How To Use Personal Capital To Grow Your Wealth

Are you new to Personal Capital and want to learn more about their fantastic free tools? Read on and you'll quickly learn how to use Personal Capital to grow your wealth.

This quick overview explains all of Personal Capital's free tools. Utilizing them will help you maximize your account and grow your wealth faster. I've been using Personal Capital since 2012. As a result, I have seen seen my net worth grow by over 4X thanks to better money oversight.

Leveraging technology to build wealth is one of the best things you can do today. Oh and by the way, if you have any concerns about privacy and security, rest assured that Personal Capital is safe to use. Now let's dive in and learn how to leverage the best free financial tool on the web today.

Use Personal Capital To Grow Your Wealth With 6 Free Tools

Here are the best money tools that Personal Capital offers to all users for free. Each one gets you one step closer to a better financial future.

Net Worth Calculator

The first tool you should use on Personal Capital to grow your wealth is the Net Worth calculator. The key to any type of financial planning is knowing how much your assets are worth. You'd be surprised how many people aren't aware of what their net worth is. Personal Capital makes it easy and does the heavy lifting for you. From there you can set goals and track your progress.

  • The Net Worth tool calculates your assets and liabilities together.
  • Measure your progress over time across multiple investments and income streams.
  • Easily see the big picture of your financial well-being.
  • Hover over the graph to see your total net worth on a given day.
  • See your 1-day change in the upper right corner under the total. This makes it easier to track your progress.
  • Underneath the graph, see a rundown of all of your account balances in real time.
  • Easily track your progress and organize your financial life.
Personal Capital Net Worth Calculator Tool

Curious how your net worth stacks up? Check out my post: What Should My Net Worth Be At Age 30, 40, 50, 60?

Cash Flow Analyzer

Another great tool to use on Personal Capital to grow your wealth is the Cash Flow Analyzer. The closer you watch where all of your money is going, the better you can manage your spending, saving, and investing. Here are some of the tools great features that help you focus on spending less than you make.

  • The Cash Flow widget has been improved so you can view a 30-day window of data.
  • Easily compare your income to spending.
  • Spending transactions are automatically categorized. Hover over one of the bars under “Expense” and pick
    a color and you will view the information displayed for that category.
  • Clicking within the Income or Expense bars will take you to the Income/Expense tab in the Cash Flow tool.
  • Set monthly spending targets and measure your progress.
  • Clicking on a category takes you into the detail view under Banking/Cash Flow. You can also “pin” categories to view a summary of spending by category.
Personal Capital Budgeting Cash Flow

Personal Capital has the best free financial tools because they help you analyze all your financial accounts in one place. When it comes to tracking where your cash is going, this is key. Cash Management Is Really All About Stress Management too.

Market Movers

  • Market Movers remains a popular feature where you can easily see the movement of the market and the You IndexTM over the last 90 days.
  • If you want to see the top gainers/losers for the day it is available in the Holdings view under the “Investing” top menu.
Personal Capital Market Movers Tool

Being able to track your investments across multiple accounts together truly makes Personal Capital the best free investing and wealth management platform. If you're interesting in learning more about investing, here are some helpful resources.

Portfolio Balances

  • The Portfolio Balances section offers a new option for Personal Capital Investment clients who can choose to view investments held in U.S. accounts, foreign accounts, or all accounts.
Personal Capital Porfolio Balances

Retirement Planner

The Retirement Planner is one of my favorites. Use this tool on Personal Capital to grow your wealth large enough to have a stress-free retirement filled with freedom, fun, and adventures.

  • Retirement Savings & Retirement Spending measures your progress against your savings for the year (pulled directly from the Retirement Planner tool).
  • For those already in retirement, you can now view portfolio drawdowns to show how you are doing in retirement.
  • The number here matches the number in Portfolio/Performance for Cash Flow. It’s the net inflow/outflow from investment accounts.
    • If for some reason this isn’t accurate, it could be due to the fact that you haven’t linked an account or have an account in an error state, or one for which the system can’t get transaction detail.
    • Use the Pencil icon to edit the number manually and Personal Capital will build off that number going forward.
    • The target number beneath indicates how much you would have to save per month to hit your annual target.
  • They also launched a Recession Simulator tool after COVID-19 to help people better model out their finances.
Personal Capital Retirement Planner tool

Planning for retirement doesn't have to be overwhelming. Utilize the Retirement Planning to help take the guesswork out of the equation. And get educated on retirement topics like when to take Social Security. Here are a few additional and helpful resources to check out.

Contact Your Advisor

  • If you decide to move beyond the free tools, you can schedule a call anytime with a Personal Capital Advisor
  • An advisor can answer any questions you have about your portfolio or can offer a no-obligation financial consultation.
  • You can find the scheduling tool in the app or by visiting PersonalCapital.com.
Personal Capital Contact Your Advisor

If you're unsure if hiring a financial advisor is the right move for you, here are some articles to check out first.

Utilize Free Technology For Greater Wealth!

When you know where your money is going and where it’s being invested, you gain a tremendous amount of confidence in your financial well-being. One of my biggest goals on Financial Samurai is to help everyone achieve financial independence sooner, rather than later.

You may not be wealthy now, but just knowing you’ve got your finances in order and have a financial plan tremendously increases your chances of financial success. Once you are financially secure, you free to do whatever you truly want.

Get a handle on your finances by signing up with Personal Capital for free and aggregating all your accounts. The financial management tools are free, takes less than a minute to sign up, and allows you to even find a personal financial advisor if interested.

Sign Up For Personal Capital For Free

About the Author: Sam worked in finance for 13 years. He received his undergraduate degree in Economics from The College of William & Mary and got his MBA from UC Berkeley. In 2012, Sam was able to retire at the age of 34 largely due to his investments that now generate roughly $250,000 a year in passive income. He spends time playing tennis, taking care of his family, and writing online to help others achieve financial freedom too.

Sam started Financial Samurai in 2009 and has grown it to be one of the largest independently owned personal finance sites in the world. You can sign up for his free private newsletter here.