Creating a budget can be challenging, especially when you need to apply for loans or when you want to save for your kid’s college education. With the help of the best apps for making a budget, you can manage your finances with ease and control your everyday expenses, including your personal expenses and those associated with your business. Here are five applications that will help you in doing so:
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Best Apps For Making A Budget
Goodbudget, for hands-on envelope budgeting
Why we recommend it: Goodbudget is more about planning for your finances than tracking previous transactions. This app is based on the envelope budgeting system, in which you portion out your monthly income toward specific spending categories (called envelopes).
This app doesn’t connect your bank accounts. You manually add account balances (that you can pull from your bank’s website), as well as cash amounts, debts and income. Then you assign money toward envelopes.
You can access the app from your phone and the web. You’ll also find many helpful articles and videos that help you use the app.
Goodbudget offers a free version that allows one account, two devices and limited envelopes. Its paid version, Goodbudget Plus, allows unlimited envelopes and accounts, up to five devices and other perks.
Why you may want to think twice: Because you can’t sync financial accounts, you must enter every expense. If you’re not up for that work, the app probably won’t be effective.
Cost: Goodbudget is free. Goodbudget Plus is $7 per month or $60 per year.
Apple store rating: 4.7
Google Play rating: 4.5
Nerdy tip: Want to try envelope budgeting and sync your accounts? Check out Mvelopes. It didn’t quite make our list but follows the same budget system and allows you to link bank accounts.
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YNAB, for hands-on zero-based budgeting
Why we recommend it: YNAB is designed so that users plan ahead for their financial decisions, rather than track past transactions. This app follows the zero-based budgeting system, which has you make a plan for every dollar you earn.
As soon as you get paid, you tell YNAB how much of your income should go toward various categories, including expenses, goals and savings. The idea is that you become more intentional with your money when you’re prompted to actively decide what to do with it.
With all this decision making, YNAB is about as hands-on as you can get. To help users trek up that learning curve, YNAB’s website offers many educational resources describing exactly how to budget and use the app.
YNAB allows you to link your checking and savings accounts, as well as credit cards and loans. The app works on the phone, desktop, iPad, Apple Watch and Alexa.
Why you may want to think twice: You have to be committed to keep up with YNAB. By design, it works best for users who want to get hands-on while planning for their money. Also, compared to the other apps that made our list, its price is high, and its Google Play ratings are low.
Cost: Pay either $14.99 per month or $98.99 per year, although you can try it out in a free 34-day trial. College students can use YNAB for free for a year.
Apple store rating: 4.8
Google Play rating: 3.2
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EveryDollar, for simpler zero-based budgeting
Why we recommend it: This apps offers a zero-based budgeting framework that’s simpler (and perhaps easier to manage) than YNAB.
First, an explanation of the names: EveryDollar is a free budgeting app. But, to get the app’s extra features, you must become a Ramsey+ member. In addition to a beefed-up version of EveryDollar, a Ramsey+ membership includes other, off-app features, such as audiobooks and courses.
The free version is simple, in part because you don’t sync accounts. You manually enter incoming and outgoing money throughout the month. You also categorize line items in your budget and set reminders for bill payments.
If you sign up for Ramsey+, you can connect your bank accounts so it’s simpler to track transactions. You can also track debts, see reports on how you spent your money and print your transaction history.
Why you may want to think twice: The free version of EveryDollar is pretty bare-bones, and the Ramsey+ membership is more expensive than any app on our list. Also, the app’s website offers few resources to help you understand how to use the app before signing up for a trial.
Cost: The basic version of EveryDollar is free. To access more features, you must join Ramsey+, which you can try for free for 14 days. After the trial, you can pay $59.99 for three months, $99.99 for six months or $129.99 for 12 months.
Apple store rating: 4.8
Google Play rating: 4.2
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Personal Capital, for tracking wealth and spending
Why we recommend it: Personal Capital is primarily an investment tool, but its free app includes features helpful for budgeters looking to track their spending.
You can connect and monitor checking, savings and credit card accounts, as well as IRAs, 401(k)s, mortgages and loans. The app provides a spending snapshot by listing recent transactions by category. You can customize those categories and see the percentage of total monthly spending each category represents.
Personal Capital also serves up a net worth tracker and portfolio breakdown. The app can be accessed through both phone and desktop.
Why you may want to think twice: If your goal is to plan out your spending and saving, you may want to go another route. This app’s budgeting features helped it make the list, but its investment tools are what make it unique. Other apps have more in-the-weeds budgeting capabilities.
Cost: Free
Apple store rating: 4.7
Google Play rating: 4.4
Nerdy tip: Another app worth checking out is Copilot (iOS only). That app tracks investments, in addition to tracking and categorizing expenses.
