It is a new year! A new financial year that is and now is the time to reevaluate your spending. Are you saving for a big holiday? Do you need to budget and change some of your spending habits? If the answer is yes to any of above never fear, there is an app for that!
TrackMySPEND
This free app allows you to track your personal expenses from your phone. This app is provided by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission’s MoneySmart website, it will give you a big picture of view of what you spend your money on.
You can use it to record expenses such as your weekly household budget, work or travel expenses, particularly those cash expenses that are difficult to record. You can also separate your spending into categories like “needs” and “wants” to identify areas where you can rein in your spending and start saving.
TrackMyGOALS
This app is also available for free on the MoneySmart website. This easy-to-use app allows you to set realistic savings goals and prioritise them. Another bonus is it provides positive encouragement by tracking your progress.
This is perfect for tracking how well you are saving for a holiday, wedding, car, house, renovation, school fees or anything else on your heart desires.
Mint
Mint is a free app that brings your bank accounts, credit cards, bills and investments together to provide snapshot views of your entire finances. You can see where you are spending; how you can save money and can even keep track of your credit score. You can even get bill reminders to pay bills on time. Schedule payments on the spot or for later, ensuring you never miss a payment again and kiss late fees goodbye.
Raiz
This app helps you to save and invest without having to think about it by using your digital loose change. Connect it to your credit card, debit card or another funding source and allow it to round up each of your transactions to the nearest dollar. The loose change is then invested into a diversified portfolio of investments of your choice. You can select a portfolio that takes into account your investment goals and your risk tolerance. The transactions are small, so it is easy to set, invest and forget.
This app is free to download. Once an account is opened, there are no fees on $0 balances. After that, Acorns charges $1.25 per month for accounts with a balance under $5,000 and 0.275% a year (charged monthly, computed daily) for accounts with a balance of $5,000 and over.
Goodbudget
This app is a digital version of the time-honoured envelope budgeting method. This system divides the cash for each month’s expenses into envelopes for each budget category – for example, groceries, transport, eating out or rent. The idea is to stop spending on that category once you’ve emptied the envelope or before, if you’re feeling proactive.
Goodbudget helps you to stick to your budget limits. Rather than discovering that you overspent when it’s too late, you can plan your spending beforehand and only spend what you have. Because you can share a budget across multiple devices, the app can also help couples manage the combined household budget and check know how each partner is tracking.
There’s a free version that allows you to create 20 envelopes and share across two devices. However, for US$6/month or US$50/year you get unlimited envelopes and accounts, the ability to share these across five devices and to keep five years of history.
Expensify
This app is great for people with work expenses. Not only does it help you track and log all your expenses, it also sends information back to the office.
Expensify automates every step of the expense management process. Read and scan your receipts and then add these to an expense claim that can be automatically submitted to your employer and approved. A very basic service is offered to individuals for free. For those who need additional features a corporate plan is available for US$9 a month.
Happy spending and saving! Now is the time to set your goals and reach them!
