If you’re ready to upgrade from your Excel money tracker (or your paper napkin budgeting system), these are the best budgeting and personal finance apps out there. Stop hoping and praying about your money situation and take control with these best personal finance apps.
From the best free personal finance apps, to the most powerful money apps, you’re a short read away from managing your money better. That’s something to celebrate! Let’s go…
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1. Best Personal Finance App Overall: Empower
A super easy way to keep track of your money is using Empower.
It tracks income, expenses, debt, investments, and gives helpful reports at the end of the year so you can see how you did.
Empower is the best free personal finance app. It automatically links to your bank accounts, credit accounts, and investment accounts, saving you tons of time.
Advantages of Empower:
- Has high-level security features and encryption to protect your financial data
- Sends automated alerts about upcoming bills
- Saves time by automatically compiling your financial info from your financial accounts – you don’t have to manually enter each transaction you make
- It shows you spending by account and expense category
- Makes income and spending reports for you
- Has a free Cash Flow analyzer
- Includes a Net Worth Calculator
- Set investment goals
- With a paid version you can get professional investment advice and money management (less expensive than in-person money management)
- No distracting ads
- Great customer service
Disadvantages of Empower:
- You can’t set specific spending targets
The advantages of the Personal Capital finance app greatly outweigh the disadvantages. It is a comprehensive personal finance app that has top-notch tracking and reporting. It really makes it clear what your current financial health is, and more importantly, how to improve it.
Try Empower (free version) here.
2. Acorns Personal Finance App
Acorns is a personal budgeting tool that helps you invest your spare change automatically.
One of the ways to make saving money easier is to automate it.
If you have to consciously think about putting aside money to save or invest it, you won’t do it as often, which means less moolah for you over time.
Acorns is a simple app that rounds up your spare change from purchases, and invests it for you. It makes saving money super easy and painless because it takes away the remembering factor.
MORE: 21 Best Passive Income Apps: Make Cash in Your Sleep.
3. Trim Personal Finance App
Trim is a personal finance app that looks at your expenses, finds ways to reduce them, and saves you money.
To put it another way, Trim is like a virtual assistant for your finances. Using expense tracking, Trim analyzes your spending, and saves its users $620 on average. Could you use an extra $620?
This budgeting app negotiates cable, internet, phone, and medical bills, cancels old subscriptions, and more.
4. Best Personal Finance App for Low-Cost Investing: Wealthsimple
Wealthsimple is a robo-advisor investing service that operates in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.
As an online brokerage, Wealthsimple works by automating investments into low-cost index funds.
They manage over $5 billion in assets for 175,000 clients.
There is no minimum investment so you can get started with whatever you have.
And in terms in investing, the sooner you start building investment portfolios (or keep contributing), the better. Compound interest, my friends.
Related reading:
- 7 Important Financial Lessons You Should Have Been Taught (but probably weren’t)
- Robo Advisor vs Financial Advisor: Reasons to Ditch Your Investment Advisor
- 15 Best Budgeting Books You NEED to Read Now
- Good Debt vs Bad Debt – What’s the Difference and Why it Matters
- Loud Budgeting is Healthy…to a Point (New Money Trend)
- 25 Fun and Smart Things to Do with a Tax Refund
5. Best Personal Finance App for Bad Credit: CreditFirm.net
CreditFirm is an important app you’ll want to look into if you have bad credit.
CreditFirm helps you improve your credit report and increase your credit score. They have an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau.
CreditFirm has already helped over 80,000 people improve their credit.
This could make the difference between not having good enough credit to secure a mortgage, to getting approved for a mortgage for your first home.
CreditFirm uses every legal tool and procedure allowable by law to remove as much derogatory information as possible from your credit reports and increase your credit scores.
They will help with a debt payoff plan so people can get control of their finances.
Check out CreditFirm and apply online here.
6. SaveBetter Personal Finance App
You know how terrible the interest rates on most savings accounts from banks are?
You would have to deposit a LOT of money to make any noticeable interest.
A better option is the SaveBetter personal finance app. They make it easier to get higher interest rates by letting you compare the rates offered by different banks.
You can then save money at a bank that’s different from your main bank, without the usual hassle of setting up a new bank/account, etc.
Check out SaveBetter and see the higher savings rates offered.
