Top Personal Finance Apps and Budgeting

March 19, 2020

If there’s one thing many of us would like help with, it’s budgeting. Whether adding to savings, paying off debt (like short term loans), or generally avoiding bank charges, advice is always welcome. Many finance apps promise to help you with your financial struggles. To save you the hassle of searching, here are the top ones that apply to both android apps and iPhone apps.

Mint (available on iOS, Android, and desktop)

Mint consolidates all of your accounts into one place, including bills. You can then manage all of your accounts and finances from that one dashboard. The app shares tips tailored to you that can encourage you to budget nicely and save at the same time. Alongside those pointers, you get access to unlimited free credit scores (provided by Transunion), without damaging your credit.

Mint will also send reminders for any bills that are due, meaning that you’ll never miss a payment again. Mint also reminds you when funds are low, and then you can budget what you can pay by planning ahead.

It can take a while to set up depending on how many accounts you need to connect, some of which include credit cards, utility bills, investments, etc. if you so wish. Once done, you won’t regret it. Also, if you open Mint on a desktop, there is much more to meet the eye than the app alone.

Money Dashboard (iOS, Android and desktop)

Money Dashboard is another app that you link your accounts to like Mint does. It has many features, least of all a budget planner, charts that show six months activity, and an editable tagging system for your transactions.

There are graph charts that show peaks and troughs of spending and income. These are great visuals that allow you to see which areas may need working on, instantly! The app can also analyse how much progress is being made towards your goals by seeing where you spending money.

Currently, if you join Money Dashboard, you are offered a chance to join the Member Community. By doing so, you are given a share of the business, and for every person you recommend (that signs up) you both gain another ten shares of the company. Not bad, eh?

The company is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and supports over 60 finance providers, including major high street banks.

Monzo

Monzo is a bank account in itself, so differs from the above two finance apps. Having said that, it deserves to be on this list. You receive a debit card with your Monzo account, and it links to Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Google Pay too. As with the finance apps above, you can also set budgets. You receive instant notifications when spending, depositing or transferring etc.

Monzo allows you to set up ‘pots’. You can use these pots for whatever you like and name them whatever you want. Whether you’ve got a birthday to save for, a wedding fund or a non-urgent vet bill, these pots are great incentives!

You can lock them until a specific date of your choosing and also choose to use one for ‘round-ups’. Round-ups are when a transaction is rounded up to the nearest pound. For example, if you spend £12.39 at your local store, a further 61 pence will be added to the account of your choice, making the total transaction £13. This is an easy way to save as many of us wouldn’t miss those few extra pence, and they soon add up.

Monzo offers direct debits, and a ‘split the bill’ option. If you and four friends are out, you can split a bill, whether they are Monzo customers or not. You can split it equally or manually edit it if you owe different amounts. Monzo sends a request to pay you and alerts you when you have been paid.

With other features such as ‘shared tabs’ to keep track of shared ongoing payments, and fee-free withdrawal abroad (to a limit of £200 per month), you can see why this is fast becoming the bank account of choice! We can help find you a loan from £100-£8,000, any credit status, with a decision in minutes.