Apr 13, 2020 Mint is a free personal finance service that's in a class by itself. No web-based rival provides as comprehensive a collection of tools for tracking your.
Ten years ago, there were no solid personal finance apps out there. If you wanted to track your money, you didn't have many options beyond websites like Google Finance.
I got my start tracking our budget and net worth with a spreadsheet. I would learn about Intuit's Quicken software but it felt silly to pay for software to help me save money. It wasn't until later that other options, like Mint, started to appear.
A great personal finance app can help you save more money and give you an instant snapshot of your financial situation in seconds. A lot of the problems we face when dealing with money have to do with decisions and information. We need to make a decision but we don't have enough information! To get it, we have to log into a lot of accounts, track a lot of data, and then analyze it before we make a decision. That's a tremendous amount of time that can be saved if you use a good personal finance app.
Today, you have free personal finance apps that are better than what you had to pay for years ago. Personal Capital, SigFig, Mint, YNAB, Mvelopes, … the list is long and distinguished.
Money apps have taken over and we all can benefit.
That's why earlier this year I polled the readers of Wallet Hacks for their “must-have, can't live without” money apps and here's what they said.
Best Money Management App – Personal Capital
A financial dashboard is a place where you can see everything involving your money in one place. Your assets, your liabilities, your net worth – all your financial accounts visible on one convenient page.
This is important because when that information is easily accessible, it's easily remembered and understood. We use it to pull in all of our data, though we ignore the credit card debt piece because we pay off our bills every month in full.
What's easier – logging into one account or logging into a dozen?
When it comes to a financial dashboard, the clear leader is Personal Capital. It has a rich suite of tools built around investments, with a nod towards expense tracking similar to Mint, so you can get a sense of where everything is at a moment's notice. If you're interested in a consultation with a financial advisor, they have that built-in as well and it's something that helps them stand out from other similar services. It's how Personal Capital makes the money that supports the free tool.
This app is for you if: You want an instant snapshot of your finances, from your investments to your budget, in one place. Personal Capital is free.
Best Budgeting App – You Need a Budget
If you want to change your budget, You Need a Budget (YNAB) is one of the most powerful tools you can use because it does more than track your expenses – it actually helps you build and stick to a budget.
One of the biggest challenges in money management is in near-term planning. What are you going to do next week and next month?
Retirement can be decades away but you are spending money today and tomorrow. By getting the next month right, you go a long way towards getting your money situation under control.
YNAB has a four rule methodology that has worked well for its users.
- Give Every Dollar A Job
- Embrace Your True Expenses
- Roll With The Punches
- Age Your Money
Another reason why YNAB is powerful has to do with its educational tools and community. You will not find this with financial tools like Mint. There are no Whiteboard Wednesdays to help you understand your money a little better. This is what separates them from the pack in many ways. Our You Need a Budget review goes deeper into the app and the company if you wish to learn more.
This app is for you if: You want to transform your budget and get your spending in line with your financial goals. YNAB costs $6.99 a month after a 34-day trial.
It's this methodology around the tool that makes it powerful.
Budgeting Runner Up – Mint
For tracking a budget, Mint is one of the most popular free budgeting tools out there and we wanted to list them because they are free to use.
If you don't have sizable investments, Mint is a very powerful tool that is better for budgeting but less effective for investments. I felt like Mint was fantastic up to a point. Once you focus more on investing than budgeting, Personal Capital has far more tools to help you succeed.
Mac Finance Software Reviews
This app is for you if: You want to know where your money is going each month without having to log into multiple accounts. Mint is free.
Best Support Tool – Tiller
Tiller is a service that will connect with your bank and credits card to pull daily transaction data into a sheet on Google Docs. No other service out there offers this. You can choose to start from half a dozen templates or roll your own, but Tiller will update it automatically from 100,000+ financial institutions.
NOTE: When we surveyed of our readers, the number one “app” was Microsoft Excel. Far and away the most popular application for anything – budgeting, financial dashboarding, net worth, whatever category you picked – it was Microsoft Excel.If you see a list of “best apps” and it doesn't list a spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel at #1 — they didn't actually survey. They made it up. 🙂
That being said – Microsoft Excel is all about finding a template and customizing something that fits your exact needs. It can be a lot of work but that hands-on interaction means you know the data is pristine. You can rely on tools like Tiller to pull the transaction data too so you get the automation (it works with Google Docs).
I use Microsoft Excel to track our net worth, with Personal Capital pulling the data.
The apps on this list are pre-built, faster to get into, and free. If you're starting from scratch, these apps will get you there faster but will not fit you like a glove. Excel is like a custom-tailored suit, these are off the rack.
Tiller automates your custom spreadsheet so it fits you perfectly. Don't change the way you do things to match a tool, add Tiller and bring your spreadsheet into the 21st century.
Tiller is a monthly subscription but it won't inundate you with advertisements or pitch you on their financial planning services as an upsell. (to be fair, other companies need to do that because they are free – the bills have to be paid!)
You get the customization of a financial spreadsheet but the automation piece so you don't need to login to all of your accounts and update everything manually. Removing that hurdle makes money management that much easier. They offer a free 30-day trial.
Best Personal Finance Software Mac 2018 Download
This app is for you if: You love spreadsheets or have one you've tailored but need a tool to help you pull the data for you. Tiller costs $4.92 per month after a 30-day trial. (here's more about Tiller)
Best Investing App – Robinhood
Robinhood is a stock brokerage that offers commission free trades through their app or web interface. They're like any other brokerage, they use Apex Clearing Corporation, are a member of FINRA, and have SIPC insurance for up to $500,000 like any other brokerage. There is no account minimum, no maintenance fee, and you can even trade crypto if you're so inclined.
They make money by offering a Robinhood Gold subscription service that gets you margin and after-hours trading. If you want to trade stocks, I find it difficult to argue against a Robinhood and their free trades.
For a limited time, you can get a free share of stock from Robinhood.
Best Micro saving App – Acorns
One of the newest innovations in personal finance apps is the idea of a micro-savings app – where you can automatically save small amounts of money and have it invested in the market. The idea is that these apps will figure out how much they can transfer into an investment account without you, or your budget, realizing. It's less active than traditional saving but more effective if you're the type of person who doesn't actively manage your budget daily.
One of the best in class is Acorns, which doesn't rely on a black box “guessing” how much to save. When you make a purchase, the amount is rounded up and transferred. This predictability is often seen as a better process than some other apps, which “guess.” Guessing can be a little scary.
They also have a “Found Money” feature with some partners where if you purchase with a merchant, they may contribute a small bit to your Acorns account.
Here is our full review of Acorns.
Best Personal Finance Assistant – Trim
If robots can help you invest, perhaps they can help you do some of the more mundane jobs you don't want to?
That's the idea behind Trim, and a whole host of similar apps.
Trim is free to use and they can help you renegotiate your bills like with your cable provider, including Comcast, Time Warner, and Charter. They connect to your accounts, analyze your recurring subscriptions, and identifies areas where you could be saving money. The cable is just the start, they will look at other subscriptions too including your car insurance.
The best part is that they handle the negotiations for you. No more calling Comcast and navigating the phone menu for ages – they do it for you. If you want to cancel, they'll do that for you too.
Here is our full review of Trim.
Summary
There are a lot of apps, many of them free but some of them paid, that will help you save time, save money, and save gray hairs.
Take advantage of them!