Some of the Best Apps to Track Personal Expenses

Tracking personal expenses is important if you want to make your money stretch as far as possible. However, managing your budget takes time that is hard to find when you have kids, work, sports events, clubs and other social commitments to juggle. Fortunately, there are some efficient family finance apps that can help you keep your budget in order. These are some of the best apps to manage your expenses this year.

Mint

Mint is the top finance app on the market with several tools that are easy to use. It lets you track your spending and see how much money you have. If you are a new investor or plan to start investing, it has a few useful features to help you monitor your investments. One of the most useful features is the automatic categorization. You can sync bank accounts, and any entered expenses are automatically categorized.

For families, this app is helpful if you want to set goals. You can see where most of your money goes and can decide how to make necessary cuts to save for things like a down payment on a house, braces for a child or another big expense. If you have a hectic schedule, another great benefit of Mint is that it reminds you when bills are due. Also, the app is completely free to use.

Goodbudget

You may have watched your parents or grandparents divide money into envelopes as a way of budgeting each month. If this concept is familiar to you, Goodbudget may be a helpful app for you. Its design has digital categorized envelopes that you assign amounts of money to, and a green bar shows your expenditures. When money is about to run out in one category, you receive an alert. This app is especially useful if you are looking for ways to trim your budget. For example, there is a pie chart that shows where your money goes. You may realize that you spend more than you should on non-essential purchases such as movies or eating out. If you try to spend less in those categories, you can put more into savings.

YNAB

The acronym stands for You Need a Budget. If you have a considerable amount of debt and are trying to dig your way out while meeting your family’s needs, this app is like a personal advocate. Unlike most finance apps, it makes you work with the money you have rather than create an estimated budget that includes credit cards or other types of potential debt.

You learn to live only on your income, and the app shows you how to get on track if you develop bad spending habits. For example, the app has an accountability tool. You take responsibility for each choice and see its impact. If this is one of your weaknesses that you want to change, YNAB is the right app for you. There are also online budgeting classes with a live instructor. Although it costs less than $10 per month to use the app, many users save hundreds of dollars during their first month or two.

Wally

This free app can save you time if you are a busy parent who has difficulty entering your expenses manually. When you leave the supermarket, you may be in a rush to get to your next destination or may have two busy small children who demand your constant supervision. You simply snap a photo of each receipt, and the app will automatically enter and categorize your expenses. When you have time, you can look at your categorized expenses to see where you need to make changes.

EveryDollar

If you and your partner are tracking personal expenses individually and are having a hard time communicating them, this app is a useful solution. It is also helpful if one person is in charge of tracking expenses but the other does not relay all expenditures. EveryDollar syncs expenditure inputs across multiple devices and updates information automatically. EveryDollar is about $10 per month to use. It tracks your expenses against your budget settings to show you opportunities for changes.

While these are some of the best apps to manage your personal expenses, there are plenty of other options on the market. Try to find apps that meet multiple pain points that you experience while managing your budget.

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