Budgeting Apps to Help Keep Your Finances in Order
Setting and tracking a budget can be difficult and time-consuming. Yet, maintaining a budget, especially in difficult financial times, is critical to the health of your finances. In the old days, our parents and grandparents used Excel spreadsheets or envelopes to budget and track their money. Today, there are special apps specifically designed to assist us with maintaining a budget. They can help you manage your income, expenses, and savings. Here are several budgeting apps to help keep your finances in order.
A Mint of an app
Mint is on just about every list of favorite budgeting apps and for good reason. It has high ratings on both the App Store and Google Play. Best of all it’s free and enables you to securely connect all of your accounts from cash and credit to loans and investments. Mint also automatically puts your spending into budget categories. Finally, mint even gives you access to your TransUnion credit score.
YNAB - You Need a Budget!
YNAB is a budgeting app designed to help you plan ahead. It helps you focus on what’s in front of you, thinking through priorities before you spend. It enables you to make better financial decisions and adjust your budget if need be. YNAB also comes with a cost. As of July 2022, you can try YNAB free for 34 days, then it would cost $14.99 per month or $98.99 for the year.
Always know what’s in your pocket with PocketGuard
PocketGuard is the perfect app if you tend to overspend. It’s also very easy to use. You can connect your financial accounts, credit cards, loans, and investments, and also track bills. You’ll see what you have left to spend after setting aside funds for necessities and bills. With PocketGuard crunching the numbers for you, it may deter you from overspending. PocketGuard offers two different plans: a free version and a paid subscription known as PocketGuard Plus. While PocketGuard limits users to one savings goal, with PocketGuard Plus you can create unlimited goals.
When you’re looking for simplicity look to Fudget
The Fudget app is a simple alternative to feature heavy budgeting and personal finance apps. There are no categories to manage or charts to interpret. Just create simple lists of income funds and expenses and keep track of the balance. It might be perfect for some but too simple for others. The app is free to use.
A budgeting app for the two of you
Honeydue is a good app for couples looking to manage money together. Both partners can sync bank accounts, credit cards, loans, and investments. The app will automatically categorize expenses, or you can create custom categories. Honeydue also sends reminders for upcoming bills. The Honeydue app is free.
Simplify with Simplifi
Track your spending and monitor your budget in a simple way with Simplifi. Developed by Quicken, Simplifi is said to be a powerfully easy and highly customizable app that helps you stay on top of all finances in under 5 minutes per week. Who doesn’t have 5 minutes? It allows you to connect your bank accounts, credit cards, loans, 401(k), and other investments in a single dashboard. It also helps you to save for multiple goals, stay on a budget, and manage your spending. While Simplifi does offer a free trial, there is a fee to use Simplifi.
Goodbudget introduces the envelope system to the digital generation
We mentioned budgeting with envelopes in days gone by. Well, Goodbudget introduces a whole new generation to budgeting with envelopes. You make envelopes for all of your budgeting categories, such as rent, groceries, dining out, etc. You then set aside money in each envelope digitally to pay against that category. It’s a way to pre-plan your spending instead of just tracking. It also enables you to sync and share household budgets, save for big expenses, and pay down debt.
A budgeting app can’t work miracles, but it can help you better track and encourage you to follow the budget you set. You need to use the tools provided to manage your money responsibly and make the right financial decisions. An app can help you stay on top of your finances and see how you are doing on a day-to-day basis. Selecting the right app depends on your individual needs and circumstances. Some are free, while others are not. Some may have particular features you would find most helpful. The apps above will give you some ideas to get started.
Read more useful financial information to help you better budget in our blog “How to Cut Costs Amid Rising Inflation.”