Saving and investing money for retirement is a topic that is heavily stressed by many personal finance writers. But even after you retire, monitoring your finances will take up a lot of your time. Saving money entails creating a nest egg sizable enough to allow you to retire comfortably, while managing your money entails making it last as long as you require.
At least four factors, including inflation, financial market fluctuations, significant unforeseen expenses like medical bills, and the possibility of outliving your savings, will have an impact on your retirement investments after you retire.
Avoiding issues in any of these areas will be made much easier with wise investing. But making sensible financial decisions is just as crucial. That begins with creating a retirement budget. Fortunately, there are tons of tools on the internet and in app stores that can make budgeting easier. Some of my favorites are included here.
Best Budgeting Software for Retirees
Mint
A well-liked free budgeting program is called Mint. You can effortlessly manage your money and pay your bills on a single web platform using this all-in-one financial application. You can check your credit score for free on Mint as well.
With the help of Mint, you can access all of your financial data on one platform and continuously examine the overall picture of your financial status. To view what you owe and when you have to make payments, you can add accounts, credit cards, and bills. You can keep tabs on your investments and spending habits.
Additionally, Mint offers more than 20 different types of alerts to let you know about costs, remind you to pay bills, and let you know if you’re spending more than you had planned. To help you understand where you stand, they will also email you a breakdown of your expenditure and savings.
You Need A Budget
You can track and automate your budget using the budgeting tool YNAB. It is not free, unlike Mint, although it does provide a free 34-day trial. The application contains a mobile app function and is compatible with Windows and Mac. On its website, YNAB offers a wealth of resources, including classes on personal finance-related topics.
The budgeting tenets of YNAB are a little different. You are supposed to survive on what you made last month. This may not be as crucial as it was when you were working toward retirement and living off of savings. However, it’s still a useful tool for handling your finances.
Personal Capital
A free online dashboard is available from registered financial advisor Personal Capital. The dashboard keeps track of investments, including holdings, fees, and asset allocation. Through its cash flow feature, which allows you to go deep into your expenses and track your spending by several criteria including category, merchant, and date, it also provides budgeting software.
Tax optimization, 401(k) fee analysis, and mutual fund fee analysis are all features of the investment platform. You can also view your forthcoming invoices with this tool, including the latest payment you made, the minimum payments due, and the total amount owed.
My preferred tool for rigorously monitoring your budget is not Personal Capital. But if you’re retired, it’s a good alternative for monitoring your investments and their performance.
Quicken
Like YNAB and Mint, this program downloads your income and expenses automatically. Transactions are also automatically classified, however you can later reclassify them based on your needs. The app allows you to create your strategy and monitor your success after automatically creating budget targets based on your historical spending. In order to prevent late fines, you will also be able to view upcoming wages, bills, and payments.
Although Quicken has a few more capabilities than Mint, it is a little bit more difficult to use. It also provides more thorough investment tracking, making it more of a Personal Capital and Mint hybrid.
Mvelopes
Mvelopes tracks all of your income and expenses in one place, just like other budgeting software programs, and lets you save precise information about your spending habits. To help you manage your finances while on the go, they also provide a smartphone app.
The well-known envelope approach of budgeting is utilized by Mvelopes, albeit in an electronic version. Additionally, they provide money4life coaching, a personalized budget program that includes live phone support, one-on-one coaching, and money-saving initiatives.
Budgeting Tools for Young Adults
Money Under 30
Money Under 30 is a highly important online resource, especially for young individuals, as it covers a wide range of practical financial problems. Money Under 30 cuts through the clutter of more complex subjects you might not be interested in just now and gives straightforward, educational, and approachable content.
Do you require assistance in submitting your income taxes? You may read an article at Money Under 30.
You have a few thousand dollars to invest, but where should you begin? That is where Money Under 30 can help.
You won’t feel patronized or out of your depth after reading Money Under 30. It’s an excellent starting point for learning the fundamentals of financial planning, money management, and investment.
Gen Y Planning
When you’re a young adult, it could be necessary to look outside your parents for a financial counselor who can relate to you, your lifestyle, and your objectives and aspirations. lover of karaoke and fine food Sophia Bera, the founder of Gen Y Planning, is a young adult who strives to offer her peers the finest counsel and direction possible. Check out this list for more millennial and young adult financial planners.
