The best budgeting apps are those that allow you to manage all aspects of your finances from one place. They should also have a simple interface that makes it easy for you to keep track of your expenses and income.
They should also provide you with an overview of your financial situation at any given time. This way, you will always know where you stand financially and what steps need to be taken next.
You should also be able to easily set reminders for yourself regarding important dates such as tax deadlines and bills due.
Finally, they should offer you a wide range of features that make managing your money easier and more convenient.
There are many different types of budgeting software available on the market today. However, not all of them are created equal. Some are better suited for certain tasks, while others are just plain bad.
The most important thing to consider when choosing a budgeting app is what you need it to do. Do you want an app that will help you manage your finances? Or perhaps you’re looking for a tool that will help you plan your next vacation.
If you have a specific task in mind, then you should narrow down your search based on which features you require. For example, if you’re planning a family vacation, you might want to choose an app that allows you to create detailed itineraries. If you’re looking to save money, you may want to choose an app with built-in expense-tracking capabilities.
Once you’ve decided on the type of budgeting app you want, you’ll also need to decide whether you want a free or paid version. Free versions often come with limited functionality, but they are usually easy enough to use. Paid versions typically offer more advanced features and are generally easier to navigate.
Do Budgeting Apps Really Work?
A perfect budget does not exist. Budgeting is a process that allows for flexibility, but where possible, it is ideal to stay within your budget to avoid overspending. A good budgeting app will show you the difference between your income and expenditure and help you stay within your price range.
Best Budgeting Apps
Budgeting apps offer an easy way to keep track of expenses in one location to more effectively manage your money and set attainable goals. To narrow down the best options for a budgeting app, we’ve selected five of the best budget apps available on the market today.
Mint
Mint is one of the most popular budgeting apps available. This app provides users with a simple and effective method for tracking their budget.
The interface is easy to understand, and the app does an excellent job of alerting you when unexpected expenses occur. It also enables you to set savings goals, track your net worth, and get insights into your spending habits so you can adjust accordingly.
Another benefit of this app is that it connects to over 1,000 financial institutions to help keep track of expenses easier.
You Need a Budget – YNAB
This app requires you to enter your financial information manually, making it a more effective budgeting tool than some other options. In addition, this app focuses strictly on budgeting.
Although the budgeting features are limited, its simple interface allows you to easily see how much money you have available to spend each month. This reduces the risk of temptation by keeping your finances out of sight until you need to make a purchase.
Wise, Formally TransferWise
This app provides users with a way to connect to international bank accounts. The interface is easy to navigate, and the app is ideal for those who need to view transactions from multiple places. You can also link this app to other accounts, such as PayPal or Google Pay, which is helpful for everyday spending.
This app helps you keep an eye on your spending while abroad by easily comparing rates and fees in different countries.
Mint Mobile
In order to keep track of your money in a sleek and easy-to-use format, Mint offers the best way to do so. The app is designed well and makes it easy to keep track of spending while also providing a helpful look at how much money you have available throughout different periods.
If you already have a Mint account, this app will offer additional features, including budgeting and money management.
EveryDollar: Budget Tracker
This one is specifically designed to help you keep track of your expenses and money for a basic budgeting app. As the name suggests, this app allows users to organize their finances and update their purchases. It’s also a helpful money management app if you have a habit of making impulse purchases without thinking about the long-term ramifications.
The exciting thing about this mobile app is that it doesn’t require an internet connection; you can also use it while traveling.
Best App For Investors:
The best app for investors is an app that helps them make better investment decisions. The app should help investors find the right stocks at the right time.
The app should have features such as a stock screener, portfolio tracker, news feed, etc.
The app must also have a user-friendly interface and easy navigation.
The app needs to be simple enough for beginners but advanced enough for experts.
Robinhood – Free
Robinhood is the best free stock trading app. In addition to buying and selling stocks, investors can buy and sell ETFs (exchange-traded funds) for a small commission. Plus, the Robinhood app has various tools that help investors stay on top of their portfolio, including tracking market trends and checking portfolio values against the S&P 500, among other things.
This app offers zero fees on U.S. stock and ETF trades. Robinhood’s well-designed interface and educational tools should help investors quickly get up to speed with their financials. In addition, the app tracks customer interest in financial products and will likely release even more devices soon.
What Is The Best App For Budgeting For Students?
