What is the best free personal budget app? This is a question asked by many budget-minded individuals. A few questions may come up before you decide on which budgeting tool to use. What features should a personal budget app android have? Does it have a good user interface? Is it easy to create a budget? How much does it cost?
Online budgeting can be difficult, with lots of different apps out there and all claiming to be the best free budget app. You’re here because you’re looking for a free personal budget app, but are finding it difficult to decide which is the best one to choose. There are numerous financial applications on the web which makes it difficult to choose which one is best. We’ve tried many of them ourselves, and depending on what you’re looking for it can be difficult to know which one is the best. This guide aims to address that question by comparing three of the best free personal budget apps out there – Mint, You Need a Budget and Wally.
We provide a great free budget app for you to manage your money easily. This app is available on Android, iPhone and iPad. You may wonder what is the best way to use money. In fact, there are times when using money can be pretty difficult. However, it should not be like this if you’re using the right tools to help with managing it. This is where we come in with our budget app which will make your life a whole lot easier when it comes to managing your money.
There are many different personal finance applications that you can use to help manage your budgets, expenses, and financial commitments. These apps will help you set goals and reach them in a timely manner. Some of these will also help you pay bills, make payments and balance your budget. Here is a list of the best free personal budget applications which can be used on both desktop computers and mobile devices.
What does a budgeting tool do?
Budgeting gets a bad rap for being a monotonous and tedious task, but it can also be a helpful way to understanding your spending habits. And a budgeting tool can make the process a lot easier if you find the right one for your needs.
That tool might be an already-formatted spreadsheet where you just plug in your transactions, or an app that auto-categorizes your spending for you.
Because different budgeting tools offer slightly different approaches to tracking your money, first decide how intentional you want to be. Hands-on methods, such as manually enter your transactions into a spreadsheet, may take more time, but the process can help you be more thoughtful about your spending.
You’ll also want to decide if you want to pay for a budgeting tool. While the top-rated tools on this list come no cost to users, those who don’t mind paying a premium have options for budgeting tools with more robust features. A popular choice is budgeting app You Need A Budget (YNAB), which offers a 34-day free trial then costs $84 per year, or $11.99 per month. Users can set goals, customize spending categories, plus get access to 100+ free educational workshops offered every week. (Learn more in the app’s review.)
Mvelopes
If you want to try out the envelope budgeting method, Mvelopes is a great option. It can link to your bank account and help you set up budgets based on your income. If you’re trying to track spending habits and make sure that your money goes where it needs to go, this is also a good app for that.
In addition, Mvelopes has some features that really make it stand out from the other apps in this category: goals and reminders. Goals let you set up financial targets for things like saving for a down payment or paying off debts—then receive reminders when those goals come due (or before). Reminders are sent via email or text message as well as through the app itself when an upcoming bill pays itself off (which is fantastic).
PocketGuard
PocketGuard is a free and easy-to-use personal budgeting app. It has all the features you’ll need to manage your money, including:
- A simple and intuitive interface that makes it easy to create and track your budgets
- The ability to add expenses, income, savings goals and recurring bills with just a few taps
- Dashboard summaries of how much money you have leftover after paying all of your bills each month
Wally
Wally is a free personal budget app that can be used to track your expenses. The app uses the envelope budgeting system, which means you’ll need to manually enter your transactions and categorize them by expense type. Wally also has a few other features, like reporting tools and optional savings account feature that helps you set aside money for future goals.
The app is available on both iOS and Android platforms (and even works with Apple Watch), so you can use it across multiple devices or switch between phones if desired.
Mint
- Mint is an easy way to track your spending and make sure that you’re staying on budget.
- If you overspend, Mint will remind you what categories (like groceries or entertainment) may have been overused and help you adjust accordingly.
- You can also set up alerts in the app to notify you when certain expenses occur, such as when a recurring payment comes due or if there’s very little cash in your checking account.
- Mint provides tips for saving money and investing wisely—like how much it costs to rent, buy a home or car (and whether those are good investments). The app even offers ideas for tackling debt and showing how much interest you could save by paying off loans early.
YNAB
If you’re looking for the best personal budget app, there are a lot of options to choose from. The most popular ones are Mint and Personal Capital, but these apps may not be right for everyone.
YNAB is different than other personal finance apps in that it focuses on giving users all the tools they need to get out of debt and stay on track with their finances in general. It’s not just a tool for tracking your spending—it’s also meant to teach you how to create a budget that works for you so that you can live within your means.
