Microsoft

9 Ways Siri Can Be Your Personal Finance Assistant

Tim Lemke — Fri, 26 Aug 2016 10:30:15 +0000

We're still a few years away from having personal robot assistants, but voice-activated applications on most modern smartphones are already making our lives easier. Apps like Apple's Siri or Microsoft's Cortana can be helpful in a number of ways, and are particularly useful as personal finance helpers.

I personally use Siri a lot to help me stay on track with my finances, and I am always surprised at how much the app can help me get information without the need to even type or search the web myself.

Siri won't make you rich, but it can help you be smarter about your finances without a lot of work. Check out these personal finance tasks that Siri and similar apps can help you with.

1. Check Stocks

It's easy to use Siri to track the performance of your investments or the overall stock market. Just say, "I need the stock price for Apple," and Siri will tell you the price and the daily movement. It's also an easy way to check on the ticker symbol.

2. Helping You Calculate the Best Bargain

Quick, what's a better deal? Three 20-ounce cans of juice for $6, or four 24-ounce cans for $9? To find out, you'll need to calculate prices on a per-ounce basis. Asking Siri to perform some simple math will help you learn that the second deal is a little bit better.

3. Driving Directions

Yes, accurate driving directions can help you with your finances. That's because you can plan trips to ensure the shortest route, thus saving you gas. You can also find routes to avoid tolls and bad traffic.

4. Finding the Nearest ATM

You need cash right away, but you'd rather not go to the first ATM you see, because it may not be tied to your bank. To avoid a fee, you can ask Siri to find you the nearest branch of your bank or a surcharge-free ATM.

5. Research Food Ingredients

When you're at the grocery store, you may come across products that like to tout certain ingredients, and you sometimes pay a premium for them. ("Sweetened with agave nectar!") Before you buy, you may want to do a little bit of research on what these ingredients are and whether they are worth paying extra for. Siri and similar apps can help you with this.

6. Set Reminders

You never want to be late paying your bills, and you don't want to be charged for missing things like doctor's appointments. You can use Siri to remind you of important things. All you need to do is tell Siri what you want to be reminded about, and when. ("Remind me to finish this article for Wise Bread at 10 p.m.") There's even location-based reminders, like "Remember to mail the mortgage check when you are near the post office." You can also use Siri to adjust or create to-do lists on your phone.

7. Figure Out Tips

What's 18% of $43.95? And how can you split that four ways? Siri can help you. Siri will even know local taxes, to help you calculate checks before they even come.

8. Find Out How Much Things Cost

Using Siri, you can look up pricing information for a wide range of products. If you simply ask "Find me prices for a Toyota Corolla," it will provide you MSRP and invoice prices, plus other related charges, and even shows a chart with historical price information. It's still not easy to do true comparison shopping, but you'll learn enough to know if a particular store is trying to rip you off.

9. Find Budgeting Apps

If you need some extra personal finance help from your smartphone, Siri can help you find it. A simple query like, "Find me some budgeting apps," will give you a list of saving and money management apps from the app store.

How do you use Siri or Cortana or Google Now to help you stay on top of your finances?

Like this article? Pin it!

This article is from Tim Lemke of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

10 Stocks Every Recent Grad Should Own

Tim Lemke — Fri, 24 Jun 2016 09:30:19 +0000

If you're just fresh out of college, you may be broke and not yet in a position to invest. But if you find a little extra cash, or are fortunate enough to be gifted some stock as a graduation gift, there are a number of great options that have a great track record of solid performance.

These are stocks that have rarely let investors down over the course of decades, and they often pay great dividends, too.

If there's a list of stocks that recent grads should consider owning, these 10 should be included.

Microsoft [Nasdaq: MSFT]

Bill Gates' old company made headlines recently when it bought the professional networking site LinkedIn. It's now a massively diverse tech firm with PCs, tablets and phones, software, and a popular video game system.

Coca-Cola [NYSE: KO]

Yes, we know that America is supposed to be moving away from sugary drinks. But this company has managed to sell a ton of Coke while diversifying its product line to include everything from Dasani water, to Powerade and Honest Tea. Coca-Cola shares have been in positive territory for eight straight years, and with a market cap of nearly $200 billion, it's likely a long-term winner.

Apple [Nasdaq: AAPL]

Shares of this technology company have dipped about 20% in the last year, but that's all the more reason to consider buying now. This is still one of the largest, most influential and inventive companies out there. Chances are, if you are a recent college grad, you use Apple products. So go with what you know, and reap the financial rewards. (Disclosure: I own some shares of Apple.)

