Tools For Budgeting, Saving and Investing Your Money

Gone are the days when you had to scribble your budget on a piece of paper or notebook just to keep track of where your money was going.

Worse still, you would’ve had to rely on your own creativity, self-discipline, and organization to save up a few bucks. Good luck!

While all these are desirable habits, you’re better off with a tool that can help you to stick to a budget, manage your money, and even handle investment decisions.

There’s a whole slew of tech tools you can use to budget and save your money, but they’re not all worth downloading.

You can take the hassle out of budgeting and saving your money with this list of the best tech tools. Some are full-blown mobile banking apps while others are relatively simple budgeting and saving apps with tips on better financial management, but each of them can fulfill more than one aim to ensure you get the most out of your money.

Best Tech Tool For Budgeting And Saving Your Money

Mint

Mint is a free app from Intuit, the creators of TurboTax and QuickBooks. It’s a single portal that will help you create your budget, track your spending, and get smart about your finances.

If you want to keep all your finances in a convenient platform, Mint allows you to connect all your monthly bills, credit cards and bank accounts. It also alerts you when bills and debts are due, what you can afford to pay based on the money you have at your disposal.

Mint also warns you if you’re approaching budget limits, and sends you payment reminders. Plus, you can set financial goals and the app will provide you with advice on how to gain more control over your spending habits, and track the progress you make toward your goals.

Helpfully, Mint lets you get free credit scores, fraud alerts, and the user interface is clearly and logically laid out with easy-to-access sections and pages for each of your accounts and spending.

Acorns

Acorns is a unique budgeting and saving app that allows you to leverage the benefits of automating your savings.

Acorn rounds up your purchases to the nearest dollar, and then adds the difference from a linked account automatically to an Acorns account. The money held in this account is used to invest in an exchange-traded funds portfolio made using ETFs from BlackRock and Vanguard, and are based on your budgeting goals and your income.

If you’ve never owned a share of stock for lack of money to invest, Acorns app will help you invest your savings automatically without knowing about it. This may sound a little too risky for you since it doesn’t guarantee a positive return, but you can choose between aggressive and conservative, depending on the amount of risk you’re willing to take for higher yields.

If you want to save for retirement or get a checking account for your daily use, you can subscribe to Acorns Later (Invest+Later) for $2 a month or Acorns Spend (Invest+Later+Spend) for $3 a month respectively and put your pocket change to work in a painless way.

Chime

Chime is an online-only bank and this free mobile banking app is designed to help you to budget and save your money.

The money-saving app offers a variety of features and a Visa debit card with a free overdraft, and you can use the card abroad at no extra cost.

Like Acorns, you can round up your purchases in Chime, and the spare change can go into your savings, or automatically transfer 10 percent of your paycheck into a savings account. Chime also lets you set up direct deposits and receive your paycheck two days earlier.

The main drawback with Chime is that it doesn’t offer a web version of the app, but overall, it’s a great tool that will empower you to grow your savings. It’s easy to use, well-designed, and you can download it for free on your Android or iOS device.

You Need a Budget (YNAB)

You Need a Budget app is a money-saving app that helps you track your transactions and accounts in one convenient place. This way, you can set financial goals, save money, and get budgeting advice as and when you need it.

The app is built around the simple principle that every dollar you earn has a purpose, whether that’s for investing, repaying debts, or covering your living expenses.

YNAB also lets you set up weekly or monthly budgets for individual projects like birthday gifts, and offers regular trend reports based on your spending habits so you can track your progress.  

You can also join free online budgeting workshops and get more knowledge on how to manage your money and stop living from paycheck to paycheck.

Digit

As the name suggests, Digit takes care of the numbers in your bank account.

Once you download the app and connect your bank accounts, the app will analyze your transactions to learn how much you can keep aside each month. This way, it can automate your savings by transferring the amount to an FDIC-insured Digit savings account, but you still have the option of adjusting how much the app sets aside every month.

Plus, Digit notifies you when your checking accounts are low thus giving you overdraft protection. Unlike other standard savings accounts, Digit allows you to withdraw your savings easily when you need it the most.

Wally

If you hate entering expenses every other time, Wally is the app for you.

Not only does it help you track your personal expenses, but it also streamlines your financial reports in a free, convenient, and easy-to-use platform.

Wally also gives insights into where your money is going, and unlike other budgeting and saving tools on this list, it allows you to take a photo of your receipts instead of entering the numbers manually.

Plus, if you use a geo-location on your mobile device, Wally will fill in that information, saving you the time, effort, and hassle of entering each detail by hand, which means fewer errors on your part.

What To Look For In A Tech Tool For Budgeting And Saving Money

Ease of use: A budgeting and saving tool should have a simple and easy to use interface that’s well structured and easy to navigate. This not only makes for a smoother experience, but it also reduces the risk of making errors.

Security: Your financial information is critical to your personal identity, which is why the tool you choose to help you budget and save your money should provide high levels of security. At the very least, go for an app that offers 128-bit encryption and a water-tight security policy that clearly outlines how your data is used.

Flexible grouping: A good budgeting and saving tool will allow you to edit, delete, or add and group your information to your liking. It should also accommodate varying spending patterns for your fluctuating bills.

Reports: The only way you can track your progress and know whether you’re making any headway with your budgeting and saving efforts is by looking at the reports. A good budget and savings tool will generate reports daily, weekly, or monthly and allow you to export it as a CSV file or download it for record keeping purposes.

What tech tool helps you budget and save your money? Sound off in the comments.