* This is a contributed article. The IBTimes news staff was not involved in the creation of this article and this content does not necessarily represent the views of IBTimes. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here are our T&C. For licensing please click here.
Personal finance mismanagement is costing Americans hundreds of billions of dollars every year.
Personal finance mismanagement is costing Americans hundreds of billions of dollars every year. Pexels

The wrath of the pandemic continues to threaten our hopes of a stable financial life with the newly-identified "Omicron" variant of the COVID-19 in play. The financial stature of individuals, investors, and industries underwent tremendous changes in a short span as the U.S. economy continues to navigate an uneven recovery.

If you are an investor or an individual trying to keep your household afloat, here are 5 smart financial moves that could help you regain control over your money, repay debt, and explore avenues of passive income in 2022.

Create a Source of Passive Income

Freelancing has become a popular means to boost one's monthly income. The Steady app could match you with a trove of freelancing and full-time opportunities revolving around coding, creative writing, tutoring, graphic designing, voice acting, customer service, and jobs related to the retail and hospitality industry.

Furthermore, they offer to help those in need with emergency cash grants and income boosters where you could complete legit surveys, review apps or find services that help you save on taxes or high insurance premiums. Steady's income tracker may also come in handy for filing taxes since side hustlers need to accurately maintain their expenses and income receipts.

You can sign up on the app for free and create a work profile with your basic information and work preferences. Steady will then be able to display jobs that you might be interested in with details like the job description, expected salary, and location.

Download the Steady app today.

Repay Your Credit Card Debt

Credit card debt is a vicious cycle to get into. High interest rates, late payment fees, and chances of a negative impact on your credit score could become a prolonged and stressful journey. If you only make minimum payments every month, you might end up paying much more than you owe.

The Tally app, powered by artificial intelligence, could help you create a personalized debt repayment plan with a projected debt-free date if you make repayments based on their suggestions. In addition, you could be eligible for a low-interest line of credit where Tally helps you convert all of your credit cards into one line of credit.

Tally will then pay your creditors, and you pay Tally in one consolidated payment while saving money on high interest payments. Their Late Fees Protection program ensures that if you miss a payment deadline, Tally will automatically make the payment on your behalf, and you can pay Tally at a later date.

Check out Tally today.

Invest in a Recession-Proof Asset

While stock, bonds, and some sectors of real estate were severely affected during the 2020 recession; gold prices surged to reach record-highs. This precious metal has a universal demand and could offer a hedge against inflation.

The fact that gold is highly tradable, appreciates in value over time and is unaffected by market manipulation or devaluation (unlike government-issued fiat currencies like the Dollar or Euro) make it a comparatively safer asset to invest in.

The Vaulted app allows you to buy insured 99.99 percent pure kilo gold bars manufactured and stored at the Royal Canadian Mint, an ISO 90001:2000 certified refinery owned by the Canadian federal government. This means that it is protected against theft, damages, and even misplacement. In addition, the holdings in the state-of-the-art storage vaults are frequently audited by the Government of Canada's Office of the Auditor-General

You can sign up on the app within a mere minute, link your checking account, and transfer funds to your new Vaulted account. Once the transfer is complete, you may proceed to buy and sell gold instantaneously during market hours without holdover or waiting periods. Gold transaction fees don't go above 1.8 percent of the wholesale gold market price, and you'll be paying 0.4 percent of your holdings towards account maintenance fees every year.

The account maintenance fee goes away if you decide to ship your holdings to your doorstep after getting in touch with the Vaulted team. Vaulted is managed by a team of experts with experience in dealing with precious metal transactions worth over $2.5 billion.

Invest in gold today.

Team Up with a Financial Advisor

DIY-investing without prerequisite knowledge of market trends and technical know-how could result in a poor financial outcome. Making emotion-based changes to your investment portfolio whenever the market goes haywire could be devastating to your financial aspirations and retirement goals, as well.

An in-house financial advisor following fiduciary standards could help you create a financial plan, prevent you from making emotional financial moves, and recommend the best investment decisions for steady growth of wealth.

SmartAsset helps over 45 million people improve their financial lives every month through their award-winning tools based on proprietary technology and client-advisor matching services.

After answering an advisor-match quiz on their website, their experienced concierge team will connect you with up to three vetted fiduciary financial advisors who might be a good fit for you. SmartAsset will then help arrange introductions as per your convenience so you can interview them and see if you might be able to trust your finances with any of them.

Match with an advisor today.

Reduce Your Banking Fees

You might not realize it, but just by having a traditional bank account, you could end up shelling out almost $170 a year. This doesn't even include the steep fees for every other feature you use like wire transfers or ATM withdrawals.

A digital-banking platform called Oxygen could help you get out of the slow transaction processing times, high fees, and low interest rates on savings accounts offered by traditional banks. Oxygen offers an intuitive app with a host of online banking services that are facilitated by the Bancorp Bank, Member FDIC.

With Oxygen, you can open a checking account and set up monthly salary deposits, where you could get your salary two days earlier than usual. Moreover, the Oxygen Visa Debit Card enables no-fee ATM withdrawals from over 40,000 Allpoint ATMs present in popular retail stores like Kroger and Target.

You could also earn cashback rewards on coffee and food purchases from select stores, which you can directly transfer to your checking account after reaching the $10 mark. Their savings account offers a comparatively high interest rate of 0.25 percent, as well.

Get the Oxygen app today.