We learn how to keep track of personal finances and manage expenses.
There is a phenomenon: no matter how much money a person earns, they spend it all. Our needs grow with our income, and it seems that there is no room for saving. But it is quite possible to save a part of your earnings.
You can study endlessly where to open a deposit or what cryptocurrency to buy, but true financial literacy begins with planning a personal budget. We have collected 6 apps that will help with this, as well as a selection of tips on how to manage money from scratch.
Apps for keeping track of personal finances
There are many services available for personal finance planning. Some of them scan receipts, while others allow several people to keep a budget at the same time. We’ve gathered the most popular ones – these apps have high ratings in the AppStore and Google Play, and are also featured in The New York Times, Forbes, Business Insider, and Wall Street Journal. Also, if you want to replenish your wallet and have fun at the same time, try Richard casino games.
1. Money Lover
Where to download: AppStore, Google Play
Cost: free and full versions are available – $2.49/month, $14.49/six months or $19.99/year
Rating: 4.7 in the AppStore and 4.4 in Google Play
The application of the Vietnamese developer includes accounting of expenses and income, import of data into Excel, and joint budgeting.
Users can link their bank account to the Money Lover wallet, a feature that allows them to automatically track the history of transactions (they do not need to be entered manually in the app). In addition, the application sends notifications when the set limit is reached and notifications about mandatory payments. Passwords and confidential information are securely stored in a separate database using RSA 1024 bit high-level encryption.
The premium version has no ads, unlimited technical support, and the ability to export transactions to Excel (for Android) or CSV (for iOS). The app is available in English. You can also use the desktop version. Money Lover has over 5 million downloads on Google Play.
2. Goodbudget
Where to download: AppStore, Google Play
Cost: free and full versions are available – $8/month or $70/year
Rating: 5 in the AppStore and 4.4 in Google Play
An American app with over 3 million users based on the envelope method. You create envelopes for all categories of expenses – rent, groceries, eating out – and then put money in each envelope to avoid spending more than planned.
Users can also analyse expenses, download transactions to CSV, import bank statements in QFX (Quicken) and OFX (Microsoft Money) formats, carry over unused funds to the next month, and plan finances in advance to stay on budget. Expenditure data is automatically pulled into the desktop version of Goodbudget.
The app is available in English. The Guardian, The New York Times, Forbes, Verizon, and USA Today have written about Goodbudget. The app ranks third among all financial apps in the AppStore and Google Play. The number of downloads on Google Play is over 1 million.
3. Expensify
Where to download: AppStore, Google Play
Cost: free and full versions are available – from $5 to $9/month.
Rating: 4.7 in the AppStore and 4.5 in Google Play
The American app Expensify is suitable for those who frequently travel for business and need to prepare reports on travel expenses. The user just needs to take a picture of the bill in a restaurant, shop or hotel in English, and the app will use SmartScan technology to add the amount to the correct expense category.
The app’s main features include receipt scanning, expense tracking, data import into Excel, and PDF travel reports. Expensify also has a travel booking function: the concierge will book tickets, hotels, and cars for corporate travel 24/7. It can be integrated with QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, and Sage Intacct. The software can be used in a desktop version. The application language is English.
Business Insider, Wall Street Journal, and Forbes wrote about Expensify. It has more than 1 million downloads, and large companies are among its users: Pinterest, Snapchat, and GitHub.
4. Money Flow
Where to download: AppStore
Cost: free and full versions are available – from $2.99/year depending on the chosen tariff
Rating: 4.8
A classic financial planner with a laconic and intuitive design from a German developer. The application synchronises with iPad and Mac, and expenses are available in the form of a transaction feed or a chart.
The app can be used to protect against unauthorised access: a security code and Touch ID. You can also attach photos, geotags, and other tags to all your expenses. With their help, it is easy to track what you spend money on and where you do it most often. There is a recurring function – for example, you can link a loan payment and not enter the data manually every month.
Money Flow has partial adaptation for people with disabilities (dynamic font support). The app is available in English.
5. Buddy: Budget & Save Money
Where to download: AppStore
Cost: free and full versions are available – $4.99/month or $34.99/year
Rating: 4.7
This Swedish app is designed to keep a joint budget. You pay for a subscription once and invite others to join via email. Important: in the free version, only one user can record expenses and income.