Facebook [Nasdaq: FB]

Okay, full disclosure: I bought some shares of Facebook stock a while back, and I have no complaints. Shares are up more than 40% in the last year, as the company continues to bust through earnings predictions. Facebook has 1.65 billion active users, and the company could vault to new heights with recent investments into virtual reality. Social media may be a fad, but Facebook will be here to stay.

Procter and Gamble [NYSE: PG]

Do you wash your clothes and your dishes? Do you brush your teeth? Do you use paper towels? P&G sells products that people all over the world use every day. This is one of those stocks you can practically "set and forget" and see a very solid return nearly every year. A dividend yield of more than 3% doesn't hurt, either.

AT&T [NYSE: T]

Admittedly, this is not the most exciting stock in the universe. But it's reliable, with a good dividend and not much volatility. AT&T recently hit a 52-week high amid reports that it's bidding for some of Yahoo's assets. But any share growth is a bonus for this company that's now dishing out a 4.8% dividend yield. (Disclosure: I own shares of AT&T, gifted to me in the 1990s!)

Johnson & Johnson [NYSE: JNJ]

Like P&G, Johnson & Johnson is a dividend aristocrat, meaning that it has paid out and increased its dividend every year for 25 straight years. This is a big company that's neck deep in the growing health care sector, and it sells a lot of products, including shampoo, soap, and hand lotion, that people use all the time. JNJ shares are up 18% this year, and has had just 13 down years since 1975. A 2.7% dividend yield is also a selling point.

Wal-Mart [NYSE: WMT]

When you have revenue approaching half a trillion dollars (yes, trillion with a "t"), you are a company worth investing in. Wal-Mart does well when the economy is doing well and folks are spending money. Wal-Mart does well in slow economic times, when shoppers are looking for low prices. There is some concern about the long-term future of brick-and-mortar retail, but Wal-Mart right now has more than four times the revenue of Amazon.

Sysco Foods [NYSE: SYY]

If you've ever eaten at a restaurant, you've probably gotten food from Sysco. This is another dividend aristocrat that has seen shares rise 19% in 2016, while boasting a healthy dividend yield of 2.5%. It's been one of the most reliable stocks for decades, and people aren't going to stop eating at restaurants anytime soon.

Amazon [Nasdaq: AMZN]

The world's top online retailer can be frustrating, because founder and owner Jeff Bezos has always focused more on growing his company than worrying about profitability. Some shareholders got frustrated with Amazon and left last year, but now shares are up over $700, nearing an all-time high. In addition to massive online sales revenue, Amazon has made a killing from its web services subsidiary, which pulled in $604 million in profits last year. One of these days, all of Amazon's reinvestment will likely pay off with massive profits that will send shares to even bigger heights.

Have you ever been gifted (or given) shares? What stocks were they?

Like this article? Pin it!

This article is from Tim Lemke of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Could the Chromebook Crush Windows?

Jabulani Leffall — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 09:36:15 +0000

It isn’t until your laptop temporarily becomes a useless brick than you begin to take a step back and look at how technology works. If you’ve ever found your PC or iMac not working because you needed to reinstall the operating system, perhaps the concept of planned obsolescence has crept into your head. (See also: Make Your Computer Faster Instead of Buying a New One)

If you’re not familiar with planned obsolescence, it’s an idea that's built into the life-cycle of most of our technology — basically, designing products and applications with a limited shelf life.

But will Google change that with its new Chromebook? The Chromebook has an operating system and browser in one, which means it enables a user to surf the web and house applications (such as word processing, spreadsheets, media player functions, etc.) and files on a server somewhere you’re not. This way, if your laptop becomes a brick because your Windows, Mac OS X, or other proprietary operating system is on the fritz, you can always access your files on another device — your phone, another laptop with Internet access, or even your desktop at work.

Google's Chromebook laptops — from Samsung and Acer — will be available June 15 and are priced between $349 and $500. This price is comparable to buying an operating system alone out-of-the-box and having to upgrade, and considerably less expensive than outfitting a PC with no software package at all. For those willing to try out Microsoft Office-like web apps such as Google Docs, or who just need web surfing and e-mail capabilities, the price is a steal. The Chromebooks are cheaper than iPads, most fully-loaded smartphones iPhones, and most PCs.

Even better, because Chrome is a web-based OS and browser in one, the system will update itself for free. Google makes most of its money off of search and web surfing, which is why the hardware with a dual core processor is the only hard cost here for individuals. (For businesses, a $28-per-month subscription fee dwarfs Windows' and Apple's license renewals and hardware upgrades.)

It's a welcome prospect as none of the "software" features coming with the Chromebook (in theory) would require a trip to a big box retailer where guys wearing polo shirts would charge you more money than you need to pay to fix your computer.

