Managing your money is as important as making money. Everyone should have a budget because spending extravagantly is easy, leaving you with nothing to save or struggling to cover your bills at the end of the month. This article explores the best apps for managing money.
A money management app is a popular way for people to build a budget and keep track of their finances.
So, if you’re eager to achieve your monetary goals with newfound ease and confidence, join us as we explore the best apps for managing money in 2023.
Are Apps for Managing Money Safe to Use?
Money management apps can be safe, provided you choose reputable ones and take certain precautions. Opt for apps with strong security measures, like encryption and two-factor authentication, to safeguard your financial data. Research user reviews and check for app permissions before downloading. Stick to well-known platforms to minimize risks.
Regularly update the app and your device’s operating system to ensure you have the latest security patches. Be cautious about sharing sensitive information, and avoid using public Wi-Fi when accessing your financial data. With due diligence and smart practices, money management apps can be a secure tool for maintaining your finances.
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How Do Apps for Managing Money Work?
Money management apps are digital tools that help you track, analyze, and optimize your financial activities. They typically work by connecting to your bank accounts, credit cards, and other financial institutions using secure encryption protocols. Once linked, these apps automatically pull your transaction data and categorize your spending into various expense categories.
The apps offer features such as budgeting, where you can set spending limits for different categories and receive alerts when you’re nearing those limits. They also provide insights into your spending patterns, displaying graphs and charts that help you visualize your financial behavior. Some apps offer investment tracking, bill payment reminders, and debt management tools.
Furthermore, money management apps can sync across devices, allowing you to access your financial information anytime, anywhere. The goal is to provide a comprehensive view of your finances, enabling better financial decision-making and goal attainment.
Why Should I Use Money Management Apps?
Money management apps can offer numerous benefits that greatly improve your financial life. Here are some compelling reasons why you should consider using them:
1. Budgeting Made Easy
Money management apps provide intuitive budgeting tools that help you effortlessly track your income and expenses. They categorize your spending, show you where your money is going, and enable you to set financial goals.
2. Financial Awareness
With these apps, you clearly understand your financial situation. You can see your net worth, debts, and assets in one place, which empowers you to make informed decisions about your money.
3. Expense Tracking on the Go
Most apps are available on your smartphone, allowing you to track expenses in real time. It helps you avoid overspending and makes you aware of your financial habits.
4. Automatic Transaction Categorization
Budgeting apps use algorithms to categorize your expenses automatically. This saves you time and effort in manually sorting your transactions.
5. Bill Payment Reminders
These apps often come with bill payment reminders, ensuring you never miss a due date and avoid late payment fees.
6. Financial Goal Setting
You can set savings, debt reduction targets, or other financial objectives. The app will track your progress and motivate you to stay on track. You can also use the apps to track your general financial progress. Many apps will track your net worth over time so you can follow how your finances have changed over the months or years since you started using the app.
How To Select The Best Apps For Managing Money
Choosing an app for managing money can seem small compared to other personal finance choices. But the right budgeting app can make a big difference in your financial life.
When selecting an app for managing money, ensure you consider what your needs and goals are first. The right budgeting app can provide helpful insights and data into your expenses and savings. But before that happens, identifying your financial goals can help refine your search for the right budgeting app.
Here are a few features to consider when choosing an app for managing money:
1. Fees
The prices of different budgeting applications vary. While some budgeting applications require a monthly cost, many are free or have free versions. Even though it could be tempting to select a free app, consider the paid apps as well. It can be worthwhile to spend the money if a budgeting app will dramatically improve your financial picture.
2. Features
Testing a few applications to discover which best suits your needs may make sense because each app has different features and advantages. If you have ever used a mobile banking app, you are already familiar with the features you will be looking for. Leading budgeting applications typically offer the following features: tying together your financial accounts, getting alerts when bills are due, creating a budget, monitoring credit scores, tracking expenditures, creating financial objectives, and more.
3. Security
The security of your personal information is also a good factor to consider when choosing an app for managing money. While most budgeting apps have some level of security, some are more sophisticated than others. Be sure to look into the level of security encryption of each app. You may find security features on their websites, such as 256-bit encryption and multi-factor authentication. These capabilities, along with using a secure Wi-Fi network, will prevent unauthorized users from accessing your information.
5. Customer service
If you run into an issue when using a budgeting app, having a technical team you can contact can be helpful. When selecting a budgeting app, be sure to find out what customer service options are available, both from the app and the desktop version, if applicable. It also may help to read reviews of others’ experiences with the app you’re considering.
Best Apps For Managing Money
Here are the 10 best apps for managing money in 2023:
1. You Need a Budget (YNAB)
The top slot goes to You Need a Budget (YNAB) due to the organization’s well-known budgeting ethos and reputation. According to YNAB, first-time savers of a budget often save $600 in their first two months and more than $6,000 in their first year. Despite being the most expensive choice on our list, YNAB offers a 34-day free trial.
