Are you currently using pen and paper to plan your budget? If so, you’re missing out on several tools that can simplify the task. Nowadays, numerous mobile budgeting apps on the market can automate specific tasks and keep your accounts in order. Additionally, some alternatives can assist you in achieving your financial goals by simplifying the planning process.
Top Budgeting Apps
Check out some of the popular budgeting apps and their capabilities. We have selected apps with different features to cater to varying user needs. You can try a few before you settle on one.
YNAB: Easy Financial Planning Tool
YNAB focuses on financial planning rather than tracking past transactions. It follows the zero-based budgeting model, where you have to plan for each dollar you earn. You tell the app how much income goes to each expense category, savings, and financial goal. The idea is to prompt you to make conscious financial decisions and become better at money management.
The tool enables you to be hands-on with your financial matters. It also provides many educational articles that touch on various aspects of budgeting and technical features of the app. Here are YNAB’s features:
– You can use it with your loans, credit cards, savings, and checking accounts.
– It works on the desktop, phone, Apple Watch, iPad, and Alexa.
– You may try it free for 34 days and pay $14.99 a month or $99 a year thereafter.
Mint: A Tool for All Your Budgeting Needs
Mint has high ratings on Google Play and the App Store. The app syncs with any kind of banking account. You can use it with your credit cards, loans, savings, checking accounts, and bills. It is an app for everything financial and has the following features:
– It is a free tool that tracks all your expenses across budget categories.
– You can personalize existing categories and create new ones.
– You can set limits for each category. Warnings appear when you are approaching them.
– This app also shows your net worth and credit score.
– You may also use the “Mintsights” feature to learn ways to create financial goals, save more money, or pay down debt.
– It has an FAQ section to answer your financial questions at the click of a button.
Empower Personal Wealth: Track Your Wealth and Spending
Empower Personal Wealth tracks spending and investments alike for free. Most people use it to monitor credit card and savings accounts, 401(k)s, IRAs, loans, and mortgages. So, if you make money in Canada or elsewhere with equivalent plans and accounts, you can use the tool to manage each income stream separately. It has other budgeting features, as follows:
– The app provides a spending snapshot that lists recent transactions by their categories.
– It enables you to create and customize categories depending on your needs.
– You can use it to determine the percentage of your monthly spending for each category.
Honeydue: A Budgeting Tool for Partners
If you live with a partner and budget your money together, consider Honeydue. The free app allows you and your partner to sync your accounts and view all of them from one platform.
– You can sync your credit cards, bank accounts, investments, and loans. However, you choose how much information you will share with your partner.
– Honeydue automatically creates categories for your expenses but gives you the option of customizing them.
– You can determine limits for each category and get Honeydue to alert you when you and your partner are close to the monthly limit.
– It sends you reminders of upcoming bills.
– You can use the chat feature to collaborate with your partner.
Goodbudget: A Simple Envelope Budgeting App
You may want a portion of your income to go to specific expenses rather than plan every penny according to the needs at hand. This is called an envelope budgeting system, where each expense category is an envelope. Goodbudget enables you to create these envelopes and assign money to each.
– You manually enter the balances for each of your accounts, as well as your debts and credit cards.
– The app is available on the web or as an app on Android and iOS.
– The free version lets you create a single account on multiple devices with unlimited envelopes.
– Its paid version, Goodbudget Plus, allows you to have a single app on five devices and create unlimited accounts and envelopes. It costs $8 a month or $70 a year.
Final Thoughts
Your needs largely determine your choice of budgeting apps. If you wish to plan your money rather than track expenses, check out the planning apps. Otherwise, use trackers to manage your spending.
Besides, determine if you wish to manually feed your account balances or have them automatically input into your app. Check other automatic features and the cost of the app before making a choice. And remember that it’s always a smart idea to try different apps before settling on one!
