Budgeting is all about one golden rule, “One must spend less than they earn.” However,  it’s a lot easier said than done, but it’s easier done if you get help from money management apps. There are quite a few of them on the market, all of which are better than simply trying to do the math in your head as you go along. So, in this article,

we have made a list of 3 of the best money management apps available in 2020.

To know which of them will suit your financial lifestyle, continue reading…

money management apps

You Need A Budget (YNAB)

Designed to help you manage your finances, YNAB (You Need A Budget) addresses all your budgetary needs from paying bills to helping you set savings goals. Dedicated to prioritizing how you spend your money, its user-friendly interface and easy platform allow you to chart your monthly budget, import transactions directly from your accounts, and track your progress with handy graphs and reports. You can share your budget with a partner as well. The homepage is a budget you design, and as transactions come in, they are filed into a category helping you track your budget goals in real time. They have a quick budget tool, which shows the average of how much you spend versus how much you budgeted for and whether or not you have enough funds to balance that out. 

YNAB doesn’t run ads on its app. Instead, they charge a fee of $6.99 per month or $83.99 per year. There isn’t any free or lite version, but they offer a one-month free trial. The price might not scare you off unless you are already over budget. YNAB might be an option for someone who could make use of the multiple budgets feature, someone that has personal and business budgets, but it would be hard to justify the price since there are many cheaper alternatives.

• Goodbudget

Based on the ‘envelope system’ of budget planning, which involves allocating your income into separate categories for monthly spending, Goodbudget puts your spending into perspective by breaking down your budget into two virtual envelopes, namely ‘regular’ envelopes for your frequent monthly spending, like rent and groceries, and ‘more’ envelopes for occasional expenses and savings like gifts or vacations. The envelopes tab displays a progress bar which indicates how much money is left in each envelope. As transactions are manually entered, money is taken out of the virtual envelope and the progress bar reflects the change. Once the funds from one envelope are gone, that’s it—no more spending on that category until next month unless you transfer funds from another envelope. The app also provides an option to sync and share your data with your partner so you can budget together.

Goodbudget has a free version that comes with 20 total envelopes and one account for two devices. Upgrading to Goodbudget Plus for $5.99 per month or $49.99 per year gets you unlimited envelopes and accounts for five devices. The price of the upgrade is expensive considering the app doesn’t link to bank accounts. Fortunately, the free version of Goodbudget is all that you need to balance a budget. Envelope-style budgeting is not for everyone, but it could help limit spending to just the necessities.

• Mint

Mint links financial institutions such as your bank and credit card company using the same login information. It then aggregates your checking, savings, investment, and credit card accounts into one place, thus giving you a big picture of your finances. When you purchase things with your credit card, the expense automatically shows up in your budget. Transactions are compiled into a list, making it a great tool to track cash flow. It also comes with a budgeting feature which lets you estimate how much money should be allocated to each category (rent, utilities, groceries, entertainment, restaurants, etc.). Mint partners with TransUnion and provides credit score monitoring.

Even though it offers a myriad of benefits, this app is absolutely free. Mint makes its money by advertising credit cards, loans as well as investments. Apps like YNAB ($6.99/month or $83.99/year) and EveryDollar ($9.99/month) do basically the same thing as Mint but for a hefty price. The downside to this app is that it’s a form of passive budgeting. Transactions are automatically sorted into categories that take away user engagement. Users are, therefore, less likely to open the app after each transaction or actively track expenses to balance their budget. This makes them more prone to going over their budget without knowing it.