On YNAB, you can sync your bank accounts, import data from a file, or manually enter each transaction. The business advises starting by watching video tutorials, attending a live class, or reading a manual to master the fundamentals of the program. YNAB offers a proactive budgeting method in place of tracking your previous spending, like some of its rivals.
2. Simplifi
Simplifi by Quicken ranks best for cash flow because of the app’s effective tracking capabilities. It’s the greatest choice for managing how much you can spend in the interim between paychecks. After a free 30-day trial, you must pay $3.99 a month (billed annually at $47.99) or $5.99 per month if you don’t want to pay in advance for the app.
To use Simpliffi, you must sync bank accounts and complete a snapshot of your finances. The budgeting app classifies your spending automatically, keeps track of subscriptions and regular expenditures, and prioritizes incoming expenses.
The app’s personalized watchlists, which let you restrict spending by payee or category, are remarkable. The personalized spending plan also keeps track of cash flow to ensure you only spend what you earn. While using the program, Simplifi by Quicken provides advice, but there is also a blog with useful information.
3. Mint
With 25 million users, Mint stands to be one of the most well-liked budgeting applications.
All levels of budgeters can use the program, which is free and straightforward to use. Mint is our top pick for the best free budgeting app since it lets you view your TransUnion credit score, track investments, and set up reminders for bill payments.
Mint also offers monthly bill tracking, including payment reminders to avoid late fees. The app also lets you keep track of your investments and check portfolio fees. Mint offers a few educational resources like a home affordability calculator, a loan repayment calculator, and a blog with various personal finance topics.
The app protects your data through features like security scanning with Verisign, multi-factor authentication, and touch ID mobile access.
4. Goodbudget
Goodbudget is also one of the best apps for managing money. Rather than keeping track of previous transactions, Goodbbudget will help you make financial plans. This program is based on the envelope budgeting method, in which you allocate a certain percentage of your monthly income to various areas of spending (referred to as envelopes).
This app doesn’t connect your bank accounts. You manually add account balances (that you can pull from your bank’s website), cash amounts, debts, and income. Then you assign money to envelopes.
Goodbudget offers a free version that allows one account, two devices, and limited envelopes. You can subscribe to the paid version that allows unlimited envelopes and accounts, up to five devices, and other perks.
5. Prism
Prism displays your bills and bank accounts in one app, giving you a complete picture of your finances. The software lists over 11,000 billers, including significant banks and small energy providers. Prism automatically maintains track of the invoices you upload to the app to avoid missing payments and warns you when payments are due.
You can use the app to make payments by scheduling them on the same day or several days in advance. This eliminates the need to log into multiple accounts to pay bills.
6. Stash
Stash is an investment app that combines the features of a brokerage account and a robo-advisor with an online bank account.
Basically, Stash is a good choice for people just learning about saving and investing. The easy-to-use platform gives new investors a convenient way of managing their money via a single mobile app.
7. Spendee
Spendee allows you to create wallets with friends and family that you can use to manage shared expenses for a household budget.
If you’re worried about going over budget, you can set amounts for each spending category and track your progress toward the budgeted amount. You can import your bank transactions and let the app categorize them to tally how you spend money each month. You can also manually add cash expenses for a more accurate picture of where your money goes.
8. PocketGuard
PocketGuard is one of the best apps for overspenders because its features focus on helping users control overspending. The app offers a free, paid, premium version, PocketGuard Plus.
You must use the app to connect your checking, savings, and credit card accounts. The app can see your spending and where to save, reminding you when credit card bills are due. PocketGuard’s “In My Pocket” feature uses an algorithm to identify how much money you can spend based on your income, upcoming bills, goals, recent spending, and budgets.
9. Honeydue
Honeydue allows partners to monitor and coordinate all financial activities and impending debts.
The app is split into three sections: the “all” area, which displays pooled transactions, and each partner’s spending. Each member can categorize expenses as either personal or shared, such as rent or subscription fees.
Additionally, a shared calendar is used to input bill reminders and the amount of expenditure ascribed to each item. This calendar will notify both users when a bill due date is approaching.
10. EveryDollar
The EveryDollar app uses the zero-based budget method that personal finance expert Dave Ramsey recommends. The zero-based budget gives every dollar a purpose in the budget, hence the app’s name EveryDollar.
A built-in monthly expense tracker lets you connect to your bank to import transactions to keep up with your spending. The tracker shows you the amount you’ve spent so far for the month and the amount you have left to spend.
Through the EveryDollar app, you can connect with money management experts who can help you with your financial planning. You can also access your budget through the app or desktop computer.
Conclusion
Imagine effortlessly staying on top of your monthly expenses with intuitive expense tracking tools. By downloading any money management apps on our list, you are well on the path to financial stability and independence.
