January 2025

Staying on top of your personal finances has never been easy. Tracking every dime and dollar that goes through your account each month means that you need to keep a close eye on all your expenses and stick to a determined budget.

The thing is, keeping track of your finances and knowing how your money is being managed shouldn’t feel like work. A colorful array of automation tools can now be used to help manage your finances more efficiently, making sure you never miss a payment or spend more than you have.

Finance automation is a big part of learning how to overcome the uncertainty of how to manage your money and allow yourself room to become more confident with how you spend, transact and save your money each month.

Related: How Setting Clear Financial Goals Can Transform Your Business and Personal Success

Take stock of your expenses

Before you can automate your finances, start by listing all of your monthly expenses and the date on which they need to be paid. Be sure to include all recurring bills and expenses such as rent, utilities, insurance, loans and other important payments.

There’s likely a chance that some of these payments have already been set up to be debited from your account each month. Should that be the case, make sure that you are aware of when each payment is due and deduct it from your account.

Remember to account for when you are paid and how certain payments will be deducted should the due date fall on a weekend or holiday.

Know your accounts

Now that you have an idea of your expenses it’s time to learn how to use your bank accounts more effectively. Should you be someone who has multiple bank accounts and credit cards, be sure to organize your most important bills to deduct from the account where you will receive your salary.

Next, familiarize yourself with how you may be using each account. For instance, your primary checking account should be dedicated to paying important bills such as rent, utilities, and insurance. Your secondary checking account should be dedicated to ordinary expenses and less important bills.

By taking more control of each account, you can begin assigning automated payments for each of your bills. This way you will know when to have enough money in each account, and it will help you keep better track of your monthly expenses.

Automate savings

Saving shouldn’t fall to second place when automating all of your expenses. Instead, look at ways in which you can set up an automated savings account linked to your check account. This would allow you to set up a date and desired amount to be deducted from your salary, and deposited straight into your savings account. Without having to do it yourself, you can give yourself more peace of mind knowing that your emergency funds are being taken care of, as reported by Bankrate‘s 2024 emergency savings report.

Related: How to Save Money: 10 Tips to Build Your Savings

Use a banking app

By using a banking app you can quickly set up automated deposits without having to visit a bank branch. Some banking apps have a plethora of personal finance features such as budgeting tools,spending and portfolio trackers, loan calculators and plenty of other useful resources.

Banking apps also help you to keep track of your account balances and different payments you’ve made. For example, a banking app will help you categorize specific payments and assign accounts to each. You can view previous payments, and you can place an account on hold should the need arise.

Each bank will have a different app that they prefer their customers to use. Learn how to navigate the banking app and which tools have been designed to make financial management less complicated.

Set up reminders

You likely have dozens of payments each month, and staying on top of each one means that you constantly need to remind yourself when a bill is due. Instead of having to write this down in your calendar or diary, see whether you can set up automated reminders using your banking app. Include important payment information and what each payment is for.

For instance, paying for things such as subscription services, which can be done monthly, quarterly, or annually, requires you to remember when a payment is due. In fact, according to a survey from ExpressVPN, 66% of consumers pay for subscriptions monthly, while only 10% pay annually or make a large lump sum payment, potentially causing a so-called subscription fatigue.

There might be some bills that you are sharing with someone, or they have taken over from you in recent years, and vice versa. Each instance will be different but try to incorporate methods that will help you stay more informed.

Use a budgeting tool

Finding that your paycheck is being stretched to its limits each month? Well, instead of wondering where all your money is going, and how you’re spending it, take a look at how a digital budgeting tool can automate your spending habits.

Some banking apps may already have a budget tool feature, or you may need to make use of a third-party app. Whichever you choose to use, automating your budget will tell you exactly where your money is going each month and how you can make smarter spending decisions based on your financial situation.

Related: You Won’t Have a Strong Budget Until You Follow These 5 Tips

Finishing thoughts

Technology makes it possible for your money and accounts to be automatically managed. Learning how to automate certain accounts and payments and being able to leverage available tools will help you become more financially confident and ensure you keep better track of all your bills.

