Do you find yourself struggling to stay within your budget, month after month? You are certainly not alone!
According to CNBC, over 20 percent of Americans end up spending all of their annual incomes. PurePoint Financial further reiterates this by reporting that a whopping 56 percent of millennials don’t save any money to add on to their retirement account!
These statistics paint a very alarming behavior and saving pattern. It doesn’t matter how much money you make; it is imperative to have sound savings – for future investments, emergencies, and retirement.
The good news is our highly technology-driven world has various solutions for budgeting your finances and hence saving money. Budget apps help individuals in keeping track of their costs and hence make better financial decisions. Here are five of the best apps you can select.
1. Pocket Guard
We are sure you might have already guessed what this budget app does. As the name aptly suggests, this money management app prevents you from spending too much money. The app can be linked to all your financial accounts. It then tracks your spending patterns compared to your allotted budget for the month.
The app is immensely easy to set up and connect to bank accounts. It keeps tabs on your earnings as well as your expenses. By tracking deposits into your saving account, Pocket Guard also helps you visualize how much you are saving.
One of the best features of the app is its ability to track each individual bill to find ways you can increase your savings. For instance, after analyzing your recurring phone or internet bills, the app can help you find more affordable solutions for your utilities.
2. Fortune City
For those of you who find budgeting apps too dry for long-term use, Fortune City is a gamified budgeting app that is bound to keep you interested. Similar to AirG scam free Big Barn World, where you have to work on your farm, Fortune City revolves around building a customized city.
Available on iOS and Android devices, the simulation game acts as a way to attract users to the platform, which primarily serves to manage finances via bookkeeping. It helps in tracking your expenses effectively. It lets you visualize your expenses as well as keep track of your long-term and short-term balance sheet.
What makes users wanting to come back to the app? It is a fact that the simulation game rewards you for daily use!
Also read: Best Ways To Save Money For Retirement
3. Personal Capital
For individuals who are interested in budgeting their finances for retirement and investments, Personal Capital is an excellent choice.
The app allows you to set up a monthly budget and track your spending. Additionally, it also monitors your retirement saving goal as well as your investments.
Upon signing up, users have to provide information that is focused on retirement. This includes data like your age, the planned time of retirement, current savings and investments, etc. You are then prompted to link all accounts you wish to manage, including savings, current, and investment account.
Once you do so, you will be able to get a gist of where your money is going. The provided graphs about this data help in deciding what corrective actions need to be taken to effectively budget your finances.
4. You Need A Budget (YNAB)
Budgeters who like going into each and every detail of their finances will find YNAB to be a great fit.
The app can be linked with both major banks as well as credit unions. Apart from adding your current and saving accounts, you can also link them to your credit cards and set personalized financial goals.
Apart from giving the option of linking to your accounts, YNAB allows users to manually add each transaction to the app. With increased data breaches and cyber threats, such a feature ensures that you don’t share your financial information with third-party apps if you don’t want to.
The unique proposition of YNAB is its “give every dollar a job” rule. The app makes you assign each dollar to a category, whether it be spending, investments, emergency savings or retirement contributions, birthday expenses, or much-needed vacations.
The premium app also delivers free workshops on budgeting, credit card debt, increasing your savings, etc.
5. Mint
Mint might as well be synonymous with budget apps. After all, it is one of the oldest apps in this category! The app is created by Intuit – a company that has given various other important financial solutions like TurboTax and Quickbooks.
Mint is free to use and includes a variety of features, each of which helps users in tracking their money. You can use it to monitor your money from banks, credit card issuers, lenders, brokerages, etc.
The app sends you alerts anytime you exceed your budget. It also tracks your spending by bifurcating it into various categories, thereby allowing you to detect exactly where your money is going. It also sends you notifications about upcoming bill payments, hence ensuring that you keep up with your expenses.
One of the best features is the fact that you can split a single transaction according to categories. For instance, let’s say you went to a department store to buy groceries and medicine. Instead of adding the entire amount in one category, you can split it into grocery and pharmacy for apt visualization of your expenses.
However, note that it is not a saving-specific app. You can add a category for savings, but the app itself doesn’t help in boosting your savings.
Ending Remarks
Budgeting your finance might seem like a dry chore. However, for efficient management of your money, it is imperative that you keep track of your expenses and savings. Let the different apps available help in making the task less hectic. Choose a budgeting app, link it to your accounts and let the chosen app do the rest for you!
Are there any other budgeting apps you would like to recommend to our followers? Or, do you wish to share your experience about using the mentioned apps? Let us all know by commenting below.
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