7. Rocket Money
Rocket Money is one of the best personal finance apps to help people manage their money.
It provides features such as budget tracking, expense categorization, bill reminders, and financial goal setting.
Here are some ways Rocket Money can help your finances:
- Budget Tracking: Rocket Money allows you to create and track your budget by categorizing your income and expenses. This can help you understand where your money is going and identify areas where you can cut back or save more.
- Expense Categorization: The tool automatically categorizes your expenses, making it easier for you to see how much you’re spending on different categories such as groceries, utilities, entertainment, etc.
- Bill Reminders: Rocket Money can send you reminders for upcoming bills, helping you stay on top of your financial obligations and avoid late fees.
- Financial Goal Setting: You can set financial goals within Rocket Money, such as saving for a vacation, buying a new car, or building an emergency fund. The tool can track your progress towards these goals and provide insights on how to achieve them faster.
- Financial Insights: Rocket Money may also offer financial insights and recommendations based on your spending habits, helping you make informed decisions about your money.
Rocket Money can help improve your financial awareness, manage your budget, and work towards your financial goals.
8. Credit Karma App
Credit Karma is a free mobile app that gives you access to your credit scores and credit reports from major credit bureaus like TransUnion and Equifax.
It also offers tools and resources to help users manage and improve their credit health.
Here’s how Credit Karma can help your money:
- Free Credit Scores: Credit Karma provides you with your credit scores from TransUnion and Equifax for free. Monitoring your credit scores regularly can help you understand your creditworthiness and track changes over time.
- Credit Report Monitoring: In addition to credit scores, Credit Karma allows you to access your credit reports from TransUnion and Equifax. Monitoring your credit reports can help you spot errors or unauthorized activities that may affect your credit standing.
- Credit Score Simulator: Credit Karma offers a credit score simulator tool that allows you to see how certain financial actions (such as paying off debt or opening new credit card accounts) could impact your credit scores.
- Credit Monitoring Alerts: Credit Karma can send you alerts when there are significant changes to your credit report, such as new accounts opened in your name, changes in credit utilization, or late payments reported by creditors.
- Credit and Financial Education: Credit Karma provides educational resources and articles on topics related to credit, personal finance, and money management. These resources can help you make more informed decisions about your finances.
- Personalized Recommendations: Based on your credit profile and financial goals, Credit Karma may offer personalized recommendations for credit cards, loans, and other financial products that may be suitable for you.
Credit Karma can help you stay informed about your credit health, identify opportunities for improvement, and make more informed decisions about managing your finances.
9. Best Budget App: YNAB
You Need a Budget is at the top of the best budgeting apps.
The You Need a Budget (YNAB) app has budgeting tools designed to help users manage their finances better.
It follows the zero-based budgeting method, where every dollar has a specific job, whether it’s for bills, savings, or expenses.
Some key features of the popular YNAB app include:
- Budgeting: YNAB helps you create and track a monthly budget based on your income and expenses. You assign every dollar to a category, such as groceries, rent, entertainment, etc.
- Real-time Sync: The app syncs across devices in real time, so you can access your budget and financial data from anywhere.
- Goal Tracking: You can set goals for various categories, like saving for a vacation or paying off debt, and track your progress towards these goals.
- Bank Syncing: YNAB can connect to your bank accounts to automatically import transactions, making it easier to keep your budget up to date.
- Reports: The app provides detailed reports and insights into your spending habits, helping you identify areas where you can save money.
- Debt Payoff: YNAB offers tools and strategies to help you pay off debt more efficiently, such as the “Debt Snowball” method.
Overall, YNAB is designed to give users a clear picture of their financial situation, encourage mindful spending, and help them achieve their financial goals.
Get started with a free trial of the You Need a Budget app.
The best personal finance apps are the ones that make managing your money feel clearer, calmer, and actually doable.
Try one or two that fit your habits, keep it simple. Small, consistent steps add up to big financial wins over time.
Related post: 21 Fun Credit Card Stickers to Personalize Your Bank Cards
Next steps?
Check out these related posts and look into your favorite personal finance apps above:
- Yes You Can Eliminate Credit Card Debt: 5 Important Strategies You Need
- How to Spend Less Money in a Tough Economy
- How To Get Out of Debt – 10 Practical and Mindset Tips
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