A budget can help you plan for your expenses, but it’s especially important to keep track of how much money is coming out of your bank account while prices remain high due to persistent inflation. Creating a budget and calculating your expenses will ensure that your necessary expenses are covered each month, increase your savings, and reduce financial stress.
One tool that can help you track these expenses is probably right at your fingertips. It’s a mobile device. There are many smartphone budgeting apps available with enhanced features to track your spending and increase your savings. Check out the features each app offers.
best budgeting app
Great for tracking spending: PocketGuard
overview: If you find yourself consistently spending too much money, it’s important to find an app that makes it easy to see how much you can spend without adding to your credit card debt. PocketGuard’s In My Pocket feature is designed to do just that by giving you an idea of how much pocket money you have available after calculating your bills and other monthly necessities.
Features: Various components give you insight into spending and invoice tracking.
- Insight tools: Sort your monthly expenses into customizable categories and highlight your spending habits. It includes a “Seller” section that totals all the money spent each month at a particular retailer. This insight helps users avoid overspending and stick to their budget.
- Invoice tracking features: The Billshark component automatically identifies and organizes monthly bills into categories while helping users negotiate better deals on specific bills. There are no additional charges unless your bill is successfully reduced. If reduced, the app will receive 40 percent of the savings.
- Debt repayment plan: When you pay for PocketGuard Plus, you get a debt repayment plan. This allows you to link accounts such as credit cards and loan accounts. It then uses machine learning algorithms to calculate a personalized debt repayment strategy.
Fee: The basic plan is free. Plus costs $12.99 per month or $74.99 per year.
Best user-friendly: you need a budget (YNAB)
overview: One of the basic rules of You Need a Budget is that you must allocate work for every dollar you earn. So instead of hoping to live by a percentage-based rule (for example, dedicate 10 percent of your income to groceries), you need to allocate a plan for the money that comes in each month.
Features: See your complete financial picture on one page, with the option to share your budget.
- Comprehensive summary: All income and expense details are displayed on one main page. This includes account balances, loan obligations, and monthly bills.
- Shared budget: Users can share their budgets to split bills and other expenses with partners, roommates, and family members.
- 34-day free trial: YNAB costs $14.99 per month after a free trial. The service doesn’t have a free version, but users say they don’t have to worry about YNAB selling their data. The price of the product is paid in full by the user and the user’s data is kept private.
Fee: Free for 34 days, then $14.99/month or $99/year.
Perfect for organizing your finances: EveryDollar
overview: EveryDollar takes some old-school budgeting techniques and integrates them with more modern technology. Organize your expenses into a traditional spreadsheet, list each transaction amount and date, and export as a CSV file. By linking users’ bank accounts, EveryDollar eliminates some of the manual work of filling out spreadsheets and automatically imports transactions from bank data.
Features: Users can create custom spending categories and set invoice due dates on a calendar.
- Custom spending categories: Users can categorize each expense through custom expense categories. You can also group similar expenses together.
- calendar: Users can set due dates for budget items and receive notifications when bills are due to avoid missing payments.
- Financial coaching: By paying for the premium version, users can connect their bank accounts, set up automatic recommendations, and receive group financial coaching.
Fee: The basic plan is free. Premium costs $17.99 per month or $79.99 per year after a 14-day free trial.
Best for envelope budgeting: Goodbudget
overview: Goodbudget is based on the envelope budgeting method (the old-school approach of separating cash into separate envelopes for each expense category), but it’s all digital. For each spending category, you can only withdraw money from the designated envelopes assigned in the app.
Features: Envelopes also include a dedicated savings envelope, allowing multiple users in a household to sync their budgets.
- Multiple users: You can share the app with other members of your family. This allows users with synced accounts to see money deducted from their envelopes after another user spends from them.
- Dedicated savings envelope: Dedicated savings envelopes can help you save for future goals, like buying a house or a car.
- Debt repayment tools: Includes a debt account option that allows users to track repayment progress and calculate how long it will take to be debt free.
- Number of envelopes: With the basic plan, users get a total of 20 virtual envelopes and can sync up to 2 devices. When you pay for Goodbudget Plus, you get unlimited envelopes and up to 5 sync devices.
Fee: The basic plan is free. That’s an additional $10 per month or $80 per year.
