financial management apps like Mint are a wrench, then Atwood says she's a plumber.
“If you know what you’re doing, then you can absolutely use a wrench to fix your sink. But, if you don’t know what you’re doing, the wrench may as well be a paperweight,” Atwood said.
