What is the best budgeting tool? What mobile-friendly budget apps exist? How can I budget with my significant other? These are common questions that you may have asked yourself.
Getting a handle of your expenses can be a major hurdle for most families. While there are many technology solutions out there to help you budget, we’ve found 8 amazing apps you can use to help better manage your expenses. If budgeting on pen and paper is your style you may want to read more about how to budget using a budget planner, the envelope budget system, or bullet journal budgeting. The following apps have a large range in their user experience, their capabilities, and their cost. All of them are either free or have a free trial period for you to test them out. If you are like us, we chose to download them all to see which ones we preferred.
1. HoneyFi
While it may be designed for couples, Honeyfi can easily be used for single people as well. You can add up to to two of your emails to the account. It has no web-based budgeting option, but the app capabilities are stellar in comparison. It is available on both Apple and Android products and is free for the first 30 days. After 30 days it is $9.99/month or $59.99/year. The capabilities are broad within the app. You can have tons of categories and subcategories, and you can even create your own. The app will also automatically identify recurring payments and bills, but if you’d prefer you can also manage them manually. What is also fun is you can communicate directly with your partner (if you have one) directly within the app. If you share joint accounts with a partner, then HoneyFi is a no-brainer for you.
2. EveryDollar
Have you heard about Dave Ramsey? EveryDollar is a budgeting app created by Dave and his team. It’s made for Zero Dollar Budgeting, a budgeting system where you make a plan for every dollar you bring in. Still, it works flawlessly with any kind of budget you want to set up. It has a clean and easy-to-navigate user experience that isn’t cluttered by ads or affiliate offers. You can access it on Apple and Android devices, as well as a desktop version if you prefer checking finances on your computer. The solution is free. If you want, you can pay $99/year for a premium version that allows for transaction syncing. The $99/year doesn’t pay for any additional features, so consider that when making a decision.
3. Mint
One of the most widely known, free apps out there is Intuit’s Mint. All of its features are completely free and there is no paid version. The major downside is that there ads, offers, and promotions baked into the app, which can make it clunky at times. You are able to sync as many financial accounts as you want and it has the ability to predict future bills based on past expenses. This app allows you to make a Zero Dollar Budget in the app. The app is available on both Apple and Android devices.
4. You Need a Budget
Price: Free for 34 days, then $6.99 per month
Available on: Apple and Android
Syncs with accounts? Yes
You Need a Budget, or YNAB for short, is one of the only apps without a free version, and it can be a little pricy for what it offers. It is free for the first 34 days and then it is $6.99/month afterwards. This app is available on both Apple and Android devices. What makes this app more popular is that it has a full suite of tools for your personal finances (e.g., Zero Dollar Budget, budgeting a month ahead, prioritizing paying off debt). The value of this solution also is that it can sync your checking, saving, and investment accounts. It’ll also calculate areas you are overspending and allow you to adjust them.
5. Mvelopes
It doesn’t have a free version, but Mvelopes does have a free 30-day trial. After 30 days, it is $39.99/ year. And given its popularity, we thought this list would be lacking without it. For those of us who prefer pen and paper you can also use physical envelopes. Mvelopes can be accessed via app or computer and is available on Apple and Android devices. One feature of this app is the “sweeping envelopes” where extra cash at the end of the month it’ll “sweep” it over to your savings account, debt payoff or an investment account envelope. The tool does not sync previous transactions from your account when you first set it up, so everything you do will be focused on the future.
The basic version of Mvelopes is $4 per month, or $40 if you pay for a year upfront. There are two higher tiers: For $190 per year, you get debt-reduction tools and a quarterly meeting with a personal finance coach. For $590 per year, you’ll get those meetings monthly.
Final verdict: By the name, you can guess it’s best for envelope users, but you can use any type of budget beyond that. Unfortunately, it has some of the same bank syncing limitations as the free apps — but you pay for it.
6. GoodBudget
Price: Free version or $50 per year
Available on: Apple and Android
Syncs with accounts? Technically…
Where GoodBudget excels is helping people use the envelope system, Dave Ramsey’s preferred method for paying off debt.
It has some features EveryDollar doesn’t. For example, it lets you roll over any unused cash to the next month’s envelope, and it reports on your spending by envelope or month.
The biggest downside is that it doesn’t sync your transactions. Not even with the paid version. It connects with your bank account but only keeps your account balance up to date. You then have to upload your transaction history or manually input transactions.
Final verdict: It’s great if you’re committed to a cash-spending system… not so much if you use cards. You can customize it based on your budget, but with no option for bank syncing, we can’t see a reason to choose this app.
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7. PocketGuard
Price: Free version or $34.99
Available on: Apple and Android
Syncs with accounts? Yes
You can do a lot with the free version of PocketGuard. So much, in fact, that I don’t really see the need for the paid version unless you want very specific budget categories.
Instead of “budgets,” PocketGuard uses “spending limits.” You can have a limit for every budget category, or “pocket.” The app will automatically build a personalized budget for you based on your income, bills and goals.
Overall, the app and website are really nice. You can make a monthly savings goal, mark bills as recurring and see how much you have in your “pocket” for the day, week or month. You’ll have to play around with it to make sure PocketGuard is sorting everything right, but once you do that, it’s very hands-off.
The downfall to PocketGuard might be its In My Pocket feature. I get paid on the last day of the month, but my mortgage comes out on the first. So even though I had money in the bank, PocketGuard had me starting the month in the hole until I got more income. I wouldn’t use this feature, but I’d use everything else.
Final verdict: It offers affordable transaction syncing, but we don’t know what budgeting method you’d use for PocketGuard. It’s a good accompaniment, but we wouldn’t use it as a sole budgeting app.
8. Wally
Price: Free with paid add-ons
Available on: Apple and Android
Syncs with accounts? Not on the free version
Wally is a budgeting app with a few iterations.
When searching for the app, you’ll come across Wally+, the Android version, Wally Next, and Wally Lite, the Apple versions. I still can’t tell you what the difference is, but Wally Next seems to be the one that developers are updating for iPhone, so we’ll review that one.
Unless you pay for the add-on, you’ll have to manually track your transactions. But it has this neat feature that uses geolocation to figure out where each transaction you enter was made.
It saves the location, which makes updating a breeze if you frequent the same locations.
You can buy individual add-ons for less than 50 cents per year. You can get all the add-ons, including transaction syncing, for life for $34.99. It’s a great price compared to other apps with annual membership.
Final verdict: There’s flexibility for budgeting methods, categories and affordable transaction syncing. But where Wally really shines is for anyone dealing in foreign currency, event planning budgets or any budget that multiple people work on.
Whatever budgeting tool you choose, congrats on taking this important step to get your personal finances in order and put more money in your pocket.
Small Step Finance 