5 Of The Best Budgeting Apps To Help Manage Your Money

While technology has been used to advance our world in multiple ways, one way it can impact you personally is by using tech to better your financial situation. Aside from digital wallets and encrypted currency, another way to take advantage of technology is to use it to assist with budgeting.

A May 2024 Bankrate survey found that 56% of Americans believed being able to live comfortably equaled financial success; that is, being able to pay for everyday expenses and still have enough left over to save for the future. Other survey-takers, meanwhile, believed being "financially successful" meant being financially prepared for the future, never needing to worry about money, or being debt-free. With that said, a total 89% in Bankrate's survey said they were still working on achieving their version of financial success.

On that note, to help in achieving your own version of financial success — and if you're one of the nearly 90% who feel they're not quite there yet –  you may want to consider using a budgeting app. In this article, we'll take a look at five such apps, each for a different category of saver, families, people wanting to improve their credit score, couples, and entrepreneurs.

Quicken Simplifi helps families keep track of their household spending and savings from a single dashboard. From it, users can keep tabs on bill payments, cash flow, and expenses, as well as receive real-time alerts on transactions, upcoming bills and subscriptions (speaking of which, using autopay to pay for subscriptions could end up costing you), and when the family nears a spending limit.

Although the app doesn't offer a free trial, it does offer a 30-day money back guarantee if you are unhappy with the service. The company is also currently (as of August 16, 2024) offering 50% off its regular monthly fee for use on mobile devices for $2 per month, and desktops at 25% off for $5.99 per month.

In terms of security, a 256-bit encryption protects user information, and the app is ad-free. Also, along with the ability to sync your banking info, regular debt payments, and investment portfolio, you can also arrange your budget into tax-related columns by tagging reports and transactions. This should make tax preparation a lot easier come tax time. Just remember to include these monthly expenses Americans typically forget to add to their budgets.

EveryDollar is aptly named since the app's strategy is based on a zero-based budgeting system (for an overview, here's the difference between traditional budgeting and zero-based budgeting). With the EveryDollar app, every dollar of your income is accounted for and leveraged against your debts and expenses, with a goal of zero dollars. If that sounds pretty strict, it's because the app is from financial adviser and podcast host Dave Ramsey, who is known for his tough love, no-nonsense approach to fiscal responsibility — particularly where debt is concerned.

As such, the EveryDollar budgeting app may best suit people trying to escape the clutches of debt. All your banking and investment accounts can be added to the app, where you can not only begin to track your everyday transactions, but also categorize, plan payments, split transactions, share your budget with others, and even calculate your net worth. This can be done through the free account.

With a premium Plus membership — $17.99 per month — you can also speak to someone from Ramsey Solutions in a group call and obtain financial advice based on your budget. Plus members can also sync their bank accounts and get customized reports and budgeting strategies tied to their payday. Per EveryDollar, first-month goals of app users include cutting monthly expenditures by 10%, better budgeting outcomes, and the discovery of up to $400 to spend entirely on debt.

Is it better to save money or pay off debt first? While the rest of the apps on this list can definitely help you with saving, Cushion is one of the best apps to help you build your credit. With Cushion, you can sync your bank and email to the system, which makes it easier to itemize and keep track of all your upcoming bills. That includes buy now, pay later billing that may pop up unexpectedly to derail your credit building plans. You can input your payment schedule into a digital calendar — the Calendar Wizard — which will arrange and import it into your Google calendar for daily tracking. The calendar is designed to reflect new bills, changes in payments, or new billing schedules.

The app also comes with a virtual Cushion debit card that you can use to make bill payments. The payments are then deducted from your bank account or physical debit card. Cushion calculates your payments every month and reports them to the credit bureau on your behalf, helping you to build a better credit history and consequently, achieve a higher credit score.

The cost is $12.99; alternatively, users can pay $4.95 per month minus the Cushion card or credit bureau reports. In addition, the budgeting app will also search and track all of your subscriptions so you can unsubscribe from things that are costing you money but you don't really have a use for anymore. Think, streaming services, VPN passes, or one-time magazine subscriptions.

According to Bankrate, 42% of cohabiting or married couples have practiced financial infidelity — keeping secrets about your financial situation from your partner — with 7% considering it worse than cheating. This infidelity tends to involve secret accounts and credit cards, and hidden expenditures of $500 or more; 11% of those surveyed by Bankrate admitted to hiding expenditures on addictions like gambling, alcohol, or illicit substances. There are a number of warning signs of financial infidelity you shouldn't ignore, and an app like Honeydue can help ease the fears that your relationship is in financial trouble by making everyone's financial situation more transparent.

The app is designed to be used by couples and allows for users to coordinate bill payments, notify each other of upcoming transactions, and customize their budget based on different categories. You can split bills to stay abreast of when your budget for a specific category is looking a little stretched, allowing you to recalibrate together. With 20,000 participating banking institutions in five different countries tied to the app, you can take advantage of Honeydue's benefits even when one of you is outside of the U.S. with an in-chat ability. The app is free to download from the Apple Store or Google Play.

As a business owner, budgeting for future or current savings is extremely important. As your own employer, emergency savings, health insurance, and retirement are all your responsibilities to cover. CountAbout is made specifically to address the budgeting needs of entrepreneurs, including invoice generation and receipt collection, as well as accounting and bookkeeping. Both the standard $9.99 and premium $39.99 per year plans come with 45-day free offers.

Your standard plan allows you to import Quicken Interchange Format (QIF) files from your bank. QIF files were created by the aforementioned budgeting app Quicken to share financial information — bank transactions, credit card charges, and investment portfolios — to the app. It's still used as a file format by financial institutions and the ability to import them directly into the CountAbout app is another benefit. Adding the ability to estimate your savings 40 years in advance is another feature. The premium plan also gives users the capability to download financial transactions automatically.

With the app, you can build out a full circle of budgeting options since the QIF file import feature means financial information stored in other personal budgeting tools like Quicken Simplifi, or the now defunct Mint, are compatible and can be easily imported and adopted into your savings strategy. That means you can manage your personal and business expenses on the same app while building toward a savings plan that aligns with both.