There are many great reasons why tracking your money through an app is more convenient.
These days, your entire financial plan can, quite literally, fit into your pocket. Using an app to track your money spending and financial goals is the way of the future.
However, this doesn’t mean that every app out there is worth checking out. You could end up wasting a lot of your time going through them all before you find one that suits your personal preferences.
We’ve taken some of the guesswork out of the equation so that you can find your money managing app quicker. Let’s take a look at the top 5 apps for financial tracking.
Best App for Money Management: Mint
The first financial tracking app on our list is ideal if you’re looking for an effective way to create your budget, track your spending, manage your spending and ultimately, getting smart about your finances.
What we love most about the free Mint app by Intuit Inc. is that you can connect all your credit card and bank accounts. Additionally, you can add on your monthly bills too, which puts all your finances conveniently in one place.
Mint uses notifications to let you know when your monthly bills are due, as well as telling you how much you owe and what you need to pay.
The Mint app can also send you timely reminders to help you avoid those pesky late fees. Mint can also give you financial advice based on your spending habits. Did we mention that you also get a free credit score with this app?
At the end of the day, the free Mint app is ideal if you like to see your credit score in real time. It’s also excellent for showing you how much money you have at any given time across all your accounts.
Best App to Make a Budget: You Need a Budget
You Need a Budget is pretty unique when it comes to budgeting and financial tracking apps. YNAB can assist in getting you away from living paycheck to paycheck, avoid your debt getting too high and allowing a bit of leg room if something unexpected comes up.
YNAB is built around a seamlessly simple principle – that every dollar you earn has a purpose. This means that this app only allows you to make budgets around money that you have – instead of including money that you may predict you’ll make say, next week.
If you veer off course, YNAB is there to help you see where you went wrong and consider what you can do to get back on track.
This is primarily due to the built-in accountability partner. While you'll have to pay a small monthly fee for YNAB, we consider this to be more than worth it. You can even connect to online classes for lessons on budgeting correctly.
The best feature that YNAB has to offer is the budget feature. You can set up weekly or monthly budgets, and even set aside money for individual budgets, like Christmas gifts.
Best App for Tracking Your Expenses: Wally
If you're someone who loves filling out those expense reports at work, then you'll get excited about this next app.
Wally is a financial tracking app that allows you to take photos of your receipts which it then takes and organizes for you into a beautifully created expense report.
We love Wally because it’s a streamlined app created for type A personalities that like to see everything lined up. It’s an ideal option if you’re someone who would like to learn more about where your money is going.
Wally is unique because it allows you to take photos of your receipts. This saves you the time-consuming task of typing everything in.
Best App for Saving Money: Acorns
Saving money and implementing smart financial decisions can be harder than it looks. However, this next app makes this whole process anything but complicated.
Let’s break it down in layman’s terms. Simply speaking, every time you make a purchase on a card that’s connected to the Acorns app, it will round that purchase up to the nearest dollar and automatically invest the difference in exchange-traded funds.
When you first get the app, you choose the traded funds Acorns invests in, deciding the risk level. Effectively, this app is putting your pocket change to work in a way that’s completely painless and, in our opinion, pretty smart.
If you’re a college student, Acorns is free. If you’re not, it’s an affordable $1 per month. Acorns is excellent if you’re someone who loves the idea of automatically investing your savings without having to do anything.
Best Financial Tracking App for Bitcoin: Coinbase
You may be someone who has jumped on the bandwagon of bitcoin lately – you see it as a way to invest a bit of your savings and financially track what your money is doing online.
If this is the case, you’re going to like this next app. If you’re looking for one consolidated app to trade Bitcoin from, Coinbase is an ideal place to start.
The simple interface of this app makes it easier to use on your smartphone. However, it may be used from your desktop as well.
What we love about Coinbase is that you can set up price alerts well in advance. This means you can know when an interested vendor has met your target buy/sell price.
Coinbase is excellent if you want to get a piece of the bitcoin pie and track your bitcoin finances.
Conclusion
Sticking to a budget, logging expenses, trying your hand at trading or taking a bite out of bitcoin has never been easier. While there are many financial tracking apps out there that are worth your time, there are also ones that aren’t. Start with the top 5 apps for financial tracking, and we're confident that you'll end up finding your perfect match.