Pandemics like COVID-19 and recession make us realize how important budgeting is.
There’s no better time than 2022 to overhaul your finances, and a personal finance app is one of the most beneficial tools at your disposal. We used a lot of smartphone apps for various purposes such as dating, pregnancy tracking, so why not use one to manage our finances?
Let’s look at the best personal finance apps in 2022 to save money and know exactly where your money is going.
What are personal finance apps?
A personal finance app is a smartphone app or software that helps you manage all aspects of your finances. These apps can assist you in keeping track of your spending, saving, investing, bill payments and keeping up to date on changes to your credit score.
You can connect personal finance apps to your banks or financial institutions to see where your money is spent from your bank account.
A personal finance app comes with features such as a shared wallet, bill reminders, and even subscription management.
Why do you need to use finance apps?
Budgeting apps may appear to be a fad, but they can be useful for anyone who seeks to improve their financial habits.
Most personal finance apps track your income and expenses and create a healthy budget for leftover funds.
These personal finance apps will assist you in allocating your excess funds for spending, saving, investing, or debt repayment—whatever your financial objectives are.
“Why do I need to use a budgeting app when you can access all of your financial accounts online?” you may be wondering. These personal finance and best budgeting apps provide some additional benefits that you may not find with online banking:
Automation
Anyone can add up their wages and expenses, but deciding how to allocate their leftover money is a challenging task. These budgeting apps used automated algorithms that make recommendations on how to allocate your money to meet your financial objectives.
Synchronization
These personal finance apps allow you to synchronize your financial accounts on a single dashboard, giving you a complete picture of your financial situation. It’s very useful if you have a financial account outside your bank, such as a brokerage firm.
Visualization
These apps will turn your financial information into colourful charts and graphs that can help you visualize your spending habits.
How to select the best personal finance apps
You can select the best apps by using the following criteria:
- Price: A good budgeting app shouldn’t take a bite out of your budget. The best budgeting apps should have an ideal cost-value ratio.
- Platform: How well is the app designed? Is it easy to use? Are the security features secure and reliable?
- Features: Best the budgeting app that has all the tools that you need to build a healthy budget?
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Best personal finance apps 2022
- Mint: Best Overall
Mint is the best overall personal finance app with a plethora of features. After you’ve synced your account Mint will automatically categorize your expenses as “Utilities,” “Food,” or “Lifestyle + Entertainment.”
Mint, Intuit’s is one of the most well-known personal finance apps that provides your complete financial picture in one place. Once you link your credit and debit cards to your account, Mint pulls your transactions, categorizes them, and shows how you’re spending your money.
With the help of Mint, you can keep track of your bills and spending and create a budget you can stick to. The site provides access to your credit score for free, and you can get a breakdown of the factors contributing to your score to stay on top of your credit health. Plus, you can track your investments and manage utility payments.
It can also generate a budget based on the community’s average spending in a specific category. Mint uses its massive user database to assist you in making prudent budget allocations.
If you’re an investor, you can see how your assets perform to market benchmarks (not as good as the information provided by an online broker, but it’s a nice touch).
2. Personal Capital: Best for Wealth Management:
Personal Capital is a personal finance and wealth management app that allows you to manage your assets and investments along with your everyday spending accounts.
Personal Capital is an investment tool, but its free app contains features that are very useful for budgeters who want to track their spending.
You can track your portfolio by account, asset class, or individual security. With built-in intelligence, you can discover opportunities for diversification, risk management, and discover any hidden fees you may be paying. Comparing your portfolio to major market benchmarks allows you to determine whether you’re on track to meet your investment goals. It also provides registered financial advisors who can provide you with customized advice tailored to your goals.
. Checking, savings, and credit card accounts, as well as IRAs, 401(k)s, mortgages, and loans, can all be linked and monitored.
Personal Capital’s budgeting features are more limited than those of other apps, making it unsuitable for people who are only interested in budgeting.
It is an excellent app for investors, particularly those who are unsure how much money to invest in various assets. If you want to save for retirement or a college fund, the integrated tools will help you with that.