Personal Capital – Free, Premium ($19.99/year)
Personal Capital is an ideal option for college students because it allows you to link your accounts from different banks and credit cards together. This gives you a complete picture of where you stand financially so that you can make informed decisions about what to do with your money.
In addition, it allows you to create goals, such as paying off student loans or buying a car in the future, so that they are more easily attainable by helping you track how much money you need to save from month to month.
Best App For Monitoring Daily Activity:
PocketGuard – Free, Premium ($2.99/month)
PocketGuard is an excellent app for people with a busy schedule. It allows you to track your daily activities and even get reminders on how to stay healthy! This app is straightforward and includes many handy budgeting features.
PocketGuard is great for people who want to be reminded of their daily routine to stay healthy and control their spending.
Best App For Achieving Financial Goals:
NetWorth – Free, Premium ($9.99/month)
NetWorth is an excellent app for people with financial goals. It allows you to track and monitor your overall financial situation to know where you stand financially! This app is straightforward and has a clean interface that’s easy on the eyes.
This app is excellent for people who want to get an overall picture of their finances to ensure they’re not spending too much money and help them form healthy financial habits!
Best App For Saving Money:
Acorns – Free, Premium ($3-5/month)
Acorn is an excellent budgeting app and investment tool, specifically for saving money. It allows you to invest your spare change into stocks, bonds, and ETFs!
Anyone can use Acorns App to save money because it is easy to set up–connect your credit or debit card, and you’re ready. Then, track your savings by logging your purchases into the app as “investments .”This will allow you to start saving instantly when using the service.
Best App For Tracking Spending:
YNAB – 34-day free trial
YNAB “You Need A Budget” has been designed for users who have never used budgeting software before, so it provides a basic introduction to budgeting and how to set up your accounts. You can easily add your accounts as needed or input transactions as they happen.
It offers budgeting tools that help you track spending, including a “weekly view” that reminds you to stop spending more than you can afford. YNAB also has a great dashboard that shows how much you can afford to pay on your credit card accounts, car loan, and other bills.
Best For Teens:
Mint.com – Free
Mint.com is designed for teens to teach them how to manage their money and make intelligent financial decisions. It is an excellent first step in learning how to budget your money and understand the value of saving. You can set up your categories and track your spending, but you can also keep track of your parents’ expenses and income if you have permission.
There are key features that may make it the best overall budgeting app for teens. First of all, its interface is simple to use and understand. The app has two main sections: connecting all your devices, using the app, and tracking your finances.
Mint’s interface even resembles paper money, with a list of categories (such as “food” and “clothing”) on the left-hand side of the screen and a column of numbers on the right that’ll easily allow you to see how much you have spent on each category throughout the month.
Mint also allows you to create budgets through its dashboard, separate from its mobile apps. (Mint.com)
Best For Budgeting Using Envelopes:
Mvelopes – Free
This online tool is based on the popular envelope budgeting system, which allows you to create digital envelopes and help you to organize your expenses into categories, and then track how much you spend on each one based on monthly recurring payments.
You can also set up unlimited envelopes if you want and can even make your payments through the app, which will allow you to pay bills from anywhere. (Mvelopes.com)
Best For Getting Started With Investing:
Learn: Stock Market Investing – Free, Premium ($9.99 to $19.99 /month)
The app has a low monthly subscription fee, ranging from $9.99 to $19.99 per month, allowing the buyer to access ten stocks and ten portfolios for an entire year. Note that the stock prices are calculated based on the NASDAQ Composite Index, often referred to as the “Vanguard 500.” The data comes from Bloomberg and is updated every day, so it’s up-to-date.
This app is great for beginner investors because it gives you a comprehensive view of the stock market rather than just one company. The app also has an in-depth charting feature and is full of information to keep you on top of your investments.
Best of all, Stock Market Investing has a blog that will update you on current events relating to the financial sector while also providing expert advice from traders who know their stuff.
Best Option For Couples:
Tiller Money – Free for mobile devices, $4.99 per month for desktop versions
Description: This app is excellent for couples working together to pay their monthly bills. It helps you track your expenses, create a budgeting method that is easy for couples that want to share the budgeting process and keep a constant eye on your spending.
You can keep tabs on where money is being spent in every category and even analyze your spending habits to make necessary adjustments. This app can also track savings goals, debt payoff, and investments.
