10 Best Personal Finance Apps In 2022

Sometimes it takes a global pandemic and a recession to make us realize how important budgeting is.

If your earnings fell in 2020, you may be looking over your finances to see where you can cut costs. Alternatively, if you cut your spending due to the economic uncertainty, you may have realized how out of control your spending was before the pandemic.

In any case, there’s no better time than 2022 to overhaul your finances, and a personal finance app is one of the most useful tools at your disposal. You use smartphone apps for everything from dating to pregnancy tracking, so why not use one to help you manage your finances?

Let’s look at the best personal finance apps in 2022 to help you feel more confident about your finances, save money, and know exactly where your money is going.

What are personal finance apps?

A personal finance app is a smartphone app that helps you manage all aspects of your finances. These apps can assist you in keeping track of your spending, saving, and investing. They can also track your bill payments and keep you up to date on changes to your credit score.

You can connect personal finance apps to your financial institutions to see where your money is being spent from your bank account. It makes it simple to keep track of your finances while on the go.

Typically, a personal finance app will include features such as a shared wallet, bill reminders, and even subscription management.

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Why use finance apps?

Budgeting apps may appear to be a fad, but they can be extremely beneficial to anyone seeking to improve their financial habits.

The best personal finance apps will track your income and expenses and then create a healthy budget for any leftover funds.

The app will assist you in allocating your excess funds for spending, saving, investing, or debt repayment—whatever your financial objectives are.

“Why do I need to download a budgeting app when I can access all of my financial accounts online?” you may be wondering.

There’s no denying that online banking has made home budgeting easier than ever. The best budgeting apps, on the other hand, provide some additional benefits that you may not find with online banking:

Visualization: Budgeting apps will turn your financial information into colorful charts and graphs so that you can visualize your spending habits—a priceless feature for visual learners.

Synchronization: Many budgeting apps allow you to synchronize all of your financial accounts on a single dashboard, giving you a complete picture of your financial situation. It’s especially useful if you have financial accounts outside of your bank, such as at a brokerage firm.

Automation: Anyone can add up their wages and expenses, but deciding how to allocate their leftover money is a completely different challenge. Budgeting apps frequently include calculators or automated algorithms that make recommendations on how to allocate your money to meet your financial objectives.

Read Also: Best Budget Apps For Couples

Criteria for selecting finance apps

We selected the apps for this list by using the following criteria:

Features: Does the app have all the tools you need to build a healthy budget? Does it have any additional bells and whistles?

Platform: How well is the app designed? Is it easy to use? Are the security features powerful and reliable?

Price: A good budgeting app shouldn’t take a bite out of your budget. The best budgeting apps should have a great cost-value ratio.

Check Also; Top 10 Free Budgeting Apps In 2022

What is the best personal finance app?

Mint is the best overall budgeting app and it has long set the standard for budgeting apps, with about 20 million users and a rock-solid reputation.

10 best personal finance apps

1. Mint

Mint has long been the gold standard for budgeting apps, with over 20 million users and an impeccable reputation. This is still true in 2022.

Mint is the best overall budgeting app, with a plethora of features. After you’ve synced your accounts, the app will automatically categorize your expenses as “Utilities,” “Food,” or “Lifestyle + Entertainment.”

Your transactions may be miscategorized at times, but you can manually correct them. You are also free to create your categories.

Mint’s primary goal is to identify spending patterns. You can view your specific spending habits for each category over a short or long period. These trends can be used by the app to generate a better budget for you.

It can also generate a budget based on the community’s average spending in a specific category—Mint uses its massive user database to assist you in making prudent budget allocations.

The same is true for investments. If you’re an investor, you can see how your assets perform in comparison to market benchmarks (not as good as the information provided by an online broker, but it’s a nice touch).

It should be noted that the Mint platform is known to be a little buggy from time to time. You’ll also see lots of ads, which are the platform’s main revenue source. But that’s a small price to pay for the app is free.

Many people don’t have a very clear understanding of their spending habits, or they’re unsure about their budgeting or savings goals. If you’re on the same boat, then you’re sure to enjoy Mint’s ease of use, automation tools, and big-picture approach to budgeting.

2. You Need a Budget

You Need a Budget is designed to be used for “zero-based” budgeting. This is how zero-based budgeting works:

Your income minus your expenses equal $0

So, if your monthly income is $3,000, you should budget so that your monthly expenses are also $3,000.

That doesn’t mean you should go out and spend recklessly. The goal of zero-based budgeting is to plan for every single dollar you earn. You’ll choose whether each dollar goes to a savings account or a specific spending category.

Personal finance is approached intensively with zero-based budgeting. Naturally, You Need a Budget is not a budgeting app for the casual user, but rather a complex tool for those dedicated to creating and adhering to a detailed budget.

You Need a Budget, like other budgeting apps, allows you to sync your accounts and customize your spending categories and personal finance goals. It’s more expensive than other budgeting apps, at $84 per year ($11.99 per month), but it also has a plethora of educational resources to help you and keep you engaged.

The primary goal of You Need a Budget is to get you one month ahead of your finances so that you’re spending money you earned at least 30 days ago.

It could be a handy app if you’re:

• Trying to get ahead on your finances
• Trying to work your way out of debt
• Living paycheck-to-paycheck

3. Pocketguard 

What if you don’t want to budget down to the last penny? Or how about categorizing your spending in your budget?

Many people simply want to know how much money they have leftover after paying their monthly bills.

Pocketguard is an excellent budgeting app for this purpose. Using your income and monthly expenses, the app calculates how much money you’ll have for spending after you’ve paid for all the necessities (in other words, how much you’ll have “in your pocket”).

The app allows you to track your spending by day, week, or month. You can set savings goals and categorize your expenses, just like other budgeting apps. Pocketguard, on the other hand, has a unique feature in that it will scour your bills and identify ways to reduce them.

