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Rising costs have placed a squeeze on household budgets, with 63% of Americans stating inflation has prevented them from saving more, according to Bankrate. It means budgeting our expenses is a higher priority for many homes.
That’s where budgeting apps come in. With the popular Mint app closing this spring, there are plenty of other apps you can consider. These apps allow you to sort out your finances by organizing your spending into categories, setting savings and retirement goals, and getting a review of your finances.
Here’s a look at other budget-friendly apps that you can download through the Apple App Store or Google Play. All applications indexed here guarantee users that the knowledge received from their bank accounts is a password and will not be shared with third-party providers. They also have two-factor authentication to protect your monetary information. All indexed costs are as of December 2024.
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You Need a Budget is a good choice if you need to use a handy and detailed budgeting app to track expenses. By helping you prioritize where you spend your money, YNAB provides a holistic technique for tracking your spending habits. YNAB offers 4 regulations that users follow.
The first is based on what’s known as the zero-based budgeting method, in which you assign every dollar in your bank account to a specific expense. If an emergency arises, the app helps you make changes to your budget to accommodate any unexpected expenses.
The second rule is to plan for large, infrequent expenses (say, for home repairs or annual insurance premiums) by setting aside money for them each month, while the third rule encourages you to make adjustments if you run out of money in one of your budgeting categories by moving money to it from a different category.
YNAB’s fourth rule is to “age your cash”; In other words, once you get used to budgeting and spending less, you can pay your existing monthly expenses with the cash you stashed away last month after your recent maximum paycheck. In addition to offering budgeting advice, YNAB also offers live online money management workshops.
Price: Sign up for a free trial for 34 days, then $14.99 a month or $109 if you pay annually.
If you’re new to a budgeting app, you can easily decide on one of those options.
Quicken’s Simplifi features easy-to-navigate menus and charts and creates a personalized spending plan you can use to monitor your income and expenses. Your spending plan adjusts as your expenses change, and the app’s features let you easily tweak your budget. In addition to tracking your spending, Simplifi helps you plan for the future, projecting your cash flow based on upcoming bills so you can change your spending accordingly. Quicken also recently released LifeHub, which allows you to add and organize your most important financial documents into a secure, digital hub. This protects them in the event your home incurs a fire, flood or other disaster. The service is only $1.99 per month.
Price: Sign up for $2. 99 per month, billed annually.
Tiller is possibly the most productive app for you if you like spreadsheets to balance your budget. After linking your money accounts to Tiller, you can use one of its templates to create a traditional budget spreadsheet in Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel, and the sheets automatically come with updated data about your spending and balances. of connected accounts. You can also have Tiller send you daily email updates about your account balances.
Price: Try it loose for 30 days, then $79 depending on the year.
Jason Gerber, qualified financial planner and managing partner at Prime Capital Investment Advisors, recommends Empower (formerly known as Personal Capital) because it puts you in control of your spending and investment portfolios.
For example, if you have investment accounts with Fidelity Investments and Morgan Stanley, you can review both of your portfolios, including a breakdown of holdings and their allocations, on a dashboard on the Empower app. You can also link other types of accounts, such as 529 college savings plans, health savings accounts and your home mortgage.
Price: Get the Empower app free on Google Play or the Apple App Store.
If you sign up for a PocketGuard Plus subscription, you can set up a debt repayment plan built into your budget. You enter the main points, such as the minimum payment and the annual percentage rate of your debts, and PocketGuard allocates enough cash to spend on the debt and sets up a payment schedule. Plus plan members can also create unlimited budgets and savings goals.
The free Basic plan lets you create a budget and track your bills, spending and income.
Price: Try the Plus plan free for 7 days. The Plus plan is $12.99 monthly, $74.99 annually.
After you download the Honeydue app, you can invite your partner via email or text message to download it, too. Once you both have the app, you can monitor your budgets and track your spending habits for joint accounts. (Your partner won’t be able to see information about your individual accounts and vice versa.) You can also coordinate bill payments and discuss how to manage your budget in the app’s chat section.
Price: Download the free app on the Apple App Store or on Google Play.
While some budgeting apps help you stay on track with your spouse, Monarch will help you partner with your financial advisor. As with other budgeting apps, once you attach your accounts to Monarch, you can track your spending. However, Monarch will also allow you to securely share your account data with your advisor so you can collaborate on your savings and investment goals. You can also share the app with your spouse or household members, who will have their own login.
Once you create an account with Monarch, you can charge your money advisor to your account at no additional cost. Your advisor can securely log into your separate account and will not see your non-public identifying information, such as your bank account number.
Price: Try it free for seven days, then $14.99 monthly or $69.99 annually.
Gerber notes that while budgeting apps can be useful, they’re also worth checking out to adopt a practical technique for managing your budget. Take time each week to review your finances with your spouse or alone. And even if you use an app, he adds, you deserve to meet with a financial advisor to talk about how best to achieve your financial goals.
Note: This article first appeared in Kiplinger Personal Finance magazine, a trusted monthly source of recommendations and guidance. Sign up for help making more money and keeping more of the money you make.
Ella Vincent is a personal finance writer who has written about credit, retirement, and employment issues. She has previously written for Motley Fool and Yahoo Finance. She enjoys going to concerts in her native Chicago and watching basketball.