Monica Rothgery is a natural leader. She has trained army soldiers, managed fast-food restaurant teams, built international franchise locations, and wrote a book about it all called Lessons from the Drive-Thru: Real Life Wisdom for Frontline Leaders.

The leadership journey fueled her unique approach to restaurant management and a mission to uplift frontline leaders. Serving in the Army gave her important skills that the former KFC Chief Operating Officer carries to this day as an author and speaker.

“Getting trained by the U.S. Army to become an officer is some of the best leadership training there is,” Rothgery said to Shawn Walchef, host of the Restaurant Influencers podcast.

But when she transitioned from military leadership to managing a fast-food restaurant, culture shock set in. There was no manual for leading people who had no prior professional training.

She quickly learned that the expectations set for soldiers, who received weeks of even the most basic training, didn’t translate to the world of restaurant team members. Many were starting their first jobs.

“When I told soldiers they had to do something, they had to do it. If I told a team member to do something, they could just leave, and sometimes they did.”

Related: 5 Founders Who Transformed Franchising — And the Powerful Lessons Behind Their Success

The lesson she learned was that to lead effectively in this new environment, Rothgery needed to inspire her team on a much deeper level.

Caring about these people as individuals first, not just team members, was the key to getting them to care about the restaurant and the customers. This was a big change from leading an army unit. To inspire differently, she had to care differently.

Storytelling and a passion for recognition are at the heart of Rothgery’s leadership philosophy.

Her career soon gave her opportunities to test these across cultures. When she moved to Southeast Asia to help build KFC locations in Thailand, she brought the idea of using stories to inspire and unite. “Does appreciation transcend culture?” she asked.

The results surprised her: by focusing on recognition, appreciation, and storytelling, she motivated her team to outperform even their own expectations. Language barriers and cultural differences didn’t stop them from becoming their best.

Despite the successes, she still had a tough road ahead. The local culture was so risk-averse. The pressure to succeed made the fear of failure immobilizing. She recalled a particularly humbling moment when her team in Thailand was slow to embrace her strategies.

“I told the team, ‘I’m going to teach whoever wants to learn,'” Rothgery said. Out of eight in the original meeting, only two people showed up for leadership training.

Over time, it worked. One of those in that training became the COO of a franchise group. “That was a win,” Rothgery reflected.

Lessons from the Drive-Thru

Rothgery’s book, Lessons from the Drive-Thru, takes readers behind the scenes of her journey. She shares the hard-earned wisdom from her toughest days as a frontline leader.

Written for restaurant managers, her book distills leadership down to its core: “This is every mistake I ever made, all of the bad shifts and late nights,” she explained.

The book focuses on the stories from Rothgery’s early career in the 1990s, particularly her time as a general manager at Taco Bell.

“Being a restaurant general manager was the hardest job I ever had, way harder than being in the army,” Rothgery said. “I quit every day in my head, but I always came back the next day.”

Her stories are raw and honest. She empathizes with restaurant teams because she has been with them in those trenches. She believes good leadership can leave a legacy and change someone forever.

“I wrote this book for frontline leaders,” Rothgery emphasized. “The ones who think their job is just running the next shift. But they have the power to shape lives—most importantly, the lives of the people they manage.”

For Rothgery, the real heroes of the restaurant industry are those in leadership who deal with the pressures of daily operations, customer satisfaction, and team dynamics. “Your job is so much bigger than you believe. You change lives,” she said, urging restaurant managers to see the immense value in their roles.

Related: 22 Qualities That Make a Great Leader

“You’re not the bottom rung of the food chain in careers. You’re a coach, a teacher, a pillar in your community.”

As her book continues to reach more readers, Rothgery remains on a mission to empower restaurant teams and show their value in the industry. “My dream is to lift them up and help them realize their potential,” she said. In her next book, she plans to expand on unlocking that potential from the bottom up.

“Frontline leaders are so often doing the job of the person underneath them, but if we could get everyone doing their own role, we unlock growth.”

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