5 Finance apps I use to manage my money

I’m obsessive when it comes to my money and I like to account for every penny I spend, I know what you’re thinking, I must be life and soul of the party and you’d right, I am.

We have become reliant on technology and nowhere is more the case as it is when it comes to our money. The convenience of using an app has made money management a lot simpler.

There are those that prefer to keep a paper record of their transactions and reconcile this with their bank and think that this is also a good idea, you never know when an app might stop working or lose your data.

I’m going to share with you what apps I use to manage my own money and if you have any that you use that you think that I might find useful, I’d love to hear about them in the comments.

I’m an iPhone user, though have been an Android user too, so am sure that there will be the same if not similar apps available in the Android Play Store

Banking apps

I’m not a huge fan of having to go to a physical bank, last time I did I had to wait around until someone could see me then was greeted with a not too friendly face when I eventually got around to being seen to.

If you have a bank account, using your bank’s app is a must, it makes life much easier.

Mrs Monday was one of those that was adamant that she wasn’t going to use her bank’s app, scared of the stories about hacking and just not being that tech-savvy.

Now she wonders what she ever did without it, she can check her balance and move money with just a few clicks of a button.

I appreciate that some do not want a fully cashless society and I fully appreciate that, there are certain sections of the community that are more comfortable using cash and we shouldn’t forget about these people as we ‘advance’ technologically.

Account Tracker

I use an app, aptly named Account Tracker and guess what it does what it says on the tin.

There are apps out there that can connect to your account and show you what you categorize your spending but I like to keep it manual.

In this app, I have all my accounts and investments and when I receive some income or have an expense this goes straight into the app.

I’ll probably reconcile this with my bank’s app, every few days just to make sure that they tally.

what I most like about this app, is the fact that it tells you whether you have an underspend or overspend in a given period which for me comes in useful when I am deciding where I should be putting my money.

Money Management

I’ve tried a couple of money management tools, including Chip and Money Dashboard but am currently using, Plum.

I like plum as it monitors your account and put what it thinks you can afford to put aside based on your spending and filters this into designated pockets at a percentage dependent on your money-saving mood.

I have a few pockets that I use as my sinking fund money, so these are for car payments, which aren’t as high since becoming a one-car household and mortgage overpayments and presents for family to name only a few.

Credit Management Report

Ever since I can remember I have always been interested in my credit report.

I don’t think that some people understand how useful credit reports are, not only for seeing how well you are managing your finances but also looking at areas that could affect your credit such as identity theft.

There are a few credit report apps and websites out there, though I use Experian, there are also other apps and websites that use the data from other credit rating agencies such as Equifax and TransUnion.

ClearScore for example uses Equifax’s information to provide you with your free credit report.

Salary Calculator

I use a couple of these on my phone, mainly as a matter of interest to see whether a job that I am interested in would be financially feasible for me based on our circumstances.

I use these like someone would use Rightmove too, flicking through multi-million-pound houses that they might never afford and use them as a comparison to salaries that I might not ever achieve.

My prefered salary comparison app at the moment is one called Salary Calc, this allows me to input two salaries, then this tells me how much more or less I make or could make

What are the best finance apps?

The best finance apps are those that meet your financial goals.

It sounds like a cop-out to say, but realistically, we have all seen the lists that claim to provide yearly summaries of what the best apps are.

But how many of those that are compiling these lists are using it on a daily or regular basis?

To truly be able to provide you with a list of what the best finance apps are I would have to be running both an Android and ios device and download every app and run them side by side for a number of months.

Only you can decide what the best finance apps are, through trial and error. Some you will get on with and some you won’t.

Do you use any apps to manage your money?

Above are only a few of those apps that I use to manage my own money, do you use any others or are you one of those that prefer to keep your information written down?