To effectively manage your budget, structuring and regularity are essential. You must take into account your monthly income and expenses and group them by category. In the age of digitalization, budgets in paper or xls format are no longer always suitable. There are simple and practical applications to track your budget and expenses. They often also allow you to monitor your credits, pay your bills or even monitor the performance of your investments.
Here are 5 useful mobile apps for managing your personal budget:
MINT – is a free application that synchronizes all types of accounts: savings accounts, credit cards, loans, investments, bills,… Mint automatically categorizes transactions. But you can create an unlimited number of categories and set their limits. You receive a notification or alert when you approach these limits. This app can help you pay off debt, save more money, and track your budget. You can manage your money from a long list of banks, credit card issuers and other financial institutions. Mint offers a variety of easy-to-use financial planning and tracking tools. It also reminds you of bills to pay. You can view balances, transactions, spending details, and financial goals. The app automatically suggests budget amounts for specific categories, but you can adjust these amounts. She also recommends financial products based on your financial situation.
GOODBUDGET – is more suitable for planning your budget than for tracking previous transactions. With the free version of the app, you can manually add account balances, cash amounts, debts and income. There are no features like your investment portfolio performance or credit score monitoring. GoodBudget is ideal for users who want to organize their priorities, progress financially and achieve their budgeting goals. The app uses the envelope system which will let you know what is saved each month and how much money is allocated to each expense. To keep up with the modern world, GoodBudget has come up with digital envelopes, which help you achieve your financial goals, like paying off debt and saving for major expenses. Traditionally, this envelope system makes it possible to distribute monthly income into different expense categories. Using the app, you can create digital envelopes with category names (like loans, bills, rent, household expenses) and money for those categories added.
POCKETGUARD – wishes to simplify the budget monitoring process by offering a free version of the application. Here you can connect your bank accounts, credit cards, loans, investments and track your bills. You also have the option to track your finances manually if you don't want to connect your accounts to it. You can find simplified budgeting tools and features to help you set daily spending limits. PocketGuard sends you personalized reports on your spending, as well as your available balance. The invoice tracking feature allows you to set up reminders. Transactions are organized into categories as they come in (although you can change them later) and your budget is always up to date. This way you can know what you are spending at any time. PocketGuard allows you to create realistic budgets based on your actual account information. This app is suitable for users who want an automated budgeting solution, but still offers some customization options.
NERDWALLET – lets you track your personal finances for free, view your transactions, keep tabs on your credit, and get helpful reports on your cash flow. You can link your bank accounts and categorize your transactions. NerdWallet tracks income and expenses and contains helpful editorial content like articles on personal finance. This application provides consumers with tools and information such as a retirement calculator, an expense analyzer and a credit card comparator. It is a financial management app that helps users make better personal finance decisions. There you will find a detailed summary of your expenses, your upcoming bills and your remaining balance.
HONEYDUE – is practical if you want to manage your finances with your partner. This free app lets you track your daily spending, savings, loans, and investments. Honeydue automatically categorizes expenses. However, you can create specific categories. Both partners can link bank accounts, but you can choose how much you share with your partner. Users have the option to only share an account's balance, not transactions. The app keeps budgets organized while making it easier to communicate with your partner about your finances. This is a new budgeting app focused on partners who manage their money together, share information, view their savings accounts, bills, credit cards or even investment accounts in one place . Notifications and reminders are sent to both users to help them stay on track and ensure they don't overspend. There is no desktop version of this app, but partners can chat and send each other emojis via the mobile app. You can add reminders to pay your current bills such as your rent, telephone and electricity or even reminders to pay your unpaid bills. Additionally, an offline account can be added to track cash spending or enter transactions manually.
Over the past few years, several budgeting and financial management apps have been developed to help you save, pay your bills, and monitor your transactions. Now it's up to you to find the one that suits you best.