Three Apps that Make Budgeting Easier than Pen and Paper
Lawrence Delva-Gonzalez, The Neighborhood Finance Guy writes about financial literacy topics, Budgeting, Money Management, Investment strategies, Retirement tips and more. The goal is to help you make effective decisions and set S.M.A.R.T goals with your money. The information is free but the struggle is not sold separately.
There are tons of High tech tools that can help you stick to your financial plan, budget and build your wealth. TNFG will help you break down the pros and cons of the top three.
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What Budgeting Really Means For You
Budgeting can feel like pulling teeth, but that does not mean it has to be.
Today, there are apps for everything. Luckily, there are financial apps available for budgeting, wealth tracking, investing and even retirement planning. If you need help keeping track of your spending, automating your savings and investments, or boosting your financial literacy for the next holiday party; we got an app for that.
If you are looking for accountability and some discipline to help you stay on track with your financial goals or just want to take a closer look at where your money goes, a budgeting app can be a great tool to help you meet your goals.
Here are the top three to consider:
Beyond Excel, Mint is the Original Budgeting App
Like Prometheus, Intuit – the financial software company behind TurboTax, Quickbooks, Credit Karma and Mailchimp; brought to us mere mortals, the gift of notifications when we go beyond our spending limits.
Mint is a popular financial app that brings together your financial accounts ie bank checking, savings, retirement, investments, mortgage and student loans all under one roof. It categorizes your spending automatically; making it easy to see where your money is going. Additionally, you can track your investments from within the app but be warned of its buggy nature.
Mint also added your credit score as a module. Gone are the days when you can say, you don’t know your credit score. It’s automatically update monthly.
For beginner, Mint’s colorful aesthetics is truly inviting before you rage quit when it tells you who’s been jeopardizing your future. Compared to other apps, it has fewer educational resources. To make up for it, Intuit throws in financial calculators, promotes its tax services and runs a limited financial blog with actionable tips.
I would highly recommend this to help you graduate from using excel or the pen and paper approach.
Popular with the FIRE movement, Personal capital is the Wealth GOAT
Personal Capital is a free app aimed at wealth builders. It allows users to track and manage their money, giving them real time snapshot of all their accounts. Users can create budgets and track spending while planning for long term financial goals such as retirement. If you want extra help, it offers expert management to help personalize your portfolio.
Recently, Personal capital have been ramping up its blog content with a lot of our favorites such as Andy Hill from Marriage, Kids and Money and Anne-Lyse from the Dreamer’s Podcast. It has moments where it freezes when accessing your information due to two-factor authorization; beyond that, it’s gold. They have a robust team working 24/7 to offer great IT support.
Personal capital is the GOAT although it’s not always rookie friendly. If you aren’t tracking your wealth while you are budgeting, are you really winning?
Don’t you need a Budget (YNAB)
YNAB is a Pay to Play service. The only one of this list that is not clocking in on the FREE roster.
“If it is not free, it ain’t me.”
L. Delva-Gonzalez
However, I do recognize that many use and swear by YNAB.
From the outside in, this budgeting app takes a holistic approach to finance. It works as a zero-based budgeting app that assigns every dollar a task and works with the user to ensure that their money remains active either through savings, investments or debt repayments.
YNAB clocks in at about $11.99 per month or $84 per year. As always, a bulk buy always gets you more savings. The annual offer saves you around $60. It is not terrible but it gets the job done.
YNAB encourages users to get one month ahead of their budget so that they are not living financially insecure which is typical of the zero-Based approach.
Think of it like playing a game of soccer but near a cliff. A cliff with jabbed rocks at the base.
The app focuses on education, providing articles, video tutorials and courses and even workshops. I guess if you are looking for a community to join like cross fit, this might be the budgeting equivalent.
Tracking and Getting to the Action Step
Ultimately, no matter which app you choose to go with, budgeting will only be as successful as you make it in the short and long run. So do not be afraid to go FREE and then test drive other methods and/or apps. In the end, the old paper and pen method or the trusty excel still work wonders. It’s really about the user.
Like a Gym membership, it’s only great if you use it. Ignore it and watch your money mistakes pile up. Finally, the most important step, go forth and download. None of this works without you deciding if you are all in. The results are simple, but the struggle isn’t sold separately.
Disclosure: This post is brought to you by the Neighborhood Finance Guy. We highlight financial literacy information, resources, and more on your way to money management goals and personal wealth. Our goal is to help you make S.M.A.R.T decisions with our money. We do not give investment advice or encourage you to adopt a certain investment strategy. Your personal finance is up to you. If you take action based on one of our recommendations, we don’t earn a dime as of 5.2021. We operate independently.
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