M1 Finance allows you to control and personalize your finances: invest, borrow, spend, automate, and optimize – all in one sleek platform. M1 is my favorite way to invest in the stock market and in my opinion is the best platform that exists for the do-it-yourself-investor. It is also easy to use! Too many health care professionals shy away from investing because they think it has to be difficult. Start small and make your money work as hard as  you do. 

I first heard about M1 on a personal finance podcast and the reviews were incredible, so I experimented for about a year and I loved it so much that I transferred my IRA and brokerage account from Vanguard to M1. There are way too many cool features to highlight here but a few of them include being FREE (no commissions or management fees), easy to set up investment "pies", automatic rebalancing, and the option of using super cheap margin loans. As of 5/2021 the firm has more than $2 billion in assets under management and over 500,000 clients. Check out the link, read more, and experiment with their service.

Personal Capital makes FREE automated financial tracking software for your phone and computer. It is so helpful and easy/automatic to track your spending, make budgets, visualize your net worth across investment accounts (IRAs, 401Ks, brokerage accounts, etc), track investment performance, and see your progress on paying back any loans you might have (student loans, mortgage, car loans, etc).

I have used them for a couple of years and it is awesome. I used to track my finances in a simple excel spreadsheet, but this is so much better because it happens automatically and it gives you a ton of great data. They make money if you choose to use them as their financial adviser (I don't use them), but their tools are 100% free. They have ~3 million users and you should be one too.

Coming soon.