Start Planning for Retirement
Retirement seems like a distant goal while you’re in your twenties, if you really consider it at all. Even if you don’t know what the coming week may hold, starting to save with your very first paycheck is a terrific approach to start making plans for the future. If your employer offers a 401(k) plan, sign up as soon as you can and make the maximum contribution, particularly if your employer matches contributions. You might have to forgo a few lunches or expensive bottles of wine each month, but in the long run, you’ll be extremely happy you did.
Wally: Track Expenses as You Go
Planning and budgeting need knowing where your money goes each month, especially if you are paid for costs associated with your job. Making a spreadsheet to plan your spending is fine, but seeing what you actually spend can serve as a wake-up call and inspire you to be more aware of your wasteful expenditures (those lattes add up). An app called Wally makes it simple to see how much money you spend each day. With Wally, you can do a lot of things, such log costs and take pictures of your receipts.
You Need A Budget
It’s time to begin preparing a little more carefully after you have a better understanding of where your money is going. An app called You Need A Budget makes creating and maintaining a budget simple, if not effortless. You Need A Budget is able to assist with:
- Planning expenses
- Planning savings
- Adjusting your goals
- Understanding the potential results
Home Budget for Families
Couples and young families just starting their lives together as adults have many financial worries. Of course, daily expenses are always a priority, but thinking ahead to their children’s futures gives them a new perspective on money. A collaborative software called Home Budget enables everyone concerned to contribute to the planning, assessment, and budgeting of family funds. Home Budget is an excellent platform for those who want hands-on experience and want to be very proactive in their planning because it has many possibilities for tailoring the program to your own needs.
Budgeting Apps
1. Quicken
Although Quicken’s reputation was founded on a desktop version, it is now accessible to operate as an app on your mobile devices. Quicken is a well-known application for managing personal finances.
A good selection of financial reporting options are provided by Quicken. These are organized around a variety of topics, including budgeting, bills, accounts, and even investing. It gives you the opportunity to input your purchases and income for budgeting so you can compare them both and get a better understanding of how much you are spending in relation to how much you are making.
When it comes to bills, you can also check which utilities and other entities you frequently pay, as well as the remaining funds in your account and the amounts still owing. You can even combine your credit card and bank statements for accounting needs so that you have a very clear sense of how much you’re spending. This is especially useful because people frequently underestimate the financial impact of everyday minor expenditures.
It also gives you the option to track your investments, whether they are a part of your savings, investment portfolio, or 401(k) pension plan. This means that you are aware of the value of your savings and investments, yet it is reasonable to argue that you shouldn’t be alarmed by brief changes in the stock market.
In total, Quicken combines your banking, investment reporting, and budgeting into a single dashboard that you can access from a PC or even a mobile device via the mobile app.
2. YNAB
YNAB, short for You Need A Budget, is here in case you need to be instructed exactly what to do. Because, hey, you really do need one if you don’t want to spend every every penny you have and more. Perhaps you have more money than you anticipated as well.
As you may anticipate, YNAB’s main goal is to assist you in reducing your expenditure and avoiding living paycheck to paycheck. Maintain the plan and moderate your spending, and soon YNAB will realize that you are using last month’s funds rather than those you just received.
It is simple to install, supports the bulk of transaction data that can be downloaded from banks, and automatically adjusts for use by either individuals or small businesses by altering its monetary categories in accordance with your requirements.
If you stray from your course, YNAB, which is surprisingly understanding and forgiving for a piece of software, will inform you what to do to get back on track. You’ll have to make some compromises, but if direction is what you need, this stands out from competitors like Quicken.
Mint
Why we advise it: Let’s start with Mint’s extremely positive reviews on Google Play and the App Store. (It has also received by far the most reviews of any software we examined.) It syncs numerous types of accounts for free, including credit cards, loans, investments, and bank and savings accounts.
In terms of budgeting, Mint keeps track of your expenses and categorizes them. These categories, which are infinite, can be customized. You can specify upper and lower bounds for these categories, and Mint will alert you when you’re getting close to them.
Along with those budgeting capabilities, Mint may aid users in tracking objectives, increasing savings, and paying off debt. The software also displays the user’s net worth and credit score. Bonus: Mint offers a ton of assistance for using
Why you may want to think twice: One of the many outstanding features of Mint is that it keeps track of practically everything for you. But if you want to budget more actively and directly, that might not be the best option. Other applications on our list might suit your needs better if you’re looking for an app that helps you manage your finances in advance rather than just track them after the fact.
Goodbudget
Why we recommend it:
Goodbudget focuses more on financial planning than transaction tracking. This program is based on the envelope budgeting method, in which you allocate particular expenditure categories a portion of your monthly income (called envelopes).