When choosing between YNAB and other similar services, it helps to know what makes this program unique:
Goodbudget
Goodbudget is a budgeting app that comes in two versions: free and paid. If you’re looking for an envelope budgeting system, Goodbudget has you covered (with the paid version). The free version only tracks bills and automatically deposits your money into envelopes based on those bills.
The paid version allows you to do things like add multiple bank accounts and track cash purchases alongside credit card purchases. It also offers the ability to share budgets with other people so that everyone is working toward the same goal together—great if you have roommates or are married!
Spendee
Spendee is a mobile app that helps users keep track of their personal finances. Available on Android and iOS, Spendee has many features that make it easy to use, such as the ability to create budgets, track expenses and income, set goals and more.
The app’s interface is simple enough that anyone can use it right away without spending a lot of time learning how it works. The home screen displays your monthly income and expenses in an easy-to-understand graph format with helpful color coding for different types of transactions (e.g., bills or groceries). You can also choose which categories you want to include on this screen by going into Settings > Personal Info > Categories Listing Mode option
Tiller Money
Tiller Money is an app that syncs with your bank accounts, tracks your spending in real time and helps you stay on top of your money. It has a free trial and costs $5 per month.
You can use Tiller to see where every penny goes, or keep it simple and let it help you set goals and manage bills. You’ll also get notifications when something important happens with your account like a payment due date or new charges posted.
There are a lot of great free budgeting apps, but mint, goodbudget, spendee, and tiller money are among the best.
If you’re looking for a free budgeting app, there are many to choose from. Mint, Goodbudget, Spendee and Tiller Money are among the best.
Mint helps you easily budget, track and manage your money. The app automatically imports your transactions from your bank accounts so that you can see all of your financial information in one place. You can look at how much money is in each account at any given time or check out how much cash flow is available for spending on a certain day. Mint also offers helpful tips about saving money or cutting back on expenditures like eating out or shopping for clothes (or both).
Goodbudget is an expense tracker and a budget planner that helps you save money, plan for future expenses and get out of debt by helping you create monthly budgets that take into account everything from rent payments to car repairs—and everything else in between!
How do you create a budget?
Making a budget can be done in as little as five steps:
- Calculate your net income: First, find out how much money you make each month (your cash inflow). Your net income is the amount of money you earn after taxes and can be found on the pay stub you receive through your employer.
- List your monthly expenses: Next, you want to look at your monthly costs (your cash outflow). Common monthly expenses include rent or mortgage payments, utility bills, loan payments, insurance costs, transportation, child care, groceries, dining, household goods, travel, streaming subscriptions and memberships. Also include in this category your savings contributions, such as in a 401(k) or high-yield savings account.
- Label the monthly expenses as fixed or variable: Go through your list of monthly expenses and now label each as a fixed (essential items) or variable cost (nonessential items). Examples of fixed costs are rent, utility bills, transportation, insurance, food and loan payments. Your dining, travel, clothing (beyond the basics), subscriptions and memberships are variable costs. This is an important step in the process because it helps you see where you can cut back if you need to.
- Determine the average monthly costs for each expense: List how much you spend on each expense per month and add them all up. It’s easiest to do this step while looking at your bank account and credit card statements from the past month.
- Make adjustments depending on what your budget reveals: The final step in creating a budget is the most telling. This is when you compare your net income to your monthly expenses to see where you stand. If your expenses exceed your income, this means focus on finding line-items in your budget that you can remove or cut back spending on. On the other hand, if your income is higher than your expenses, reevaluate what you should be doing with those excess funds. They’ll earn more interest in a high-yield savings account than your checking account. But you might also want to consider increasing your contribution to your 401(k), making bigger payments on your debt or investing for a future expense.
Conclusion
Love your money like you love your life. And you should if you’re using a personal budget app. The best budget app is the one that helps you manage your own money in the best way. And, for many of us, the best way to get control of our finances means using an app to track our spending. However, just because the best budget apps help you keep track of how much money you are spending, doesn’t mean that all budget apps are great with features and effectiveness.
You may have trouble trying to manage your personal finances. Even though you have the best intentions in mind, it can be difficult to stick to that budget or even know where to begin. If this sounds familiar, you might be interested in trying out one of the free personal finance apps that are available. They can help keep track of everything from spending to bills and more.