3. You Need a Budget: Best for Debt Payoff
You Need a Budget known as YNAB. You Need a Budget is designed to be used for “zero-based” budgeting.
This is how zero-based budgeting works:
Your income minus your expenses equal $0
So, if your monthly income is $3,000, you should budget so that your monthly expenses are also $3,000.
That doesn’t mean you should go out and spend recklessly. The goal of zero-based budgeting is to plan for every single dollar.
You Need a Budget, like other budgeting apps, allows you to sync your accounts and customize your spending categories and personal finance goals. It’s more expensive than other budgeting apps, at $84 per year ($11.99 per month), but it also has a lot of educational resources to help you and keep you engaged.
The primary goal of You Needs a Budget is to get you one month ahead of your finances so that you’re spending money you earned at least 30 days ago.
It could be a handy app if you’re:
- Trying to get ahead on your finances
- Trying to work your way out of debt
- Living paycheck-to-paycheck
Import transactions from your checking account and apply them to each budget category to get an accurate picture of your spending. Keep a balanced budget by adjusting budget categories if you accidentally overspend. Detailed reports show you how your spending is progressing throughout the month and help you spot places where you can improve your spending. According to YNAB, the average new user saves $600 in the first two months and more than $6,000 in the first year. You can try the app for free for the first 34 days.
4. Pocket guard: Best for College students
Most people wonder about how much money they have leftover after paying their monthly bills.
Pocketguard is an excellent budgeting app for this purpose. Using your income and monthly expenses, Pocketguard calculates how much money you’ll have for spending after you’ve paid for all the necessities.
This app allows you to track your spending by day, week, or month. You can also set savings goals and categorize your expenses. Pocketguard has a unique feature in that it will scour your bills and identify ways to reduce them.
For example, it will recommend a less expensive internet provider or a more affordable grocery store so that you can save money on recurring purchases.
This app is very useful for people who live paycheck to paycheck or are trying to figure out what their spending limit is.
5. EveryDollar: Best for Budgeting
EveryDollar is a budgeting app that allows you to keep track of your spending and plan for your future purchases. It’s designed for zero-based budgeting, in which your expenses equal your income.
The EveryDollar app uses the zero-based budget method recommended by personal finance expert Dave Ramsey.
The zero-based budget gives every dollar a purpose in the budget. A built-in monthly expense tracker allows you to 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 app, you’ll be able to connect with money management experts who can help you with your financial planning. You’ll be able to access your budget through the app or via a desktop computer. All new users receive a free trial of the premium version of the app. You can permanently upgrade through the app menu.
The free version of the app requires you to manually enter a transaction every time you spend money to account for it in your budget.
Alternatively, you can pay for Ramsey+, which includes the premium version of EveryDollar (formerly called EveryDollar Plus).
You can connect your bank accounts for a more streamlined experience, as well as access advice content and other tools, with this upgraded version. After a 14-day free trial, Ramsey+ costs $129.99 per year.
6. Prism: Best for Bill Payment
7. Mobills: Best Visuals
8. Spendee: Best for Shared Expenses
FAQs on Personal Finance App
What is a personal finance app?
A personal finance app is used to track your spending, saving, investing, and budgeting.
How much does a personal finance app cost?
Generally, a personal finance app offers a free version, which contains ads and fewer features. The paid versions vary in price but are relatively cheap about $20-$30 per year.
How do I choose the best personal finance app?
In this article listed apps were chosen based on the features they offer, tools built into the app, the functionality, and the purpose of the app
What is the best personal finance app?
Mint is the best overall personal finance app and it has long set the standard for budgeting apps, with about 20 million users and a rock-solid reputation.
Is mint safe?
Yes, Intuit, mint’s parent company, employs the latest security and technology measures to keep its customer’s personal and financial information safe.
Conclusion
A personal finance app can help you to develop a healthier budget. The best budgeting apps assist you in visualizing your spending habits to create a new budget that improves your savings and overall financial comfort.
You should choose a personal finance app-based not only on the platform’s functionality but also on the type of budgeting practice the app is based on.