If couples are looking for a more advanced budgeting style, this is it. The app also has plenty of extra features that make for a great way to set a spending limit and keep track of your household expenses.
- Pros: You can easily see where your money is going and adjust it accordingly. It’s easy to use, and the app seamlessly syncs between all devices when you’re logged in.
- Cons: Not a free app, though the price is reasonable considering what you’re getting.
Best For Passive Saving And Investing:
Quick Cash (QC)
Quick Cash is the best budgeting app for saving and investing money passively. The fee is small, and it offers an excellent interface where you can automatically trigger savings goals with ease. In addition, QC can be used to track any investment of your choice, including stocks, options, coins, cryptocurrencies, and more.
The app also offers a unique reward system that ensures you’ll stick around for the long term. It works by setting goals such as saving $100, buying $1,000 worth of Bitcoin, or investing $20 per month. The points are awarded when you achieve these goals. You’ll be given a budget page to see your savings and investment progress.
The app awards a point for waiting until the end of each month to fulfill your goal to encourage saving for the future long term. The amount you save or invest for that month will be automatically deducted from that amount so that you won’t use any money from your existing financial account.
The Best Budgeting App For The Older Generation:
GoodBudget
The app is designed to help older individuals save money, and it offers a lot of features that can help you manage your money better.
For example, it provides a set of tools like calculators, which you can use to determine how much rent you will need to pay monthly, how long it will take to pay off your debt, or how much money you will have after investing in the stock market.
They also have a handy retirement calculator which shows how much money you’ll have in your retirement savings when you reach different age milestones like turning 50 or 65.
The app also has an easy-to-use interface that makes it easier to monitor your spending and ensure that all your bills are paid on time. Interestingly, it allows users to set up automatic funds transfers from their checking account into their savings account.
So it’s like having one account where all your finances are managed automatically.
The Best Budgeting App For iOS:
Our favorite feature is the personalized spending plan, which gives you an up-to-the-minute dollar figure of what you have left to spend for the rest of the month after accounting for your bills and savings goals.
Source: (nytimes.com)
Wally
More than just an expense tracker, Wally is also a paycheck manager that helps you keep track of your cash flow, bills, and lending accounts, including recurring expenses like Netflix and gym memberships. You can even use Wally to set savings goals or create debt-reduction plans. Pricing starts at free, but an ad-free version runs $2.99.
It is secure and private with end-to-end encryption, PCI and GDPR compliance, and ISO 27001 certification. The app is unlimited & free: Sync unlimited accounts for free.
Real-Time: Wally categorizes and organizes all your transactions automatically.
The Best Budgeting App For Android:
Expense Manager Free (Android)
This is an entirely free budgeting app for Android that helps you manage your expenses and bills. You can assign a dollar value to every bill to know how much money you have spent on each spending category. This free app is straightforward to use. With Expense Manager, you can;
- Update monthly activities,
- Add currency number separator for expense input
- Add TAX/VAT/GST Calculator
- Update the debt transaction list with the latest on the top
- Add PDF format for receipt attachment
- Update Fixed/Recurring Deposit
- Update the account list with a pie chart
- Other minor enhancements
- Fix bugs
Zero-sum Budgeting Apps:
Zero-sum apps are budgeting apps that don’t consider the losses and gains of the previous month. Instead, they calculate your net worth, which is basically how much money you have in your bank account after paying your bills.
They are great for people who don’t want to worry about the amount they spend on certain things like restaurants, but they can also be detrimental if you’re not careful.
Budgeting apps that are zero-sum include:
Lifesum (Android)
Lifesum is a zero-based budgeting app developed by LifeSum, Inc., a subsidiary of ZestMoney LLC. Its main features include:
An automatic calculation and adjustment of the monthly budget based on the last two months’ expenses with an easy-to-use interface and user-friendly design.
Moreover, it provides multiple ways to view budgets, such as pie charts, bar charts, and line graphs. It has an integrated mechanism to compare your current spending with the budget and adjust it accordingly.
What Are The Best Free Budgeting Apps?
Most of the budgeting tools available on Google Play and Apple App Store are paid apps and may come with in-app purchases. However, there are some free budgeting apps that you can try without spending any money.