Perfect for couples: Honeydew
Honeydue is designed for couples. Most budgeting apps allow you to link your bank accounts and track them from within the app, but Honeydue goes a step further and organizes your linked bank accounts into personal and joint accounts. This is a feature that many people who share their finances will appreciate.
Couples can set monthly household spending limits with customizable categories and receive notifications when bills are due. These features help partners collaborate and establish financial boundaries, making it easier to manage shared financial responsibilities.
Communication is an essential part of a successful relationship, and Honeydue recognizes this by including a built-in chat feature. Couples can easily discuss and clarify specific transactions, such as adjusting shared expenses or addressing unusual transactions.
The app and all of its features are free to use, but users are asked for an optional tip of $1 to $10.
Fee: free
Perfect for couples: Honeydew
overview: Honeydue is designed for couples. While most budgeting apps allow you to link your bank accounts and track them from within the app, Honeydue goes a step further and organizes your linked bank accounts into personal and joint accounts. This is a feature that many people who share their finances will appreciate.
Features: This app offers a variety of features for budget sharing.
- Monthly spending limit: Couples can set monthly household spending limits with customizable categories.
- Billing notice: Receive reminders when your bill is due.
- Chat function: Couples can message each other to discuss and clarify specific transactions, such as coordinating shared spending or addressing unusual transactions.
- Hints are optional: The app is free to use, but users are asked for an optional tip between $1 and $10.
Fee: free
Perfect for access from around the world: Wally
overview: When you have financial accounts in different countries, budgeting and tracking spending in foreign currency from abroad becomes even more complex. Fortunately, Wally is an app with global functionality. Compatible with accounts in 70 countries.
Features: Users can connect bank accounts in any currency with AI-powered tracking.
- Connect your bank accounts in 70 countries. Users can connect accounts from 15,000 banks.
- Automatic fund tracking: Once connected to your bank, the app uses AI technology to automatically track the money going in and out of your account. Predict invoice due dates and notify users in advance.
- Customization: Users can set custom rules and manually adjust categories.
- Wally GPT: The integrated AI chat service provides users with financial insights and guidance on financial issues, investment strategies, and hot topics to achieve their financial goals.
Fee: free
How to choose a household account book app
With so many options available, choosing the right household accounting app requires weighing the features and prices to get the financial support that best suits you. There are some important considerations to keep in mind when comparing budgeting apps.
- Account connectivity
- Check if the app allows you to connect all your bank accounts.
- Automatic classification of transactions
- Your budgeting app should automatically categorize all your transactions. This feature saves you time and helps you understand your spending patterns.
- Alerts and reminders
- Look for apps that notify you of upcoming bills, account balances, and progress towards your financial goals.
- Security and privacy
- Prioritize apps that adhere to high security standards and are transparent about how they handle your data.
- Fee
- Be aware of any charges associated with the app, such as subscription fees or fees charged to access certain premium features.
- customer service
- If you run into any issues or have questions about the app’s functionality, reliable customer support is extremely important.
Take your time to explore different options, read user reviews, and consider trials to find the app that best suits your financial situation.
I downloaded a budgeting app. Well, what is it?
Budgeting apps allow users to categorize their spending, but the creation of those categories is the user’s responsibility. A good place to start is by creating several categories based on your biggest monthly expenses. However, avoid overwhelming yourself by creating too many subcategories.
To continually reduce your spending and make progress toward your savings goals, regularly review your budget, examine the spending data provided by the app, and identify areas where you can save money. You can use those savings to pay off debt, rebuild your emergency fund, or invest.
It’s up to you to make good financial decisions, and budgeting apps can help make those decisions easier.
methodology
When selecting these budgeting apps, Bankrate looked for apps that offer a variety of budgeting approaches and a variety of features to suit different user preferences and financial goals. All selected apps offer free plans or free trials, allowing users to try out features before committing. Automatic spending and transaction tracking were also basic requirements for apps on this list. All of these apps have a rating of 3 or higher on the iOS App Store and Google Play Store. However, although Wally has a low score on Google Play, it is included due to its innovation as a multi-currency budgeting app.
–Freelance writer David McMillin and former Bankrate writer René Bennett contributed to an earlier version of this article.