All expenses in the app are divided into categories: “Food and Drinks, Housing, Transport, Clothing, Sports, and others, and users can add new groups of expenses that are relevant to them. The Split function allows you to see who paid how much and how they paid if you or your buddy entered transactions into the app in advance.
The app is available in English. It won App of the Day, Editors Choice, and Best App in the App Store. Buddy is used by over 1 million people worldwide.
6. Spendee
Where to download: AppStore, Google Play
Cost: free and full versions are available – from $1.99/month or $14.99/year
Rating: 4.7 in the AppStore and 3.7 in Google Play
The Czech app helps you analyse your expenses with simple and clear graphics, identifying where your money goes and where it comes from each month.
Spendee also sends you notifications when a bill is due or when you exceed your planned budget. Synchronisation and backup will be useful for anyone who uses Spendee on different devices or shares access with family and friends.
The app is available in English. You can also use the desktop version. Spendee won the Mobile UX Awards 2017. The Verge, Business Insider, The Wall Street Journal, and NBC News wrote about it.
If you plan to use apps to keep track of your personal finances, install them from official stores. In addition, take care of security: come up with a strong password (different from the one you use for accounts in other systems), and enable two-factor authentication.
Bonus: how to start planning expenses and saving money
“They have no savings and live from paycheck to paycheck” – this is also true for high-income countries. For example, according to Alexa von Tobel, founder of the startup LearnVest and author of the bestselling book Financially Fearless, 76% of the US population lives with almost zero in their bank balance.
Most young people enter adulthood with university loans. They do not manage to save money: almost all of their earnings are “eaten up” by rent, debt payments, and other mandatory expenses – despite the fact that the average salary in the country is $6.2 thousand per month.
There are a few simple rules that will help you optimise your expenses and start saving money:
Diversify your savings. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, choose different instruments if you can: bank deposits, keeping your savings in foreign currency, buying shares, cryptocurrencies or NFTs. Keeping a portion of your savings in foreign currency is a rule of good financial manners, as inflation in euros and dollars is much lower than in hryvnia.
If you spend too much on a category, allocate cash for it. For example, if you notice that you consistently exceed your budget limit for clothes, withdraw a certain amount per week or month from your bank card that you can afford for this category of purchases. Once you’ve spent your allocated cash, try to resist the temptation to buy even more items.
Don’t abuse instalment plans and payment by instalments (or bank cards in general). In addition to the obvious advantages, cards have disadvantages. First of all, there’s the psychological effect: it’s easier to pay with a card than to part with cash. It’s also easier to get into debt with a card – for example, at monobank, you can arrange instalments by dividing your purchase into a convenient number of payments – up to 24 months with a commission of 1.9% per month.
Don’t spend too much on housing and household goods. This is usually the largest expense item. Try to keep total housing costs under 25% of your monthly income.
Don’t spend too much on housing and household goods. This is usually the largest expense item. Try to keep your total housing expenses under 25% of your monthly income.
Additional life hacks: reduce water consumption by taking a shower instead of a bath, or switch on the washing machine only when the drum is fully loaded.
Review your internet and mobile phone costs: perhaps a new version of your current tariff has been released that will be cheaper. Or the tariff scale has been updated so that you may want to switch to another, cheaper option.
Review your subscriptions to paid services. Subscriptions are tricky things: on the one hand, automatic payment is convenient, but on the other hand, you can forget about them and suddenly find that you have paid for an extra month or year. Think about whether you’ll use your subscription for the whole year and how often you need all these services. If you only have time to watch Netflix a few times a month, it’s better to give it up.
Think about a financial cushion. It is believed that the ideal budget should be built according to the 50/20/30 scheme: 50% is spent on mandatory expenses such as housing, bills, food and transport, 30% is for optional expenses (such as gym memberships or cinema trips), and 20% is for savings. Moreover, you should think about saving before you start spending on optional expenses. In fact, many people save what is left over at the end of the month, or they save large amounts but irregularly, or they have no savings at all.
Finally, analyse your income and expenses, savings, loans and investments (if any) at the end of December. At the end of the year, are you in the black or in the red? Did your income increase or decrease over the year compared to the previous year? What about your expenses?
Do you manage to cover all your expenses with your salary alone, or do you have to add to it from savings or passive income? Did you manage to save something, or did you use up your financial cushion during the year? Did you manage to make the planned major purchases? Did you manage to close a loan ahead of schedule, or did you have to take out a new one? An honest analysis of your personal financial results for the year will help you formulate a strategy for the future.