Below listed are some of the best free budgeting apps:
1. Mint Best Free Budgeting App
Mint is a free and user-friendly app that helps you manage your money across your accounts, such as checking and savings accounts, credit cards, loans, retirement accounts, etc. It comes with various budgeting tools, such as creating flexible budgets to meet your needs and even setting up recurring monthly payments.
Moreover, it has an easy-to-use interface that makes it easy for you to plan and achieve financial goals.
2. Personal Capital (Windows, Mac & Android)
Personal capital is a free online unique finance management tool that helps users track their expenses to make informed financial decisions. It has a simple user interface, making it easy to understand and use the app. In addition, the app allows users to view their actual spending and projected spending for future months.
Moreover, it also allows users to add and edit their expenses, track progress in saving money, view all transactions made in the previous month, and calculate their net worth (assets minus liabilities). The app also allows users to set budgets for different categories like groceries, eating out, clothing, etc. Users can also set alerts for spending more than their budgeted amount.
3. Budget Planner Free (Windows, Mac & Android)
Budget Planner Free is a simple and easy-to-use personal finance manager that helps users track their expenses and set monthly budgets. The app allows users to set budgets for different categories like groceries, eating out, clothing, etc.
In addition to this, it also enables users to view all transactions made in the previous month and calculate net worth. Moreover, it also allows users to undo transactions and add new ones. Finally, it also has a graph showing the progress of users’ net worth over time.
4. Money Back (Windows & Android)
Money-Back is an app that helps people save money by tracking expenses and generating a weekly budget. It has a simple user interface, making it easy for users to understand and use the app. Users can choose from categories like groceries, eating out, clothing, etc.
Moreover, users can also set alerts to notify them when they save more than their budgeted amount.
5. Money Manager (Windows & Android)
Money Manager is an app that helps people track expenses by creating a daily budget. Users can create categories like groceries, eating out, clothing, etc. It has an easy-to-use interface enabling users to track their expenses efficiently. Moreover, users can also set alerts to notify them when they save more than their budgeted amount.
Frequently Asked Questions:
How Do I Know If It’s A Good Budgeting App?
Before downloading an app, consider the following factors:
Does the budgeting app have a user-friendly interface?
Is the app free or paid?
Can you customize the budgeting app so that you can set your spending limits?
What is a good budgeting app for beginners?
The best budgeting apps for beginners are You Need a Budget (YNAB) or Budget Buddy. Both apps are easy to use and provide detailed reports about your expenses. They also offer tools that help you to track your money correctly. In addition, they can help you save time by helping you automate your financial tasks.
What Is The Best Personal Finance App?
In terms of personal finance apps, Mint is considered the best because it offers several features, such as an investment tracker, bill reminder, and savings goals tracker. It also has an excellent mobile version.
What Is The Best Budgeting App For Beginners?
In terms of budgeting apps for beginners, You Need a Budget (YNAB) is considered the best because it has a simple and user-friendly interface. It also provides in-depth reports about your financial health. In addition, it has tools that help you track your expenses and analyze your spending patterns. It also enables you to save time by automatically categorizing expenses and income.
Should I Pay For An App Or Use A Free One?
Unfortunately, there’s no simple answer to this question. However, it is possible to figure out the best way to find financial stability and security that works for your personality type, debt level, and living situation.
The good news is that there are different types of budgeting apps for every style of living and learning. This article will help you figure out which app, whether free or paid, will work for you at any given moment in your life.
You can start with a simple and free budgeting option, like Mint. Before long, though, you may want to go beyond the basics and analyze where your money goes in greater detail. If so, then our round-up of financial apps will indeed have something to offer you.
What Is The Most Accessible Budgeting App?
Budgeting apps are easy to use. However, their features may vary. The most accessible budgeting app is YNAB, or You Need a Budget. A free app enables you to categorize your expenses and track your income across different accounts, such as checking and savings.
What Is The Safest Budget App?
You Need a Budget (YNAB) is considered the safest budgeting app. It has a no-risk policy, which means there is no risk of losing your data if you are unsatisfied with the service. As a result, it’s in the top 10 apps on The Best Budgeting Apps for 2022 list. The app automatically categorizes your expenses and income.
What Is The Best Monthly Budget App?
In terms of monthly budgeting apps, Mint is considered the best. However, it’s not as user-friendly as You Need a Budget (YNAB).
If you want a trusted brand, YNAB is a good option. However, if you are tech-savvy or willing to learn about the budgeting app, Mint is a better choice.