Getting your financial ducks in a row begins with a mindful money management strategy. Money Managing Apps are the savviest way to track them now.
Managing your personal finances can be easily done with the help of countless budgeting apps that are now available. These apps are an ultra-effective way to regain a sense of control over your finances if you’ve fallen behind. Plus, they offer a myriad of other benefits as well.
With so many available, it can be tricky deciding which one is the best fit for your financial needs. Although most of them have the same basic goals in mind, each app comes with different features and different customization options. Some apps are simplified and automated while others are highly detailed and require a more hands-on approach.
We tested several of the most popular and highly-reviewed budgeting apps out there and chose our Top 7 Favorites. But before we dive into those, let’s take a quick peek at the advantages of choosing one to keep your finances in check.
📎 Benefits
- Real-time updates available at your fingertips: Money management apps usually automatically update after each transaction, expense, and subscription has been paid. This means anywhere you have access to wifi, you can check your balances and budget status on your smartphone or desktop browser. This also means you’re always aware of your money in- and out-flows.
- Keep bills and payments organized: These apps are designed to make it nearly impossible to forget making crucial payments, such as bills, rent, subscriptions, etc. Set alerts for upcoming payments so that you never miss one.
- Understand your spending tendencies: Since these apps are designed to track every purchase and payment, they offer a clear overview of where your dollars are going. Having this awareness helps you eliminate any unnecessary spending habits, thus increasing your chances of saving money whenever possible!
Coffee Shops were my downfall! When I started tracking my money outflows, I saw an uncomfortably large quantity of lattes. I didn’t think I had that many, but over the course of the month, I spent a lot more than I will admit! Because of the app, I was able to identify where I could cut back.
- Increase your savings: By having the added awareness and control over your spending, your chances of saving more money each month increase significantly. Remember the old adage that you accomplish what you write down? It works the same way here. If you see the status of your goals and your balances, you’ll be more apt to achieve them.
- Set and track financial goals: Maybe you’re saving up for something specific or maybe your goal is to put a certain amount of money into savings each month. The visual tracking features on these apps paint a clear picture of your progress, increasing the chances of you sticking to the financial goals you set for yourself.
- Eliminate overspending: Many of these apps allow you to set daily, weekly, and monthly spending goals and will notify you any time you come close to overspending. Getting a notification that I was about to go over my clothing allowance helped me put off my new shoes purchase until I could fit it in my budget.
📱 Top 7 Picks
Although all of these apps have similar basic budgeting goals in mind, each one functions slightly differently and they all have their own unique appeal, some are much more involved than others. We recommend reading through the features and nuances of each one before choosing! If you’re stuck between a few, download them to test them out and see which one you like best.
Mint: Our top pick for all-in-one personal budgeting apps
Mint is a free, well-known budgeting app made first place on our list for a reason. It’s an all-in-one personal money tracking app customized to help you make the best financial decisions based on your budget. It’s also free. Did I mention that it is FREE!?! 😀
The app connects to your bank and credit card accounts and then proceeds to help you personalize your plan. It takes a lot of the manual labor out of the process by automatically categorizing and updating transactions, monitoring spending, and keeping track of all of your expenses for you. Users can set notifications to alert them when they’re getting close to spending past their set limits.
One of the key advantages of using the Mint app is that it allows users to check their credit score any time for free.
Key information, features, and highlights:
- Free!
- Syncs with your bank and card accounts
- User-friendly design makes it ultra-simplified to keep track of all your personal expenses and spending
- Helps you create realistic budgets and to set alerts when you’re getting close to spending your maximum set amounts
- Check and monitor your credit score for free any time
- Track your bills and payments
- Offers features that allow you to split transactions
- Add your own spending categories based on your personal spending tendencies
YNAB (You Need a Budget)
Are you a type A personality who likes optimal organization and efficiency? If you are, then look no further: YNAB is your personal finance app.
This in-depth, uber-detailed app is designed for committed, serious budgeters. In other words, if you’re looking for a simplified, low-maintenance budgeting app, look elsewhere. This app gives users a full-spectrum of insight and control of personal finance and budgeting goals. The app also has a pretty good track record for helping users save substantial amounts of money within the first few months of using the app’s budgeting features.
On average, new budgeters save $600 in their first two months and more than $6,000 their first year.
YNAB
In short, the app focuses on helping users set aside money each month to put into a savings account and emphasizes opportunities every step of the way. The app connects to users’ bank and card accounts, customizes spending categories, gives budgeting advice, and even offers free workshops. The app notifies users of opportunities to eliminate unnecessary spending so that more money can be put into savings each month.
The reason this app is the most well-suited for type-A, serious budgeters is because it offers more features, details, and customizable elements than nearly any other budgeting or personal finance apps available.
Key information, features, and highlights:
- Begins with a 34-day free trial
- Costs $11.99 per month or $84.00 per year after free trial finishes (free for college students)
- Designed to help users put money into savings
- Set financial and budgeting goals
- Gain more control over your finances with this app than with nearly any other budgeting apps available
- Customize spending categories
- Offers budgeting advice
- Free workshops
Pocketguard
Pocketguard is on-the-go budgeting app is perfect for users who want to know how much they can spend at any given moment. It works by syncing to your bank and card accounts and then tracks all your transactions. You set a monthly budget and the app breaks down your budgets into daily, weekly, and monthly allowances and tracks specific categories of spending.
