28 Personal Finance Apps
These days, our phones are pretty much synonymous with our wallets, so let's make them smart!
It can seem daunting to start budgeting, especially when your famous money influencers so often use shame tactics as the basis for their budget methods. We're not naming names, but one particular expert's name might rhyme with Rave Damsey.
Whether you're looking for an overall money management app, to get a better look at your spending trends, to find a budget method that suits you, or you're just looking to save some spare change, we have finance management apps galore!
If paper and pen are more your speed, we also have about100+ budgeting templates you can print out and use for some private budgeting.Let's get into some serious financial adulting by firing up your iOS or Android device.
Editor's Note:Financial information is important to keep safe and secure. This is why we urge everyone and anyone to research these apps before syncing to your financial institutions or entering sensitive information. If you've had a really bad experience with any of the apps listed below, please feel free toemail us about it.
Best Personal Finance Apps of We've rounded up the best apps that can help you budget, hit your savings goal, pay off debt, invest, manage money with a partner, save money, and get savvy with coupon apps!
1. Best Free Budgeting App: Mint
Let’s make this quick: There’s a reason Mintmakes every list of the best personal finance apps. It’s everyone’s go-to finance app because it really is that great. There are other budgeting tool alternatives (more on those next), but if you haven’t downloaded Mint yet, you should at least try it. You can get started with a free version.
Mint can help users pay down debt, save more money, and track goals. The app also shows users their credit score, net worth, and includes a ton of user-friendly FAQs within the app. It's nice to see all your financial accounts in one place.
2. Best Financial App for Optimizing Finances: Albert
Albertis sort of like having a financial advisor in your pocket. It analyzes your debt, accounts, and spending, then recommends ways you can optimize your portfolio.
Organize your money into categories, track your spending, and receive real-time alerts on unusual transitions, bill hikes, and overdraft fees.
3. Best Financial App for Debt Payoff: YNAB (You Need a Budget)
I tried You Need a Budgetfor a few months last year, and honestly, I wish I’d stuck with it! This is the perfect app for someone who needs to make a significant change to their spending habits. Think of it as you pulling out the big guns.
YNAB offers a free trial period so you can give it a try without putting down a credit card—all things we love!
YNAB’s main idea is to “give every dollar a job” so that you're always mindful of where you're putting your cash. There are a few other reasons we love YNAB (and why we had their founder, Jesse Mecham, on our podcast!).Beyond the app itself, YNAB also offers extensive educational resources and customer support to keep you on track. Best of all, they are a privacy-first finance app, which is why they use top-grade encryption for all data.
- * PocketGuard, for simplified budgeting
- * Fudget, for budgeting without syncing to your bank accounts
4. Best Financial App for Saving Money: Oportun (Formally Digit)
Oportunwas the first budgeting app that changed my mind about my ability to actually control my finances.
Oportun analyzes your spending habits, then pilfers money you won’t miss from your checking account, moving those dollars into a savings fund. Every time I open the app, I’m shocked at how much money I find in there. And if that doesn’t convince you: after my friend did a No Spend Month recently, she opened her Oportun to find almost $700 waiting for her.
5. Best Financial App for Setting (+ Forgetting) Finances: Qapital
Much like Oportun, this app siphons money out of your checking account, but withQapital you can get a little more specific about your goals.
Whether you want to pay down debt, take a vacation, or just start a general savings account, Qapital lets you pick a target, then set a “round-up rule” for your card. In my case, the app rounds to the nearest $2 each time I swipe my debit card. Another cool aspect? You can share a goal fund with a friend or family member who’s also on the app.
6. Best Budget Tracker: Goodbudget
Yes, this is another app based on those fun money-saving challenges. UseGoodbudget to put a why in your budget. Keep your finances on track by putting your expenses in their own expense tracker "envelopes" and keep track of all of your daily spending while you pay down debt, build savings, or rest easier with more financial security. It's really fun to visualize your spending category in Goodbudget vs. a boring spreadsheet.
7. Best Financial App for Saving on Gas: Gas Buddy
Yeah, gas is expensive, so if you don't have this app, get it. Now.
I’m therefore obsessed with Gas Buddy. You plug in your location, and the app pulls up a crowdsourced price list of gas stations nearby. These days, I just open the app on weekends, find the cheapest spot near me, and go top off my tank.
8. Best Financial App for Saving on Bills: Trim
Upcoming bills better watch out! TheTrim app is like your own personal bodyguard, but one who will call your credit card company and say "please, please, please, lower my interest rates." Trim's main function is to help its users save money, but there's a caveat. Due to the unique value of this financial app, their pricing is based on how much they save you.
The basic version of the app is free, but Trim also "trims" their own cost from your accrued annual savings, taking 33 percent of the savings they helped to negotiate.
9. Best Financial App for Investing Beginners: Acorns
Ever since the whole GameStop thing, we've all been thinking about getting into small-time investments, right?
That's how we got on theAcornsbandwagon.The app uses a methodology it calls “micro-investing,” meaning that when you sync Acorns to your debit card, it starts to sneakily dip into your balance, taking the leftover change on each of your transactions and rounding it up to the nearest dollar.
Other Micro-Investing Apps:
10. Best Financial App for Wealth Management: Empower (Formerly Personal Capital)
If you've built some wealth for yourself, first of all, freaking kudos to you! That's amazing and we think you've got impressive assets.
Empoweris a budgeting and savings app that helps you take a look at your entire financial picture. It also has wealth advisory tools built right in, including investment snapshots, investment fee analyzers, financial planning, cash flow tracking, education cost planning, and real-time net worth tracking.If you want a financial app that "does it all," this is a great download. Track investments and start marveling at your net worth on your mobile device daily. You've earned it.
Other Investment Apps to Help Manage Capital
11. Best Retailer App: Cartwheel
Make a lot of Target runs?
Using the Cartwheelapp saves me anywhere between $10 and $50 every time I go. I also use grocery store apps at my local spots (Sprouts and Vons have them, among others).
12. Best App for Discount Codes: RetailMeNot
Then there’s RetailMeNot. All you have to do is open the app when you step into a store to find out what coupons or discounts are currently available. When you check out, the clerk just scans the coupons on your phone.
13. Best App for Coupons: Honey
Last but not least, if you haven’t downloaded Honey, you must. This is actually a browser extension, not a phone app, but hey—technology is technology. Honey analyzes every online cart before you checkout to see if it can find you discount codes. I saved bank at West Elm recently.
14. Best Financial App for Shared Expenses: Honeydue
Do you want to sync your finances and financial goals with your partner or spouse? Me neither, but sometimes it's necessary to save for something big (like, LOL, a house, maybe?) or plan for future retirement.
Honeydueis a way to manage money with your partner without a joint bank account. While we're not huge fans of the name, based on the infamous "honey-do list," it's a great app to help share a financial snapshot with your partner and keep an eye on both shared and personal accounts—and the accompanying budgets, rent payment reminders, bill reminders, bill payments, bill due dates, and, you know, bills.
Tags : Finance
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