10 best budgeting apps: Save more of your money each month!
We’ve been on the lookout for good budgeting apps, since so many of our readers are looking for ways to save money, budget better, or just be more mindful about how we spend and what we spend on. So we reached out to the editors at Apple to see their favorites, and we were so happy to see a lot of our team’s own favorites on their list.
We culled it down to these 10 best budgeting apps, which all get great user reviews, and are tops with financial experts too. And of course most are available on Android as well.
Best of all, none of these budgeting apps are wildly complicated — no crypto, nothing too high-tech. Just solid budgeting apps to help you make the most of the money you have, learn more about your spending habbits, and hopefully keep a little more of that money in your pocket. Or better yet, in your bank account.
Related: 24 legit ways to make extra money each moth
10 of the Best Budgeting Apps to Help You Keep More of Your Money
For Overall Personal Finance: Rocket Money App
For an all-around personal finance app to help you manage and save money, you can’t go wrong with the wildly popular Rocket Money app (formerly Truebill).It syncs with your bank accounts to help you track income and spending, and there’s a solid budgeting feature to help you set saving goals and even seek out the places you might be able to trim your budget. You can even use their bill negotiation service should you need some help tackling a big phone bill or pay less for internet.
Extra cool: The app helps you find and track any paid subscriptions you might have forgotten about and cancel them. Say, that 7-day free trial to a streaming service that you forgot to cancel after you binged that one series? Been there, overspent on that.
For Budgeting with Simplicity: Monarch App
If you’re one of the people mourning the loss of the Mint app for expense tracking, users seem to have found a new favorite in the Monarch App. Not only do the Apple Editors love it, but it was named the best budgeting app by the Wall Street Journal this year and it’s clear why. It’s a simple, beautifully designed app to help you manage money and track expenses in ways that are customized to your needs, and very easy to use — especially for couples and families. And we’re always suckers for a colorful, well-designed app.
Users love the flexible budgeting tools lists that track your planned spending by category, then show you whether you’re close to hitting your limit — or have a little extra cash to roll over into another category, or use to pay off some debt.
Overall, it really helps you see both the big picture and the day-to-day details. They’ll even help you adjust your personal budget if you get a little off track. No guilt trip either.
Extra cool: Monarch has recently added a feature that lets you use a calendar view to check out upcoming charges, subscription renewals and bills, which is great for visual thinkers.
Related: An age-by-age guide to teaching kids about money
For Totally Free Budgeting Help: NerdWallet App
Arguably the best free app for budgeting — with no strings attached — is still the NerdWallet App. It’s been a go-to for years and keeps improving. Connect all of your financial accounts, and you’ll instantly get an overview of your spending habits, credit score, bills, expenses, and financial health so you can manage your cash flow now and in the future.
It’s easy to compare spending by category or month-to-month, and can be enlightening if you’ve never taken a good look at those breakdowns. It’s fairly no-frills, but totally automated and well–designed. One note: There are ads and offers (that may be relevant), but did we mention free?
Extra cool: NerdWallet is wildly easy to use, even for those new to a budgeting app. In fact, it’s a great starter app for teens or college students to get into good money habits early.
Related: This new site is helping moms earn gift cards by answering surveys and playing games.
For Staying on a Tight Budget: Goodbudget Budget Planner App
The Goodbudget Budget Planner is a super user-friendly, low-tech (in a good way) money and expense tracking app that’s designed around the envelope budgeting method — only the envelopes are virtual. This way you can see how much is left in each “envelope” each month before you spend it. The app connects to your bank accounts if you want to track balances and expenses in one place, plus offers features like in-app reports to help you sort your spending and see where you can trip or adjust, a debt progress tracker to help with paying off loans or credit cards,
Extra cool: Goodbudget is fantastic for families and couples because it actually lets you sync and share your budgets with someone else. This way you can stay on the same page when it comes to how and where and how much to spend.
For Budgeting While Learning Lifetime Financial Skills: MoneyCoach My Budget Planner App
The MoneyCoach My Budget Planner App is that rare, super-popular, and highly recommended financial app from an innovative small business instead of a huge corporation — which is probably why they’re so good at helping you if you are in that world of freelancers and irregular income-earners too.
The goal is to reduce your financial stress and help you develop your financial skills for the future, while supporting your budgeting and money management needs right now. Like the other budgeting apps here, it tracks all your accounts in one place and offers lots of ways to examine your spending habits; but it uses machine learning to get smarter about you individually, and employs AI-powered suggestions to make you smarter too.
The live currency exchange tool is helpful if you travel. I also like the real-time net worth tracker, which lets you see how much money you have in total, and the progression over time. Very helpful if you’re filling out those FAFSA forms for a college student this fall. (Eek.)
We must say they do overstate some of the features (“Use the mighty power of your finger to access Money Coach with touch ID”) but users are really happy with MoneyCoach, and Apple has been highlighting it going back to their 2020 developer conference.
Extra cool: You can upgrade to MoneyCoach Premium for Smart Budgets built around financial mindfulness, which gives you priority customer support, incognito mode (sneaky), and some extra features they claim can save you up to $2k each year.
For Maximizing Cashback, Rewards, and Points: Card Pointers for Credit Cards App
Fan of rewards and cashback programs? Who isn’t! The Card Pointers for Credit Cards app a great budgeting app if you’re big on saving money through cashback, points, spend bonuses, and miles/rewards earned with your credit and debit cards.
Users say it’s like having someone tap you on the shoulder at the cash register and telling you whether you should be swiping your Amex, Chase, or BofA card to get the best offer from it. In fact, they track the rewards in real time from over 5,000 different cards — though hopefully you don’t have all of them. It can also send alerts about expiring offers, and auto-add new ones to your account so you don’t have to personally scan each program every month to see what’s new. (I always forget unless I catch an email reminder.)
Card Pointers claims to save most users an average of $750 or more each year through cashback, offer alerts, and extra rewards and points — and that is serious savings.
Extra cool: Card Pointers has a Safari Web Extension that lets you maximize your online shopping from home, too.
Related: This new site is helping moms earn gift cards by answering surveys and playing games from home.
For Getting Back Every Penny From Car Mileage Reimbursements: MileIQ Mileage Tracker App
If you drive your own car for work, the MileIQ Mileage Tracker App is a fantastic budgeting app and not only saves you money, it can save you much time. The app automatically tracks your drives so you have a proper mileage log for reimbursement at your job, or a proper receipt for your taxes
You just have to remember to swipe right when you hop in the car if you want to track business travel (swipe left for personal) and the app will run in the background. That way you won’t miss out adding a 100 mile round-trip to your expense reports or itemized tax deductions — especially considering the 2024 IRS rate is $.67/mile in 2024.
Extra cool: The free version lets you track up to 40 drives a month so you can see if it makes sense for you. If you drive more than that for business, the $5.99/mo will easily pay for itself in deductions.
For Finding Low-Interest Credit Cards and Boosting Your Credit Score: Intuit Credit Karma App
If you’re working toward a loan or refi and need to get your credit score up, Intuit’s Credit Karma App is the way to go. It lets you connect all your accounts so you can monitor transactions, spend, and overall net worth in one place, so it’s easier to find ways you can save money and pay down debt. It of course includes free credit monitoring, so you’ll know how you’re doing, and shares tips so you can keep that score climbing. In fact, they claim you can boost a low score by an average of 21 points in 3 days.
Extra cool: The app will show you the best credit card deals and personal loan offers that you qualify for, so you can be sure you’re getting the most rewards you’re entitled to, while paying the lowest possible interest on balances.
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For Maximizing Your Tax Refunds Without an Accountant: TurboTax App
Also from Intuit, the TurboTax App is basically everyone’s go-to app for DIY taxes for good reason: It’s not only easy to use, but they guarantee that you’ll get the maximum refund allowable using their tools.
If you’re one of the 37% of 1040 filers, taking the standard deduction, you can use the free version of the app with step-by-step instructions and built-in calculators. If you have more complicated taxes, investments, and itemized deductions, get help from tax experts live while you e-file starting at $89 — which includes a professional review of your taxes before you send them in so they can catch any possible errors. Just in case. And I love that you can use the same tax preparer each year, if you’re happy with their results.
Extra cool: You’ll get the fastest possible refund direct-deposited right into your account using TurboTax. They offer a lifetime guarantee for 100% accuracy, meaning should you have any accounting errors, they’ll pay the fees forever. Even if you get audited years after you stop using the app.
For Cutting Spending So You Can Give More (or Save More): YNAB You Need a Budget App
The YNAB App uses the tagline “Spend, save, and give joyfully” and that sounds great to us. This is a subscription-based app built to change both your spending behavior as well as your mindset around money, so that you can spend with more purpose, save with aspirational goals in mind, and even have enough to give generously.
It’s designed for partners and families of up to six people to share budgets under one subscription, so you’re all working together toward common goals. Features include expense tracking, goal-setting features, debt/loan calculators to help you see how much interest you save by paying a little more each month. And customers rave about the customer service and resources like live workshops, guides, and videos that really help them turn new behaviors into healthy money habits.
Extra cool: While a subscription is currently $9.08/month (that’s based on the discount of one annual payment), some users claim to make it back by a lot — on average, they’re saving up to $600 by their second month, and $6,000 a year. Start with the one-month free trial. then spend your money. Or more importantly, how to spend your life.
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