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PocketGuard, for a simplified budgeting snapshot
Why we recommend it: PocketGuard’s catalogue of features isn’t the most robust on our list, but that’s part of why we like it. The app is big on simplifying.
You can connect your bank accounts, credit cards, loans and investments and track bills. With that intel, the app shows how much you have left to spend after setting aside funds for necessities, bills and goals.
PocketGuard also tracks your net worth and gives you the option to not link your accounts and instead track your finances manually. The paid version, PocketGuard Plus, offers a debt payoff plan, the option to export your transactions and other features.
Why you may want to think twice: This app does a lot of work for you. That’s good for a mostly hands-off experience, but less so if you want to plan for your money. Also, a heads up for Android users: PocketGuard also has one of the lowest Google Play scores in our list of best budget apps.
Cost: Basic PocketGuard is free. PocketGuard Plus is $7.99 per month, $79.99 per year or $99.99 for a one-time lifetime purchase.
Apple store rating: 4.7
Google Play rating: 3.6
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Honeydue, for budgeting with a partner
Why we recommend it: Honeydue is designed so you and your partner can view both your financial pictures in one app. Both partners can sync bank accounts, credit cards, loans and investments. (Although you can choose how much you share with your significant other.)
The free budget app automatically categorizes expenses, but you’re also able to create custom categories. Together, you can set up monthly limits on each of these categories, and Honeydue will alert you when you or your partner is nearing them.
Honeydue also sends reminders for upcoming bills and lets you chat and send emojis.
Why you may want to think twice: Like a few other apps on our list, Honeydue leans more toward reflecting and learning about past transactions, rather than planning ahead for expenses.
Cost: Free
Apple store rating: 4.5
Google Play rating: 4.0
Nerdy tip: Zeta Money Manager and Firstly (previously Honeyfi) are also designed for multiple people to see their finances in one app.
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Fudget, for budgeting without syncing accounts
Why we recommend it: Consider Fudget if you’d rather not sync financial accounts and would prefer a straightforward, calculator-esque interface over fancy features.
In Fudget’s ultra-simple design, you make lists of incoming and outgoing money and track your balances. There aren’t even any budget categories. The Pro account allows you to also export your budget, along with other extras.
Fudget, which is new to our best budget apps list, has a Google Play rating that’s higher than any of the other apps we reviewed and an App Store rating that ties for the highest score with a few other picks.
Why you may want to think twice: This app is likely too simple for you if you’d prefer categorization of expenses, insights or just about anything else besides the basics. And if you don’t have it in you to log every expense, it’s likely best to look elsewhere. We also didn’t find much in the way of user guides.
Cost: Free for Fudget; $3.99 one-time purchase to upgrade to Fudget Pro.
Apple store rating: 4.8
Google Play rating: 4.6
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Budgeting resources from NerdWallet
NerdWallet has a free app that lets you track your cash, see your net worth and debt, and track your credit score. We chose not to include ourselves in the list above in order to present an unbiased view.
Best free budgeting app
How do you create a budget?
Making a budget can be done in as little as five steps:
Calculate your net income: First, find out how much money you make each month (your cash inflow). Your net income is the amount of money you earn after taxes and can be found on the pay stub you receive through your employer.
List your monthly expenses: Next, you want to look at your monthly costs (your cash outflow). Common monthly expenses include rent or mortgage payments, utility bills, loan payments, insurance costs, transportation, child care, groceries, dining, household goods, travel, streaming subscriptions and memberships. Also include in this category your savings contributions, such as in a 401(k) or high-yield savings account.
Label the monthly expenses as fixed or variable: Go through your list of monthly expenses and now label each as a fixed (essential items) or variable cost (nonessential items). Examples of fixed costs are rent, utility bills, transportation, insurance, food and loan payments. Your dining, travel, clothing (beyond the basics), subscriptions and memberships are variable costs. This is an important step in the process because it helps you see where you can cut back if you need to.
Determine the average monthly costs for each expense: List how much you spend on each expense per month and add them all up. It’s easiest to do this step while looking at your bank account and credit card statements from the past month.
Make adjustments depending on what your budget reveals: The final step in creating a budget is the most telling. This is when you compare your net income to your monthly expenses to see where you stand. If your expenses exceed your income, this means focus on finding line-items in your budget that you can remove or cut back spending on. On the other hand, if your income is higher than your expenses, reevaluate what you should be doing with those excess funds. They’ll earn more interest in a high-yield savings account than your checking account. But you might also want to consider increasing your contribution to your 401(k), making bigger payments on your debt or investing for a future expense.
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