Of course, the opportunity cost here is that while the Chrome operating system is “free,” it takes up your free time in learning about it, to gain the technical savvy required to break the chain to Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

That said, it’s important to look ahead to the possibility of increased adoption of technologies like the Chrome OS. After all, how many of us have felt like dopes when we've waited too long to upgrade our operating systems and realized how much it would now cost to do so? A lot of us (raising hand right now), I’d wager.

This article is from Jabulani Leffall of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Excel: The Most Underrated Software You Already Own

Carlos Portocarrero — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 09:36:56 +0000

There’s a program on your computer you’ve used hundreds of times that can do all kinds of amazing things:

It can grab information from the web and create crazy calculations and fancy charts.
It can take pretty much any kind of data file and allow you to play with the data in an infinite number of ways.
It can take thousands of pages of text and give you a really good idea of what the main points are.
It can make a lot of processes automatic and save you hundreds of hours of mindless work.
It can beat Garry Kasparov at chess.*

Microsoft Excel is one of those programs we’ve all used at least a little bit, but most of us haven’t even scratched the surface of what it can do.

There’s a reason why Excel costs $139 and Microsoft Office costs $279 — this is really powerful software that’s capable of some truly amazing things.

But very few of us take full advantage of it.

The Power of Excel

I got my first exposure to Excel’s power a few years ago with an incredible stock-analysis spreadsheet that blew my mind. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I got stuck with a really tedious project and decided to disobey my boss — I found a better way thanks to some developing ninja Excel skills.

It saved me from wasting a bunch of hours of my day, and it made me look like a smart dude. (See also: 5 Efficient Ways to Boost Productivity)

But let’s face it — learning Excel isn’t fun unless it’s going to help you solve an immediate problem. It’s like an umbrella — we only care about it when we need it. Once we’re done, we throw it in the back of the closet and forget about it. But it pays off to learn some of the basics for the next time you run into a roadblock.

Learn by Doing

The next time you get stuck with a tedious task of collecting or organizing data, Google what you’re trying to do along with “excel,” and you’ll get an answer. You may find it tricky, because you have to come up with the overall plan and then figure out how Excel can help. But odds are there is a way Excel can make things easier for you.

So if you’re trying to take thousands of emails and you want to parse out some of the data, you’d search for "parsing data excel." It won’t work 100% of the time, and you may have to learn some Excel lingo, but eventually you'll get it.

There are other places to pick up some Excel basics. Microsoft’s Excel blog is a good place to start. And pay attention to any and all Excel sheets you come across to see how they do certain tasks.

Most important of all: If you meet people who are masters at Excel, ask tons of questions, get their email addresses, follow them on Twitter, and follow them on Facebook. These people will be a HUGE help as you learn all the cool, advanced stuff Excel can do. Believe it or not, people are still more useful than Google.

Improving Your Value

Excel is a powerful piece of software than can help you not only be more efficient at work, but make you look good. If you get really good at it and become the “go to” person for any and all advanced Excel tasks, you’ve just become one of the most valuable people at your workplace.

Think about it this way — if you’re the doorway to getting things done faster and more efficiently, you just turned yourself into a VIP. And VIPs are invaluable to every company.

Anyone else out there have a story of how Excel made your job easier and/or made you look good?

*Microsoft Excel may or may not be actually able to beat Garry Kasparov at chess.

Like this article? Pin it!

This article is from Carlos Portocarrero of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

DON'T Buy It Now on eBay without using Live.com cashback

Torley Wong — Sat, 09 May 2009 04:19:29 +0000

You've been saving money with your online purchases thanks to Wise Bread, but wanna save even more? I know that got your attention.

Periodically, eBay and Microsoft's Live.com run a joint promotion to award you cashback. It's plausibly beneficial for them because it drives traffic and ad revenue to Live amidst Google's dominance. Whatever the reasons, here's basically how it works:

Sign up for a Live.com account.
Do a Live.com search for a keyword match like "bullion". A special link notifying you of a % cashback offer appears.
Click the link and purchase an eligible item — so far, they've been "Buy It Now" with PayPal, not regular auctions.
Cashback either gets awarded within a 60-day window, or in some cases (apparently random), instantly.

You can read the terms and conditions, which include a limit of total cashback and transactions.

Too good to be true?

At one point, I was skeptical — 35% cashback!? — but this is from eBay and Microsoft, not some shady fly-by-night operation. Alas, today the cashback is lower, at 10%, but up from 8% in days earlier. (But down from 14% that.) How do I know?

Use these tools

There's a useful tool called MS Live.com eBay Cashback % Notifier, thanks to a "Waffle S.S." aka Abe Voelker. It does what it claims: enter a target cashback value and your email address. When it hits or exceeds that mark, you'll be notified as I was today:

If you'd rather not do that, you can setup a Deal Alert at SlickDeals.net which'll inform you of epic threads like this.

