No matter if you earn a lot, or just enough to live month to month, it is essential to know where all of your money is going. Getting a better idea of your cash flow allows you to manage finances more successfully and even save something while you’re at it.
When you have all the numbers listed somewhere, it becomes much easier to see what needs to change in order to start working on your financial future. And what better way to do so than by using an app? Our phones are with us every second of the day, so why not use them to the best of your advantage?
Anything you can think of, name it, and there probably is an app customized just for it. The same happens with financial apps. They have become more than just a notebook to list your expenses. Some of them can double as your private financial assistant or even personal trader, helping you grow your wealth while becoming more conscious about your spending habits.
So, without further ado, below are 6 apps we think everyone wanting to grow their wealth should start using right away.
1. Mint
Mint has been the talk of the town lately, and for very good reasons. Even though it also provides access to your investment accounts, the app’s highlight is its budgeting tools. If you are looking for a way to keep a very close eye on your budget, then look no further than Mint.
The app allows you to create budget categories, sort transactions, and analyze your spending habits. By linking it to your bank accounts, Mint automatically pulls out transactions and sorts them out, so that you can see them all in one place.
What’s more, Mint also comes with a bill pay reminder, making sure your bills are never past due, and you can pay your bills from inside the app as well.
2. Personal Capital
Dubbed by many as the best money management apps out there, Personal Capital lets you track your budget and much more. With an interface that is just as intuitive and user-friendly on desktops, tablets, and phones, this app helps your budget stay under control, while also letting you keep a close eye on your investments.
If you are into investing, then Personal Capital is just the app you were looking for. Besides its basic budgeting functions, the app takes into consideration your investments and provides you with detailed graphics about your performance and portfolio. This way, you get a much better perspective on your financial picture, knowing exactly how much money you make and spend.
3. Acorns
If you are looking for easy ways to invest your money, then Acorns is your best bet. The principle behind this little app is very simple: whenever you make a payment with your debit or credit card, Acorns rounds up the payments, takes your change, and invests it. Gone are the days when spare change used to sit in a jar until someone got the courage to actually take it to the bank and exchange it.
The main advantage of using Acorns is that it makes saving mindless by automatically rounding up and transferring your money into an investment portfolio. The less you think about your savings, the less likely you are to dive into them. But if you want to have more control over your investments, you can choose to manually go through all your expenses and selecting which roundups go into investing.
4. MetaTrader 5
For those of you who take trading more seriously, MetaTrader 5 is one of the best platforms out there. The platform allows users to trade futures, stocks, and Forex and provides superior tools to aid you in your trading journey.
Forex traders, for example, have a variety of features to choose from, including real-time quotes, technical analysis tools, financial news, as well as a comprehensive history of your trading details. What’s more, the platform also allows for social trading, which has gained a lot of popularity recently. Social trading is a mutually beneficial cooperation between traders, where a more experienced trader shares their trading actions for others to copy automatically, in exchange for a small fee. This allows inexperienced traders to learn more while also protecting their balance.
5. Dollarbird
If you don’t know whether you can afford that $15 lunch you’ve been longing for, or when your loans are due this month, Dollarbird is the app you’ve been looking for. The app aims to help those struggling to see if their budget can be stretched until the end of the month while making sure they don’t miss out on any payment.
Dollarbird puts your budget in a calendar form so that you can get a better perspective on past, present, and upcoming expenses. You can color-code each transaction, sort it into designated categories, and see your overall balance so that you know exactly how much money you afford to spend without jeopardizing your finances. The only drawback is that Dollarbird does not sync with your bank accounts, meaning you will need to enter each transaction manually.
6. You Need A Budget (YNAB)
YNAB was built on a simple principle: every dollar you make has a designated purpose, whether it’s investing, paying back debt, covering expenses, or going into savings. You Need A Budget helps you learn how to live with the budget you have and what to do when it happens to get off track.
The app will ask you to set a budgeting goal, be it to pay your debt or go on vacation, and then assists you in accomplishing it. If you choose to link your personal financial account to it, then YNAB will automatically import your balance and transactions, to better manage your budget.
By creating spending categories such as “Bills”, “Groceries” or “Dining out”, you can then allocate certain sums to those categories, to make sure you never go over budget ever again and save for that goal you’ve set up in the beginning.