For example, it will recommend a less expensive internet provider or a more affordable grocery store so that you can save money on recurring purchases.

Pocketguard is especially useful for people who live paycheck to paycheck or are trying to figure out what their spending limit is.

4. Personal Capital

Personal Capital is primarily an investment tool, but its free app contains features that are useful for budgeters who want to track their spending. Checking, savings, and credit card accounts, as well as IRAs, 401(k)s, mortgages, and loans, can all be linked and monitored.

By listing recent transactions by category, the app provides a spending snapshot. You can change the categories and see what percentage of your total monthly spending each one represents.

Personal Capital also provides a net worth tracker as well as a portfolio breakdown.

Personal Capital’s budgeting features are more limited than those of other apps, making it unsuitable for people who are only interested in budgeting.

On the other hand, it is an excellent app for investors, particularly those who are unsure how much money to invest in various assets. If you want to save for retirement or a college fund, you’ll appreciate the integrated tools that will help you with that.

5. Honeydue

Honeydue, a new addition to the list, allows you and your partner to see your entire financial picture in one place, including bank accounts, credit cards, loans, and investments. (However, you have control over how much information you share with your significant other.)

The free budget app categorizes expenses automatically, but you can also create custom categories. You and your partner can set monthly limits on each of these categories, and Honeydue will notify you when you or your partner approaches them.

Honeydue also sends bill reminders and allows you to chat and send emojis.

6. EveryDollar

EveryDollar is a budgeting app that allows you to keep track of your spending and plan for future purchases. It’s designed for zero-based budgeting, in which your expenses equal your income.

The free version of the app requires you to manually enter a transaction every time you spend money to account for it in your budget.

Alternatively, you can pay for Ramsey+, which includes the premium version of EveryDollar (formerly called EveryDollar Plus).

You can connect your bank accounts for a more streamlined experience, as well as access advice content and other tools, with this upgraded version. After a 14-day free trial, Ramsey+ costs $129.99 per year.

Read: What Should My Budget Spreadsheet Contain? Samples & Template

7. Goodbudget

Goodbudget is a budgeting app that uses the “envelope system.” When you use envelope-based budgeting, you divide your income into spending categories. You may have been taught this method of budgeting as a child—did you ever save your allowance or birthday money in an envelope?

Spending categories are referred to as “envelopes” in Goodbudget. Because you can’t sync your financial accounts, you must manually enter your account balances. After you’ve entered your financial information, you can begin allocating your funds to the envelopes of your choice.

The free version includes one account on up to two devices, and there are a limited amount of envelopes available. It’s suitable for very casual users who aren’t doing very extensive budgeting.

The paid version is $6 per month (or $50 per year) and offers unlimited envelopes and accounts. You might find the paid version helpful if you’re sharing expenses with family, your significant other, or roommates.

Budget sharing is a great way to keep track of utility costs or “I O U’s.” It’s also one of the best budgeting apps for couples, especially for engaged couples who want to transition to a shared bank account.

Since Goodbudget lacks some of the more advanced budgeting features that you’ll find on other apps, it does require a substantial amount of self-discipline to stick to your budgeting goals.

8. Simplifi

Simplifi by Quicken is a budgeting app with a solid set of features for a low price ($2.99 per month after a 30-day free trial). Many of the same functions as other budgeting apps are available: account synchronization, expense tracking, automated categorization, and so on.

However, the interface is one of the best of any budgeting app. It can display a wide range of data on an easy-to-understand dashboard.

On Simplifi you can create custom watch lists that help you limit your spending on any category or payee. It’s a nice feature that can help you reel in certain bad spending habits.

Although it’s not free, Simplifi offers a greater number of features than other “Lite” budgeting apps of similar price (for instance, you’re more limited on the free version of Goodbudget).

9. SmartyPig

You may have several savings objectives. For example, you may be attempting to save money for retirement, vacation, and a new laptop.

Saving for multiple financial goals at a traditional bank can be difficult because you may have to open multiple savings accounts, manage numerous transfers, or even pay higher fees.

SmartyPig is similar to an online piggy bank in that it helps you organize your money so that you can save for a variety of financial goals.

First, you’ll create your savings goals, and then you’ll set up automatic bank transfers from your checking account. It’s free to open an account, but the service does charge 1.60% interest on your annual holdings, like a broker.

You can set a date for when you want to reach your savings goal, and then the app will recommend how much you need to transfer per month or week.

SmartyPig allows you to invite friends or family to donate to a particular fund, and you can post your progress toward that savings goal on social media. It’s perfect if you have a savings goal or life event that might warrant fundraising.

10. Buxfer

Buxfer is perhaps the most underappreciated budgeting app. Although there is a free version, the best features are only available in the paid versions ($3.99 and $4.99 per month).

You can sync your accounts, track your income, create a budget, and limit your weekly spending. You can also choose whether or not to roll over any unused funds to the following month.

Buxfer categorizes your expenses differently than other apps. Rather than sorting your expenses into predefined categories, each transaction is given a “tag.”

You can add multiple tags to a transaction, which you’ll appreciate if you have expenses that might fall into various categories (would you categorize an In-N-Out burger under “Food” or “Personal Care?” Oh, the ambiguity!).

Read Also: 10 Steps To A Budget Made Easy Process In 2022

FAQs on Personal Finance App

Conclusion

A personal finance app can help you become more aware of your financial habits and develop a healthier budget. The best budgeting apps assist you in visualizing your spending habits to create a new budget that improves your savings and overall financial comfort.

You should choose a budgeting app-based not only on the platform’s functionality but also on the type of budgeting practice the app is based on.

Reference:

• www.nerdwallet.com/
• www.fortunebuilders.com/

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