8 Personal Finance Apps For Your Better Future

Money is a touchy subject for most people. It's something that we all need, but sometimes it can seem too distressing to deal with. For those needing a little helping hand with their personal or business finances, an online budget planner, daily expenses app, and other personal finance apps can take away the stress! Let's be honest - it can feel really overwhelming to tackle the task of managing your finances on top of everything else you have going on in your life. Whether you're an entrepreneur in need of a daily expenses app or a student struggling to budget, there are many great personal finance apps out there that can help you manage your money better. With so many apps to choose from, you can manage your finances and money in any way that suits you best. We've found 8 apps and tools that will help you take control of your money without feeling overwhelmed!

Table of Contents:

• The Benefits of Personal Finance Apps

  • You won't forget a bill

  • You'll be better at saving

  • They track what you spend and where you spend it

  • Your credit score and loan acceptance can increase

• Best Personal Finance Apps to try

  • Mobills

  • Spendee

  • Mint

  • You Need A Budget

  • Acorns

  • Personal Capital

  • Quicken

  • Prism

• Conclusion

The Benefits of Personal Finance Apps

You can use personal finance apps for many different things. While they are mostly known for helping those struggling with paying their bills, these apps can also be used to help you save up for special occasions, manage business profits, and can even suggest investment opportunities for you! Here are a few reasons why you should consider personal financing apps:

You won't forget a bill 

There's nothing more frustrating than forgetting to pay a bill and being hit with a late fee. Luckily, for those that use personal finance apps, you won't forget another bill! Most decent finance apps give you the option to set up direct debit payments or and payment reminders. Direct debits can save you a lot of hassle when it comes to your bills, as you don't have to do any manual work. Sometimes, direct debits aren't the best option, especially for those that forget about their bills and struggle to budget their money. For these people, payment reminders are the perfect solution. You can set payment reminders to notify you on the day you get paid, the day before your bill is due, or any other time you want - just pick whenever is most convenient for you. While a reminder can help you remember your bills, it won't transfer the money for you, so remember to act as soon as you're notified!

You'll be better at saving 

If your main goal is increasing your savings, you're in luck. Whether you want to save up for a luxury holiday, an early retirement, or just have a rainy day pot set aside, personal finance apps can help. Certain apps have online budget planners that help you calculate your monthly spending budgets. They work by taking your monthly ingoings and subtracting all your outgoings. To use an online budget planner, you'll need to know your ingoings, including your wages. You'll be able to find your monthly wage amount on your paystub - if you don't have a paystub, you can create one easily online. You'll also need to know roughly how much you spend on things like groceries, phone bills, rent, etc. 

They track what you spend and where you spend it

All finance apps have different features and functions, but you'll find that most come with finance tracking. A personal expense tracker app is a type of finance app that will track all your outgoings to monitor where your money goes. While expense tracking doesn't stop you from spending your cash, it does give you some important analytics on your spending you can use to help your budgeting efforts. Most personal expense tracker apps will note all your outgoings and pop them into different categories. This data is then displayed in a monthly spending report which can shed light on where all your money is going. These categories will be things like eating out, groceries, bills, transport, and shopping. If you're prone to splashing all your cash on new clothes or fancy foods, this might be just the thing for you. The tracking feature on personal finance apps is perfect for those who want to save money without making massive lifestyle changes! 

Your credit score and loan acceptance can increase

Paying your bills on time and having a good grasp on your spending bring in their own set of benefits. If you have a particularly poor credit score that you want to boost, using an online budget planner or personal expense track app is a sure way of helping. Your credit score plays an integral part in your life; it can increase your likeliness of business and personal loans and could help you get on or move up the property ladder. If you have future buying plans, you should consider budgeting apps to help your credit. While there are extra steps you can take to boost your credit score, using a personal finance app is a free and easy option.

Best Personal Finance Apps to try

Now that you know all the benefits personal finance apps can bring, it's time to look at the different ones available to see which one will work best for you!

Mobills

Mobills offers an easy way of tracking your expenses within one user-friendly app. Available for both mobile and desktop, you can use its useful budgeting features whenever you want. Simply input your bank account and credit card information into the app, and Mobills will collect all your data and store it in the form of an easy-to-read chart. Mobills analyses your spending, placing all your outgoings into set categories - this will help you make better-informed decisions on what to cut back on or can just be a helpful tool to see where the majority of your money goes. You can also add due date notifications for any bills you want to be reminded of. Mobills offers free and premium options, so you can try it for free and upgrade your account if you like.

