10 Budgeting Apps For Your Smartphone

Do more with your smartphone than tweet and take selfies. You already use your phone for everything, so why not use it to improve your budget tracking? All the major app stores are full of apps for money management. Here are 10 of the best budgeting apps for your smartphone, so you can keep your finances on track while on the go, and make sure you don’t overspend when you’re out on the town.

Goodbudget (iOS and Android, free with in-app purchases)

 

GoodBudget App

If you like the envelope budgeting method but don’t want to deal with actual envelopes, Goodbudget is the app for you. Not only can you use envelopes for weekly and monthly expenses, you can also use envelopes for bigger expenses months in advance. Goodbudget also supports recurring transactions to save you time and effort. It also works with the goodbugdet.com website, so you can check your budget on your computer as well.

The free version allows you to set 10 regular envelopes and 10 annual envelopes, as well as 1 year of your spending history, to help you plan and track your spending. You can also sync 2 devices so both you and your partner can be on top of your finances. If you want unlimited envelopes, unlimited accounts, sync to up to 5 devices, and keep 5 years of your spending history, you’ll need to subscribe for $5/month or $45/year.

Spendee (iOS, $1.99; Android, free with in-app purchases)

 

Spendee App

With a colorful theme, crisp typography, and handy features, this simple, well designed app will not only show you where your money goes; it’ll look good doing it, too. Using the app is easy: just enter the amount, pick a category (like ‘groceries’ or ‘entertainment’), add a note or a photo if you want (like a photo of the receipt to help you remember what the purchase was), and that’s it. If you have constant recurring expenses, like rent or cable bills, you can tell Spendee to have the charge repeat once a month. You can also add recurring income such as your paycheck.

The more data you put into the app, the better graphs it can give you that show your spending habits, how much of your income goes into what category, and the amount of your expenses over time. If you want to see your spending data on your computer, you can export everything as an Excel file, or to your Google Drive.

moni (iOS, free with in-app purchases for premium)

 

Moni App

 

If you find adding categories too time consuming and just want to know how much money you have, give Moni a try. You start by adding your accounts and how much money you have in each. The home screen will show you how much total money you have from all your accounts. Every time you have an expense, you press the orange minus sign and enter the amount, and every time you have income, you press the green plus sign. The home screen will reflect your expenses and show you a list of your most recent transactions. You can even set a scheme so that the background color of your running total changes, from green to when you’re full up to red when you’re running low on funds. And while Moni doesn’t have categories, you can add notes to your expenses.

The app is free, but if you want to backup your data, you’ll need to subscribe (plans range from $0.99/week to $12.99/6 months).

My Budget Book (Android, Php152.99)

 

My Budget Book

This powerful app might not look as sleek and fancy as the others, but it keeps track of your expenditures and earnings and helps you manage your money more effectively. It has a ‘budget mode’ which lets you set goals and limits, such as a monthly limit for fuel, or a weekly limit for groceries. It also has a graphical overview which can help you plan your expenses over the coming months. This app might be too feature-heavy for casual users, but if you want to pinpoint exactly where your money is going and make comprehensive plans for budgeting, this is the app for you.

My Budget Book also works on your phone and tablet.

BUDGT (iOS, $1.99)

 

Budgt App

A minimalist app with a clean design, BUDGT tells you how much money you can spend each day, taking into account what you’ve already spent during the current month. You simply enter your expenses and incomes and BUDGT takes care of the math. When you open the app, you’re immediately shown a pie chart of your expenses. From there it’s simple to add expenses and check your daily and monthly totals. It can also provide you with a big-picture projection to see where you stand and how much money you have left for the month.

MoneyWise (Android, free/Php 295.00 for the Pro version)

 

Moneywise App

Named ‘The Best Budget-Tracking App for Android’ by the Lifehacker blog in 2012, MoneyWise is a powerful yet simple application for money management. If you want to manage your budget and transactions completely on your phone, this is the app for you. You can see all your spending data in graphs, which you can customize. MoneyWise also keeps tabs on your expense progress to help you stick to your budget. All your data can be exported to Excel or to HTML for printing.

The free version of this app is ad-supported, and only allows for two accounts, four budgets, and five tags to be added. If you need more than that, you’ll have to get the Pro version.

Toshl Finance (iOS, Android, Windows Phone, free with in-app purchases)

 

Toshl App

You know what all those other apps are missing? Cartoon monsters. Toshl not only gives you a user-friendly, simple design to manage your personal expenses, but it adds animated monsters and graphics to make saving fun. Adding expenses is easy, and you can tag each expense to keep track of how much you’re spending where. Toshl also compares your balance month to month, and measures your spending against your budget. It can also remind you of when bills are due. The app is free, but if you want to set more than one budget or use the toshl.com website, you’ll need to pay $19.99 a year.

Expense Manager (Android, free with in-app purchases)

 

Expense Manager app

This app lets you manage your expenses quickly and easily. When you open it, you immediately see an overview of how much you’ve spent this month in different categories. You can create your own categories and sub-categories to organize your finances and give you a better overview of where your money is going. You can set a daily reminder for you to enter your expenses, which is useful for first-time budgeters or those of us who can be forgetful. It can also let you know if you are on track with your budget.

The app is free, but to access detailed expense distribution and statistics graphs, a fee of $2.50 is needed.

Best Budget Free (iOS, free/$0.99 for the full version)

 

Best Budget App

Like the others, this offers a nice, clean interface for managing your finances. It can even remind you when bills are due. But the best feature of this app is its ability to adjust between budgets. Say you overspent by P500 in gas for the month, but underspent by P700 in shopping. You can then transfer the unspent shopping budget to the gas budget, so it balances out. Or, if you want, you can automatically set it so that any extra unspent amounts can be carried over and added to next month’s budget.

Take the app for a spin with Best Budget Free. But if you want iCloud backup/restore functionality and passcode protection for the app, the full version is $0.99.

Budget Buddy (Windows Phone, free)

 

Budget Buddy App

Don’t worry, Windows Phone users; we didn’t forget about you. Budget Buddy makes expense tracking as easy as taking a photo — snap a pic of your receipt and your purchase is recorded. This means you don’t have to enter numbers manually (unless you want to), as the app can parse your receipt and add the total to your expense tracker. You can use the Windows Phone’s Live Tile feature to display exactly how much you’ve spent and how much is left in your budget, so your finances are available at a quick glance. It also comes with charts and graphs for you to analyze your spending every month.

The app is free, but ad-supported.

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