So you want to get into budgeting your money, tracking your expenses, and other financial matters? Good for you! This is the first step towards becoming financially independent. With this in mind, let’s look at some of the free personal finance software you can try out. Personal finance is one of the most important aspects in one’s life that need to be looked at with microscopic inspection and has to be managed properly in order to ensure financial stability. We live in the digital era. It’s become common practice for mankind to use technology to improve their lifestyle. On the financial front, personal finance software allows people to strategically plan their ways towards money management. If you are looking for a personal finance software download or top personal finance software, do read further!
CREDIT KARMA
You probably are well aware of Credit Karma by now, but if not here is a little synopsis. Credit Karma is a free platform that allows you to see your credit reports, credit scores, and get recommendations about your credit history. Logging in does not impact your scores at all and gives you a picture of what’s going on in your personal credit history. Additionally, Credit Karma now offers high-yield savings account on top of it.
I use Credit Karma often and it has helped me prevent some identity theft damage as well. You get real-time alerts and resources to help you maintain a good credit score. There are tons of features, so I recommend checking out the site a bit further.
MINT
Mint is one of the most popular personal finance free software of 2016. Its UI is an absolute treat to use, along with the loaded features of personal finance management that put it at the front of the personal-finance game. Mint shows you your financial situation in a broader sense; it shows your total net worth along with each and every minute detail of every transaction that you made so you can keep track of personal and professional expenses from a microscopic lens. It allows you to connect to your PayPal so you can monitor your online transactions as well. It uses visual images to illustrate your finances, and we believe it is the best feature of Mint. It is web-based and has apps for all major platforms.
QUICKEN DELUXE
For the oldest player on the field, Quicken’s still got it. The feature set is as robust as any personal finance software out there. And you get more exporting and customization options than Mint, which makes Quicken one of the best personal finance software options. Longtime Quicken users are familiar with the software’s top-notch budgeting, planning, and spending-analysis tools that have long complemented their robust account-management features. Quicken lets you transfer money between accounts at different institutions, provides specialized investment reports, and helps you create a tailored plan to pay down your debt. Supported account types include investment, retirement, and loan accounts, as well as asset tracking for insurance purposes. For lovers of detail, thoroughness, and tailoring their financial management, Quicken is a great fit.
Since 2019, Quicken users have had the added benefit of a browser interface that lets them interact with their finances on the go. Today, you can view balances and transactions, identify spending trends, and check the performance of your investments from anywhere you can get to a browser. Still, we can’t help but suspect that its owners at H.I.G. Capital know how tied people get to their historical data. While there’s no arguing with Quicken’s feature set, the switch to a subscription model brings Deluxe to $42 a year. That’s a pretty hefty price tag for personal financial software that, for most users, isn’t much different than the free competition.
In a nutshell: People who have spent years mastering Quicken (and entering their data) have good reason to stick with it. Change is hard! But if you’re just starting out, take a look at Mint or Personal Capital for a lower-cost way to keep track of your ducats.
POCKETSMITH
This personal finance software allows you to connect all your accounts in one place. But what makes this application different, is the ability to forecast where your accounts may go based certain outcome from your finances. You can connect to bank accounts, credit cards, investment accounts, and loans to your PocketSmith account. Some cool features include live banking feeds, multi-currency tracking support, budgeting and keeping tabs of expenses, organize transactions, net worth, projected balances based on your financial habits, and much more.
The free version is quite basic, but will give you a sense if PocketSmith is right for you. But if you want a lot of amazing features, you will have to upgrade to either their paid Premium or Super offerings.
HONEYDUE
Financial concerns are one of the biggest sources of stress in couples. Honeydue, personal finance software built for two, has set out to make it easier.
Honeydue offers the typical features of personal finance software, but also provides the ability to mark an account as joint or just the responsibility of one person in the relationship. Additional couple-centric features include marking a transaction for splitting, or notifying you both when a bill gets paid – particularly helpful for couples who divvy up the bills. You can add a note or question to a transaction, and your partner will be notified that it’s there.
Shared finances are rife with critical conversations: What are our goals? How do we feel about the amount of debt we are carrying? Do one or both of us need to be earning more? No amount of software can have that conversation for you. But “Hey, did that bill get paid?” or “I think you owe me $17 for that thing…” – when you let software handle those logistics, you can free yourselves up for the human conversations that matter most.
ACEMONEY LITE
AceMoney Lite is an all-rounder financial software that focuses on investment tracking and allows you to have two financial accounts that can be managed with a single one. It lets you handle all your transactions, manage them, edit them at your will and balance them at the end. You can download these transactions whenever you want and produce monthly reports based on them. It lets you manage your accounts, your banks and payees. It also lets you schedule your payments.
YNAB
Give every dollar a job! That’s the friendly mandate of You Need a Budge ($11.99 per month), a tool that’s as much a philosophy as it is an app. YNAB is the best personal finance software if you want to truly understand your money and its management.
The YNAB software (desktop software for the big view, as well as solid mobile experiences) comes within an entire ecosystem that offers all the support, education, and encouragement to help you go the distance with a budget after the glow of that New Year’s resolution has worn off. The YNAB universe includes a blog, videos, a podcast, book and more. Whether a dollar’s job is to be spent or to be saved, YNAB helps you think through your whole financial picture to ensure all your money is doing the right job for you. Definitely take advantage of the 34-day free trial; that’s a month to get the hang of it plus a few days to think it over).
BUDDI
Buddi helps you perform major financial tasks like budgeting, tracking accounts, creating personal finance reports and some other nifty features. You enter your transactions manually, and let Buddi take the front seat to keep the record safe and secure and record monthly reports. Buddi is available on Windows, Linux and Mac, so you can use it on your different devices. It will become your perfect buddy. Buddi is a free personal finance software that keeps your financial data encrypted and is perfect for small financial tasks that one needs to perform daily. You can add more features by downloading more plugins.
ACORN
“Round-up” apps have become common in recent years. The concept is simple: Link your credit or debit card to the app, and whenever you make a purchase, the app rounds up to the nearest dollar and directs those extra pennies to an account. So you keep tossing money into savings without really noticing it’s happened. Acorn puts your money into a diversified portfolio of ETFs, so you’re dabbling in the market, too. You can also set automatic savings transfers to your Acorns account – you’re not limited to the round-up pennies.
As Acorn has grown, so has its ecosystem, and now it really is competitive in the realm of best personal finance software. Grow is its educational arm – a robust set of articles and videos, available with or without an account. Acorns Later lets you save into a Roth, Traditional, or SEP IRA, and you can add a full-featured checking account ($3/month). And with their Earn program, every time an Acorns user shops at select retailers (the list is currently at about 200 partner brands, including Airbnb, Home Depot, and Sephora), you get extra money back.
While Acorns doesn’t technically have a completely free trial, we let it sneak in to this roundup; for just $1, you can try it out for a month. They also have plans that offer checking, investment, and retirement accounts ($3/month) and a family version that lets you add your kids and provides materials to help teach them about money ($5/month).
CONCLUSION
When it comes to managing your personal finances, you need a good software to stay on top of everything. The more organized you are with your personal accounts from the start, the easier it will be to see where your money is going. You can begin with a basic tool and eventually grow into a more advanced option as you become more adept at managing your money. Nowadays, it is easy to get lost in the sea of available personal finance software. There are so many different services out there that have various features that are appealing to its users. When you are processing your personal finances on a computer, websites, or mobile apps, it is important to have good software that will help you not only manage your money but do so more effectively.