The app lets you know how much spending money will be leftover each month after bills, savings, and monthly expenses are subtracted, giving users a realistic window to manage their day-to-day spending. This is a great app for all-around money management, plus it is free and super easy to use.
Key information, features, and highlights:
- Free
- Gives users clarity on how much money they have “left in my pocket” for spending for the day, week, or month
- Create savings goals
- Manage bills
- Track specific categories of spending such as eating out, groceries, bills, etc
- Visual pie charts and graphs to help users easily understand their personal financial data
- Similar to YNAB but less detailed and sticks to the basics
Personal Capital
Personal Capital is mainly used as an investment tool but the app features free and valuable budgeting features for anyone interested in tracking their spending and managing finances responsibly. The easy-to-use app is great for users who just want to stick to the budgeting basics.
The application connects to users bank accounts and card accounts, as well as to mortgages, 401(k)s, and IRA accounts. Users can then customize their spending categories and track recent transactions. It allows you to create daily and monthly budgets, as well as savings goals. The app will notify you when you come close to spending outside of your set limits to prevent you from spending more than you have.
Key information, features, and highlights:
- Free
- Tracks personal spending and bills in categories
- Connects to bank and card accounts using an encrypted, read-only view to give insight on account statuses
- Allows you to create daily and monthly budgets and to set goals
- Alerts you before you spend outside of your set limits
Everydollar
If you are looking for a hassle-free, straight-to-the-point budgeting app then Everydollar might be your best bet. This app aims to make the task of tracking personal finances as simplified as possible and accessible to everyone with the single focused goal of preventing users from overspending or going into debt.
The app uses an ultra-simplified budgeting system which basically just requires you to enter your income and then break down your expenses and budget by category.
The basic budgeting features of the app are available for free. An Everydollar Plus subscription is also available which gives access to data from user’s bank accounts and more. It costs $129.99 per year.
The app does not allow users to manage bills or billing categories through the app like Mint or YNAB.
Key information, features, and highlights:
- Create and customize a personal budgeting plan
- Manage money and track spending
- Split transactions across multiple budget lines
- Spending tracker depicts what you’ve spent and what you have not spent yet for the month
- Notifications alert you when you have new transactions to track
- Top-quality customer support team
- Available on desktop, Android, and iOS
- Free version and paid versions available
Clarity Money
Clarity Money offers you a clear overview of all of your linked financial accounts as well as breakdowns of your monthly expenses. The app aims to help you identify ways where you can save money every month.
Creating a Clarity Money account is free and takes less than a minute to sign up. The app is easy to use and intuitive. It allows users to customize their budgeting needs, such as setting alerts for upcoming bill payments, checking account balances, and notifications for spending updates.
One of the key features of the app that most other financial budgeting apps don’t offer is that Clarity Money makes suggestions for cancelling subscriptions that users don’t use (and that eat at the budgets of users!) and allows you to cancel the subscription through the app, pretty cool! It also helps you gather a clearer understanding of your spending tendencies so that you can eliminate unnecessary spending habits.
Something to note is that this app may be slightly more advantageous for iPhone users as some features are only available to Apple and iOs users. The app plans to offer the full features to Android users as well eventually. Also, this app is not as customizable as other ones such as YNAB, but it is great for anyone looking for a simplified budgeting app to help save big time.
Key information, features, and highlights:
- Cancel subscriptions (such as Netflix, Hulu, etc) that you don’t use anymore through the app
- Links all of users financial accounts
- Free!
- Allows users to track their credit scores
- Users can set alerts for spending updates, bill payments, and account balances
- Customize monthly spending goals
- Helps users identify any possible way to save extra money each month
Goodbudget
Goodbudget is intentionally more hands-on and not as simplified as most other budgeting apps. It makes up for that by offering a more detailed budgeting experience, ultimately giving them more control over their tracking preferences.
The app does not automatically track expenses or link to bank accounts, both of these things must be continually and manually entered by the user, which has its pros and cons. The main pro being that this offers the user more control and precision when it comes to tracking expenses, the main con is that it requires more time, dedication, and manual work.
The app works by giving users “envelopes” for frequent expense categories, such as food and entertainment. Envelopes can be customized to fit users personal spending habits. Each envelope gets an assigned monthly amount set by the user, and then the user tracks all transactions to ensure that the amount for each envelope does not surpass the set budget. This is done in an easily trackable way that gives users a simplified overview of how much they’ve already spent for each envelope category and how much they have left before they reach their limit at any given point in time.
The app offers a free plan and a paid plan, with the paid plan offering more unlimited features and the free plan sticking mainly to the bare basics.
Key information, features, and highlights:
- Free and paid plans available
- Does not automatically sync users accounts or expenses, these must be logged in manually each time
- Allows users to track specific monthly expenses and to set budgeting goals
- Uses envelope budgeting method with simple-to-follow depictions of spending updates
- Uses clear, easy to read graphs and data tracking methods to depict budget tracking info to the user
There is an app (or two) for everyone based on where you are in life and what you want out of the app itself. Which app do you use right now and do you feel like it’s the best match?
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