I've earned over $600 cashback since my purchases last year — heck, that's enough to buy a Mac mini, or a combination of things you deem valuable. Each of us has our priorities; just don't go spending on eBay without this advantage.

Tips

Many retail stores, including Buy.com and Tiger Direct, and specialty goods like Nova Musik, have eBay presences in addition to their dot-com webshops. Compare the prices, and if they and other factors are equivalent, you'll save by buying through eBay with cashback.
With competing listings around the same total price range, focus on where shipping is included in the "Buy It Now" price and (often) advertised as "free shipping". Why? Because cashback applies to the item price but not to shipping. Try asking a seller if they'd be willing to make a change for you.
Watch cashback phases like a hawk, because when it ascends to a lucrative percentage, many eBay sellers jack up their prices to nullify any cashback advantage.
On occasion, some keywords return higher cashback than others. Stay on top of these, too.
Don't hold out too long if it's a matter of a few dollars; it's a sort of gamble, as the people waiting for 14% cashback to climb to 20% or higher recently found out when it dropped to 8%.

Have you saved big with eBay's Live.com cashback? Have tips for using it more effectively? Let me know in the comments!

This article is from Torley Wong of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

XBox 360 - Don't buy one until 2008.

Paul Michael — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 02:48:54 +0000

I know several people with an XBox 360. Six in fact. Three of those six have had no end of problems, and to me a 50% chance of buying a crappy product is just not good enough. But that's just my experience, surely the overall market would be a little better, right?

Well, after looking around the forums and reading the big news sites, I've come to the conclusion that the current XBox 360 is plagued with too many problems to be a reliable purchase anytime soon. XBox 360 users are recounting stories of the "red lights of death" which basically happens when the entire machine goes bye-bye. It's a hardware meltdown. Geeks have even written books about it.

The recent Microsoft announcement extending 360 owners' 1-year warranty to a 3-year warranty is proof enough that things are not exactly looking rosey for current XBox 360 customers. In fact, a tech-guru from the Today Show said that this extended warranty is simply a cheaper and more media-friendly way of issuing a complete recall. The story is also in Wired . Ouch. With Apple already taking a bite out of Microsoft's profit margin, a recall of that magnitude would be a disaster.

With some people predicting that Sony's PS3 would lose the console war, this news may be a much-needed boost to the flagging new Playstation model. What's more, the $100 price-drop of the console will further help bolster its sales in light of the XBox 360's rotten press.

After speaking to some hardcore gamers and chatting in the forums, I've decided that the XBox 360 is off my shopping list until 2008. And unless something significant happens to the design, I'll probably never buy one. Sorry 360 fans.

Nintendo Wii

I'm seriously looking into the Wii, which at first seemed like a dumb idea but now looks more and more appetizing. Perhaps it's the blend of fun and quirkiness.

PlayStation 3 (60GB)

But with the PS3 becoming way more affordable and offering the highly delectable Blu-Ray technology, it's a tough call.

One thing's for certain though. Microsoft has a lot of work to do before I even think of going near an XBox 360. And if you haven't bought one yet, but are thinking of adding one to your home entertainment collection, please think twice. You could very well end up with an expensive bookend.

This article is from Paul Michael of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Microsoft Office for $3? Third World Perks

Andrea Karim — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 22:35:25 +0000

Microsoft is going to be ~~giving away~~ selling their software bundles for $3. Three freaking dollars!

From the Seattle PI (via Seattlest):

In Beijing this morning, Bill Gates announced plans for Microsoft to offer a package of Windows, Office and other software for $3 to government programs that distribute subsidized PCs to students around the world. The "Student Innovation Suite," to be released later this year, is part of a new push by the company to increase access to computers around the world, and in developing nations in particular.

The company says it will sell a software suite containing those programs and others for $3 to government initiatives that distribute subsidized PCs to students in India, China and elsewhere. The suite will also be available to government programs that supply computers to low-income students in developed nations, including the U.S.

What's the going rate for bootleg software in most Third World countries, I wonder - is this competitive pricing?

Essentially, Microsoft is trying to ~~get their claws into~~ spread their technology across the computing world, partly to be nice and partly to keep anyone in poor countries from using Linux.

If the company doesn't take action, the risk is that there "may be billions of these computers that will not have Microsoft software," he said. Although Microsoft wants to "make good for the world" by increasing access to computers, it also wants to position its business to be part of the market expansion.

There are cynical things to be said about this, but as Seattlest points out, can you see Apple doing something even close to offering affordable software? To anyone?

Steve Jobs? Offering cheap software to poor students in Third World countries? No.

Yelling at poor students in Third World countries? Most definitely.

(Picture by Jeff Wilcox)

This article is from Andrea Karim of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread: