One of the best ways to take control of your finances is with a budget. There are several excellent and free budget apps.
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A budget app is an excellent and modern way to manage your money.
With the help of the internet and technology, you can achieve your financial goals through an app.
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Whether you want to track your daily spending or your investments, a budgeting app will keep you up to date.
Also, you can set budgets, reminders, notifications, and some apps can pay your bills.
The following are the best free budget apps that are intuitive and helpful.
Mint is the best overall free budget app
Key features:
- Cost: Free
- Availability: Web, Apple App Store, Google Play
Mint is an exceptional free budgeting app. It’s intuitive and offers excellent features.
Also, it has the highest and most ratings among budget apps.
You can use Mint on the web or with the app. After you sign up for Mint, you can link your bank accounts and credit cards.
Mint will track and categorize with automation and artificial intelligence.
Aside from budgets, Mint helps you track your credit score.
It also helps you save more, pay down debt, and offers basic tracking of your investments.
While Mint is an outstanding app, it isn’t perfect.
Mint discontinued its bill payment service and has a lot of ads. It also doesn’t have many investment tools and insights.
Despite a few drawbacks, Mint remains at the top of all free budgeting apps due to its valuable features.
Personal Capital is the best for investors
Key features:
- Cost: Free
- Availability: Web, Apple App Store, and Google Play
Personal Capital is less-focused on budgeting and more focused on building wealth.
Related article: Personal Capital review
If you want an app to track spending and investments, Personal Capital is an excellent choice.
You can sync your bank accounts, credit cards, loans, and investments.
Then, Personal Capital shows your recent transactions, net worth, and portfolio information.
It also offers a lot of robust free tools and in-depth educational resources.
Another benefit of Personal Capital is that it can uncover hidden investment fees.
It’s the best app for tracking your progress and growing your net worth.
Wally is the best for streamlined budgeting
Key features:
- Cost: Wally Basic is free. Wally Gold is a one-time purchase of $74.99.
- Availability: Apple App Store
If you only want to focus on budgeting, Wally is the ideal app.
It helps you track your expenses, view account balances, and set up budgets.
If you’re on a strict budget, you’ll love Wally. It shows you how much you have left to spend for the month.
Along with tracking expenses, you can take pictures of your receipts, so you don’t need to hang on to the paper copy.
Wally is also unique because it supports almost every currency.
If you live outside of the United States, you can use Wally to manage your budgets.
Zeta is the best budget app for couples
Key features:
- Cost: Free
- Availability: Web, Apple App Store, and Google Play.
Many of the budgeting apps are for individuals. Zeta is the best free budget app for couples.
It can sync individual and joint accounts. Zeta allows you and your partner to view your finances, create a budget, and communicate within the app.
Aside from managing your finances, Zeta offers joint cards.
The joint account is through Piermont Bank, and it’s FDIC-insured up to $500,000.
PocketGuard keeps you from overspending
Key features:
- Cost: PocketGuard Basic is free. PocketGuard Plus is $34.99 per year.
- Availability: Web, Apple App Store, and Google Play
PocketGuard is the best free budget app if you overspend.
After you link your bank accounts, loans, and investments, you can set goals and budgets.
The app shows you how much money you have left for the day, week, or month with the “In My Pocket” feature.
PocketGuard also helps you find ways to save on your bills. But, it won’t negotiate them.
It has a paid version, which gives you access to more features, like creating a plan to pay off debt.
Prism is the best for staying on top of your bills
Key features:
- Cost: Free
- Availability: Apple App Store, Google Play, Windows Phone, Windows 8, and Kindle Fire.
Prism is a free app that’s best for managing bills.
It focuses on your income and expenses to ensure you see what’s coming in and going out.
After you download the Prism app, you’ll sync your billers and bank accounts.
It tracks your bills and adds the due dates to a calendar. Then, you can pay your bills through the app.
Prism also has a knowledgeable support team available every day. You’ll get a response within 24 hours.
Also, Prism takes pride in its information protection, as the app offers bank-level security.
If the thought of your bills is overwhelming and you want to improve your credit score, the Prism app can help.
It’s an excellent app because you’ll pay all your bills on time and in full. It’s beneficial for your credit score.
If you want more features than bill payments, the Prism app isn’t for you.
Its purpose is to keep you on track with your bills and avoid late fees.
How to choose a budgeting app
Since there are many budgeting apps, it’s essential to choose the right one.
A budget app that aligns with your goals and needs will make a significant difference.
The following are the best features to look for in a budgeting app:
- Able to sync your bank accounts.
- Keeps your information secure.
- Categorize your expenses.
- Set budgets and goals.
- Track bills and get alerts.
- Mobile and desktop versions.
- Track your credit score and provide tips for improvement.
- Friendly and helpful customer service.
Many of the top budgeting apps go beyond tracking past transactions. With many helpful features, budget apps are essential for money management.
Paid versus free budget apps
Many exceptional budget apps are free, while others have one-time payments or subscriptions.
The bottom line is that you don’t need to pay for an intuitive and effective budget app. But, it may have limited features or show ads.
Paid budget apps are robust, don’t have ads, and offer better tools.
If you want to use a paid budget app, sign up for a free trial to make sure it fits your needs.
Free apps are adequate for budgets. They allow you to set goals and track your performance.
Conclusion
Mint tops the list for the best free budget app. But, several others will help you take control of your finances.
Budgeting apps are great tools to help you track, save, invest, and spend your money.
They can help you avoid or get out of debt and achieve financial independence.
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- How to get a personal loan
- The best places to cash checks
Featured image courtesy of Pexels.
About David Em
Founder
David Em is the founder of More Money More Choices, which he launched to help you take control of your finances and build your dream life. Before More Money More Choices, David worked in leadership positions in the finance industry.