Your bank accounts are not connected to this app. You manually enter cash amounts, debts, income, and account balances (which you can retrieve from your bank’s website). Then you allocate funds for the envelopes.
Both the web and your phone can be used to access the app. You can use the app with the help of a lot of articles and videos that are available.
A limited number of envelopes, two accounts, and two devices are available in Goodbudget’s free edition. Goodbudget Plus, the paid version, offers additional benefits including limitless envelopes and accounts, up to five devices, and more.
Why you may want to think twice: Every expense must be entered because financial accounts cannot be synced. The app probably won’t work for you if you’re not willing to put in the effort.
Mint Budgeting
Mint is a budgeting program that includes a variety of functions to aid with spending planning and tracking, bill negotiation, and even credit monitoring. Although Mint’s owner, Intuit, mainly relies on advertising to make its service free, it does provide an ad-free paid tier as well as a premium tier that offers additional features—both of which are reasonably priced.
Here’s everything you need to know about Mint and whether it would be a good fit for you if you’re considering using a budgeting app to help manage your finances.
How the Mint Budgeting App Works
Although there are other budgeting apps with free features, Mint may have the most extensive selection. You may link all of your financial accounts to receive a complete financial picture, plan and track your income and expenses using resizable categories, and gain knowledge about potential ways to enhance your money management.
Along with a VantageScore credit score, Mint also provides a credit monitoring service. Though the VantageScore might provide you a good picture of your credit health overall, bear in mind that 90% of the biggest lenders utilize the FICO Score, which is generated in a different way. To put it another way, your credit score may not necessarily reflect the same situation that lenders perceive when you ask for a loan.
Helpful Tools
Mint comes with several helpful tools you can leverage to make the budgeting process go more smoothly and also to make better decisions about your money. Here’s what you can expect:
- Direct import: When you connect your financial accounts, Mint will automatically import transactions as they post, so you don’t have to check each individual account every time you update your budget.
- Automatic categorizing: When transactions get imported, Mint will automatically categorize them for you based on transaction data. You can make changes if you need to, but the automatic feature can save you a little time whenever you review your spending.
- Goals: If you have a savings goal, you can set it up in your Mint account and track your progress toward it. Ideas include a vacation fund, holiday spending, a down payment fund and other short- and mid-term savings objectives.
- Alerts: Mint will notify you when the cost of your recurring subscriptions increases, your bills are due, there’s unusual spending, your account balances are low and more.
- Investment tracker: Mint can help you keep track of your investment portfolio and even spot unnecessary fees your investment advisor, 401(k) provider or broker may be charging you.
- Resources: Mint offers a wealth of resources, including calculators to help you with retirement, paying off debt, investing and more, as well as articles that can educate you on just about any personal finance decision you need to make.
- Paid features: While most of Mint’s features are free, it does offer a premium version, which comes with a modest monthly fee. With that, you’ll get help with canceling subscriptions you no longer need, spending projections to help you avoid overspending and money spotlights to help you understand your spending habits as they compare to other Mint users.
Pricing
The majority of Mint’s features are available for free. However, the budgeting software has numerous adverts, which might be bothersome. You must pay $0.99 a month if you don’t want to see advertisements. The monthly fee for Mint’s premium version, which can make your budget even more effective, is $4.99, which is still less than what many other budgeting apps charge.
Security
Owner of both QuickBooks accounting software and TurboTax tax preparation software, Intuit, which also owns Mint, is well-versed in data protection.
The business employs a number of security precautions, such as multifactor authentication, security scanning with VeriSign, biometric authentication, security notices, and others.
You can remotely wipe your data from the app if you misplace your device. Your information will also be removed if you opt to close your account.
Pros
- Very easy to set up and use
- Once your accounts are connected, the approach can be very hands-off, meaning you can come back anytime and catch up
- Connects with an exceptionally large number of financial institutions, making almost all U.S. and Canadian accounts connectable
- Free to use
Cons
- Can only set a budget for the current month
- Because Mint can be used in a more hands-off way, it may not prove effective for some users in saving money, paying down debt, etc.
- Web interface design is less attractive and user-friendly
- Web and mobile interface includes ads and offers
Conclusion
A budgeting software can be a great way to make the most of your retirement. By using a good budgeting software, you can plan your retirement with ease and make the most of your money. Additionally, by using appropriate strategies for retiring, you can make the most of your time in retirement.