Sometimes we become overly focused on the general idea of something and forget about the little details that could “make or break” it. This applies absolutely to our finances. It’s undoubtedly tempting to continuously improve our financial standing – either by adding new income streams or evolving existing ones – but there are constant risks involved and our financial protection must be on a par with those efforts.
Below I’ve attempted to provide 5 reasonable-to-use tools for your personal financial protection.
1. Password managers
The first and not-so-obvious tool is a password manager. The idea behind it is simple: in today’s digital world, we use a plethora of mobile and online applications for banking, asset management, investing, etc. It’s not rare for people to store their passwords in documents or even on sticky notes (which doesn’t need a risk assessment). Password managers allow users to seamlessly store all their passwords in one secure location that allows easy access and maintenance.
2. Insurance
We rarely think of bad scenarios and what could happen if something were to go wrong. In reality, there’s a lot that could go wrong in terms of personal finances, and it doesn’t always depend on us and our actions. Apart from malicious activities from third parties, there’s also the possibility of a natural disaster, an economic crisis, even a global pandemic; all of those could affect our financial standing in a very negative way.
One of the best instruments for protecting our personal finances against those factors is insurance. If chosen wisely, an insurance policy might give us much more than peace of mind when it comes to mitigating the risks to our personal finances.
3. Digital asset registers and secure digital vaults
In today’s modern and dynamic world, we have so many assets in so many different platforms – bank accounts, realty, stocks, cryptocurrencies, collectibles; even online content from entertainment applications is considered an asset. It’s easy to forget about some of them, which brings an obvious risk to their value and worth.
That’s where asset cataloging applications come in handy. They allow you to place whatever information you choose about your assets in one secure place, making it that much easier to use it and maintain it.
4. Digital Estate Planning and Wills
Your finances need protection even after you’re not around. Yes, in most (if not all) countries, there are inheritance laws; depending on where you are, the process of your beneficiaries inheriting your assets might be long and complicated.
Estate planning is a set of activities that helps you ease those processes by determining the beneficiaries of your assets. That way, you’ll save your loved ones a small fortune in court proceedings and taxes.
5. Digital inheritance applications
Digital inheritance tools come as the next step in the evolution of asset management and estate planning instruments. Knowing where your assets are, easily making use of the information you have on them, and planning your estate aren’t enough to ensure your loved ones are protected.
Digital inheritance applications allow their users to assign beneficiaries to their assets. This means if something were to happen to the asset holder, the application would notify the beneficiaries, giving all parties involved peace of mind right when they need it the most.
Bonus tool – 2FA
The last recommendation is not so much one tool as a functionality within almost all online tools we use nowadays. Most of us use mobile (or desktop) applications for managing a large part of our finances, whether it’s online banking, trading stocks, or investing in cryptocurrencies. 2-factor authentication has been an industry standard for a while in all of those interactions, and more.
The idea is simple: instead of relying on a single point of authentication (your password), upon logging into a service, you’re prompted to verify that it’s you by performing an action on another device or in another service (usually, either authorizing the login via your phone or entering a one-time password/OTP that you have received).
There’s never a guarantee involved in this, but employing this readily available resource can only benefit you in terms of keeping your accounts safe.
So many different aspects to financial protection… isn’t there an easier way?
As a matter of fact, there is! DGLegacy is a one-of-a-kind application that allows for asset cataloging, password management, and digital inheritance – all in one place! Our members have at their disposal numerous tools for personal financial protection that easily get them started with cataloging their assets and passwords in one secure location. It also provides them with the ultimate peace of mind when it comes to unforeseen events; it’s unbelievably easy to make sure their loved ones are notified accordingly about their assets if something were to happen to them.
