Budgeting Apps

Budgeting is probably the most important part of managing our personal finances. A budget helps us keep track of our income and expenses, identify where money is wasted and where savings can be made and allows us to make better informed financial decisions. In its most basic form, a budget can be done on a piece of paper, but in this digitally connected world, budgeting apps for our mobile phones and tablets can make the process simple, straightforward, and convenient. 

Here, we’ll explain what budgeting apps are, how they work, and explain what the best budgeting app is for you.

What Is A Budgeting App?

A budgeting app is a piece of software that helps you track your income and expenditure, set financial goals, and create a budget, which should make it easier to stay on top of your finances.

How Do Budgeting Apps Work?

Whilst in their simplest form budgeting apps require you to manually input your income and expenditure each month, many now connect to your bank accounts, credit cards, and investment accounts and do the bulk of the work for you. They will track when income enters your accounts, record purchases and payments, group transactions into their distinct types, send reminders when you have bills due or are near your pre-determined spending limits and can also help you save. Some apps will also offer personalised recommendations based on your spending habits and help you identify areas where you can save money and make better financial decisions.

Whether manual or automated, the aim of budgeting apps is to help you manage your money better, create a budget, set financial goals, and track your progress over time.

Whether you go for fully automated or manual, is down to personal preference, but the principles are the same: to manage your money better you need to know what you are doing with it – and a budgeting app helps you do this.

What is the best budgeting app for you?

There are hundreds of different budgeting apps available in the app store, so do some research, try them out and see which one will do what you need it to do.

For many people, simplicity will be the key. They want an app that simply allows them to manually enter their income and expenditure each month so they can see where their money goes, and allow them to be better with money. 

For others, having an app that pulls all their transactions in automatically and gives them nudges and reminders will be important. Bear in mind though that the more of the work an app does for you, the more likely it is that it will cost you to use it. Also, because budgeting apps that automatically collect your bank account and credit card information need to link with your bank and credit cards, an app that is popular in the USA may not work in Europe, so universal recommendations can be tricky to make and some of the apps available simply won’t work for you.

However, here are a few which get good reviews and may work for you:

• Wally: A free budgeting app with paid-for features, it works in 22 countries and allows you to sync your bank accounts and keep track of your finances in one place. It allows you to set daily budgets and savings targets, notifies you about spending and savings progress and generates monthly spending insights to help you see where your money goes!
• YNAB (You Need a Budget): A paid-for budgeting app that focuses on creating what is called “a zero-based budget”, where every Euro is assigned a job. It also offers personalised coaching and goal tracking and has automated syncing works in 11 countries across Europe.
• Spending Tracker: A free budgeting app that aims to keep budgeting simple. You can manually enter your income and expenditure, which can be grouped in any way you wish, so you can get greater visibility on where you are spending, and where you could make savings.

Budgeting apps are a useful tool for anyone looking to take control of their finances. They allow you to easily track your income and expenses, create a budget, and set financial goals, with those that connect to your bank accounts and credit cards doing a lot of this automatically for you. 

Whether you end up choosing a free app, or one that you pay for, it’s only by creating a budget and staying on top of your financial decision that you can become better with money. So, perhaps the best budgeting app will always be one that you actually use?