The 8 Best Budgeting/Personal Finance Apps For Students
Don’t act like you know how to budget – not many folk do. Plenty of students also share the need for better personal finance habits.
Most of us can’t afford to pay people to handle your weekly food and coffee spending, your next option is the best personal finance and budgeting apps. We asked around and here are the answers for the best budgeting apps:
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#1 – The Best Personal Finance App – Mint
Mint got the most votes, and it was no surprise. It helps you stay on top of every facet of your money all from one place with a simple to use interface. This is budgets made simple.
Mint lets you create a budget in a few steps, and it even sends you alerts when bills need to be paid or you’re getting dangerously close to your budget limit. They’ll even send you an alert when you go over budget.
Our favorite feature is how it sends tips to maximize your money every day (Like not buying 3 coffees from Starbucks).
#2 – The Runner Up – PocketGuard
Don’t you wish you had a friend that could tell you every time you went over your budget?
Meet PocketGuard.
If you have a history of overspending (Who? Us?) and don’t know how to break the habit, download our runner-up.
PocketGuard seamlessly links to all of your financial accounts, helping you keep track of your spending each month. Don’t worry if you’re not too tech savvy, it’s super easy to set up and link to your bank accounts.
One person even said PocketGuard helped drastically reduce their spending. That poke in the ribs every time you make a guilty purchase must work!
#3 – The Best Budgeting App for Pros – Personal Capital
Next up is the best personal finance app for the Warren Buffets and Sir Richard Bransons to be among our readership.
Personal Capital is more like a personal investment advisor than a personal finance app. Get this hoi polloi of apps if you want a money manager that:
- Shows your net worth
- Manages all of your Swiss bank accounts (And domestic ones) from one dashboard
- Analyzes your investments to spot hidden fees
- The best retirement planner outside of hiring a professional
Their free, automated analysis of any current investment fees you’re paying is why we like Personal Capital. If you’re looking for an investment PA, go with these guys. If you’re looking for budgeting tools, go for someone else on our list.
#4 – The Best Banking App – Simple
Some of us just can’t be trusted to manage our own bank accounts – even if we’ve had one since we were ten and sold lemonade on the street corner. If you avoid managing your account at the best of times, let Simple do it for you.
Simple is the future of money. No central banks, no tellers, no lollipops at the counter (Dang!). Just a bank that exists in the air and simplifies all of your finances into one consolidated account.
Simple replaces your bank account with theirs, giving you a birds eye view of your bank account and budget in the same app. Sweet!
You’ll find it way easier to keep your budget under control that way.
Simple even has a goal feature to help you boost that savings account. Gamifying your savings makes it easier to put money away for a rainy day.
The Best of the Rest Budgeting Apps
#5 – GoodBudget
If things are starting to get serious with your better half and it’s high time you shared the budget, then GoodBudget is the app for you.
GoodBudget helps you keep track of spending and bills as a team. Since it enables you to share all this info easily with the other person, it’s perfect if you’ve taken the scary shared-finance step (You spent how much on cafe lattes?).
You can even break your budget down into multiple categories. We hope one of you is the organizer. Simply add your paycheck to the right category, and GoodBudget can figure out what you have left to spend.
#6 – Mvelopes
If you’re one of the 10 people out there that still use cash, you’re the perfect candidate for Mvelopes.
This app helps you divide your cash up into different categories for spending. While this approach is slightly easier if you have plastic, Mvelopes makes the transition from cash to digital as painless as possible.
It’s not free, but you can link up to as many financial accounts as you want. Because their budgeting is real-time, you can quickly lookup if you can stop into the coffee shop on the way into work tomorrow or not.
#7 – Wally
Who said that just budgeting for budgeting’s sake isn’t an art form?
That’s what Wally is here for. You may find it slightly more difficult to handle than our other apps, but it’s good for one thing. Yup, you guessed it.
Wally can help you track your expenses and income and gives you a summary of what you’ve got left so that you don’t overspend on a night out. The best bit? It can work with almost all foreign currencies. If you’re not State-side, budget your Euros here.
#8 – YNAB
Guess what YNAB stands for? If you’re type-A, you’ll appreciate getting this right.
You Need a Budget’s unique approach to budgeting as won it some pretty die-hard fans due to their unique approach to budgeting. Instead of a traditional budget, you create your budget based on your income.
A few people noted that YNAB made them more cautious of spending, since the app shines a spotlight on every dollar in their budget. Scary….
Whether you and your type-A personality are still solo or you’ve got a significant other, YNAB can help you enter any expenses manually and link up with your bank accounts automatically.
It doesn’t matter how good your finance and budgeting apps are, you’ll still go over budget to get that frappuccino. Just kidding, with these personal finance apps, you’ll never go over budget again.
Another great way to keep track of everything is to archive all your receipts in a PDF. Feel free to check out Soda PDF.