Spendee

For those looking for a finance monitoring app for more than one account, try Spendee. The personal finance app can be used by couples, business partners, and whole families to keep track of expenses and savings. Spendee categorizes all spending and even lets you add manual cash entries for those that like to use physical money. With Spendee, you can set monthly budgets for each spending category, so you'll never overspend on eating out or online shopping. Going on holiday or attending a special event? You can set up a brand new category for whatever your special occasion is and create daily budgets, too. If you're forgetful about paying your bills, Spendee can also remind you of any upcoming payment dates. The app has one free and two paid options to choose from, with the most expensive plan costing only $2.99 a month.

Mint

Mint is a free-to-use personal finance app that makes its money from suggesting offers and deals from credit cards and loans to its users. While it offers the usual features such as a budget calculator, payment reminders, and category spending reports, it excels in its credit score and insights integration. Within the app, you can check your credit score and see a breakdown of the factors contributing to your score, along with valuable suggestions on how to improve it. You'll also have access to MintInsights, which gives you personalized recommendations on various topics such as consolidating debt, budgeting, and growing investments. If you already have some investments, you can view them in the Mint app, too.

You Need A Budget

You Need A Budget is all about budgeting, of course. The first thing you do when using YNAB is to set a budget savings goal; this is what you'll work towards. The app then uses an online budget planner and expenses tracker to work out the best way to reach your goal. If you're looking for ways to save for a last-minute getaway or out-of-the-blue event, YNAB is a fantastic option. You can try the app for free for 34 days, and then you'll be required to pay an annual subscription payment of $83.99, which works out at $6.99 a month. Although the fee can be offputting, YNAB claims the average new user saves around $600 in the first two months and roughly $6,000 a year - so it's definitely worth considering.

Acorns

Acorns acts as a virtual piggy bank for students and those who struggle to save money. It works by rounding up your purchases, taking the spare change and investing it automatically into different portfolios. You can also open up an IRA and participate in active investing. Choose to link your current credit and debit cards or sign up for their own debit card - you can still spend money as you usually would, but the transactions are all monitored in your Acorns account. Acorns costs $1 per month until your balance hits $5,000, then it's 0.25% of the account balance per year. Fortunately for students with a valid .edu email address, you can access the app for free on Android, iOS, and the web.

Personal Capital

While you can perform all the usual tasks and functions you find on personal finance apps, Personal Capital's success comes from its investment management. Unlike other apps on the market, Personal Capital allows you to set up talks with a financial advisor to discuss goals and create your very own investment plan. You can track your portfolio by account, asset class, or individual security. The app compares your own portfolio to major market benchmarks, allowing you to determine whether you're on track to reach your goals. The tablet and mobile versions of the app also offer built-in intelligence to help you discover opportunities for diversification, risk management, and find any hidden fees you may be paying. You can use most of the investment and financial tracking tools for free; however, Personal Capital charges an 0.89% account management fee.  

Quicken

Trusted by over 17 million members worldwide, it's easy to see why Quicken makes this list. With this personal finance app, you can pay bills and transfer money from connected accounts, which many other financial management apps don't offer. The software is available on Mac, Windows, and smartphones, although it isn't free to use. Quicken will set you back at least $35.99 a year for the most basic plan, whereas the most expensive plan comes in at a hefty $103.99. You can use Quicken for both personal finances and business finances, and the app has all the primary features personal finance apps usually have. It offers budgeting, financial reports, and your own Quicken credit card if you want one.

Prism

Prism is an excellent app for those that want to control all their finances in one place. It's hailed as one of the best personal financing apps for scheduling payments and setting up direct debits, so if a simple payment reminder isn't good enough, you might want to consider Prism! The app has over 11,000 billers, which makes adding your payments a breeze. If you want to monitor your spending and view your data, Prism also pops your information into reports for easy reading. While there isn't currently a web app for Prism, you can use the app on Android and iOS phones. The app boasts a secure system with firewalls and encryptions, and best of all, it's free to use!

Conclusion

You can't make the most of your money without a bit of help, and the benefits of using a personal finance app are just too good to miss. With the right system, you'll be able to see what money is coming in and out of your bank account with ease - not just on paper but also digitally! The end of the month can be challenging enough, so it's always nice to know where all our cash is going. By downloading one of the suggested systems above, you'll be able to reap the rewards of better budgeting. If you're looking to manage your outgoings better, save up for your retirement, or just make your money go further, you won't find any better solution! Why not download one of the personal finance apps mentioned above and get started on your journey to more stable financing! If you need to create a paystub, try out our paystub creator.