The Best Financial Apps For Your Smartphone

The Best Financial Apps For Your Smartphone

You probably don't need me to tell you that in today's world money is one of the most (if not the most) important aspects of our life. Furthermore, since we spend a lot of time at the workplace and our lives are so agitated, it's getting harder and harder to keep a close eye on our finances, bills and other expenses. If you need help keeping track of your finances, using a program to help you out seems like the most logical solution. However, by the time you get home you might be too tired to input all the data in your computer or you may forget about certain transactions you've made throughout the day. For a financial tool to be truly effective you need to always have it at hand, so smartphone apps might just be the ideal solution. Here are some of the best financial apps that you can use on your Android or iOS powered devices.

PayPal (Free - Android, iOS)

PayPal

If you aren't new to the Internet world, I'm pretty sure you already know that PayPal is a digital wallet that allows its customers to pay and receive money through the Internet. However, what you might not yet know is that the service also offers a very handy app designed to help you keep track of your transactions. The application works on iOS as well as on Android devices and allows its users to perform a variety of tasks like managing their accounts, asking for refunds, sending payments, reviewing recent transactions, etc.

Spendee ($1.99- Android, iOS)

Spendee

Spendee is a well-designed tool with a clear and colorful interface. The app can help you effectively keep track of your budget and find out what you're spending most of your money on. Besides being able to create customized expenses categories, this application can also easily snap and store photos of your bills and receipts (which is actually quite handy). Furthermore, Spendee is capable of creating easy to get statistics that can give you eye-opening insights into your spending habits.

Check (Free - Android, iOS)

Check

Check is a really cool app as it doesn't only gather all your bills and other expenses into a single place, but it also helps you pay them online directly from your phone. The tool is capable of working with all the major service providers as well as a large number of smaller ones. When you first sing up with the application, it will ask for your ZIP code so that it can determine the common utilities and communications companies in your area. In case you are having trouble staying on top of your bills, Check might just be the solution that you require.

Mint (Free - Android, iOS)

Mint.com

Created by Inuit (one of the leaders in the field), Mint is a truly great app for creating budgets and keeping an eye on your finances. As long as you are connected to the Internet and living in the US or Canada, this tool can offer you real-time financial information about all of your accounts. Furthermore, the application is capable of automatically sorting and categorizing your transactions, offering alerts for when your bills are due or notifying you whenever you make a purchase that is about to put you over the budget. What's even better is that the app also has a browser-based brother (Mint.com) which extends its functionality by allowing you to transfer money between your accounts or providing comprehensive spending forecasts.

BUDGT ($.99 - iOS)

BUDGT

BUDGT does exactly what its title suggests: it creates hard cold budgets taking into account your income, bills and reoccurring as well as individual expenses. A big advantage for this tool is that it allows you to create your own categories and offers colored pie charts so that you can easily see the "biggest threats" for your wallet. BUDGT is free, has a clean interface and it's quite simple to use, so if you don't need any complicated features, this app might be just what you were looking for.

Level Money (Free - Android, iOS)

Level Money

Level Money is a really cool app that helps you make informed decisions regarding your purchases. This application can be synced with your bank account and your credit card so that it can show you how much money you can spend per day, week or month. The tool is actually quite smart and after getting synced with your bank account it will automatically estimate your monthly income and find your bill expenses. Furthermore, the app also asks you for percentage of your earnings which should be kept in your saving accounts, and then calculates how much money you can spend. This app won't exactly blow your mind, but it's efficient, works on iOS as well as on Android devices and it's completely free.

Expense Manager (Free - Android)

Expense Manager

Expense Manager is a simple tool designed to help its users keep a close eye on their spending habits. This tool will constantly keep you informed about the money that you've spent so far as well as the amount that you have left until you reach your cap. The free version of the application lacks any advanced features, so all you can do is create a budget (with customized incomes and expenses), but if you require more sophisticated functions such as income management or detailed statistics, you can unlock them via in-app purchases.

Bill Guard (Free - Android, iOS)

Bill Guard

Bill Guard is one of the smartest financial apps that I've used. This tool is designed to help you carefully check your expenses and identify those situations in which vendors charge you for products that you either forgot about or never asked for in the first place. (Yes, that actually happens quite a lot). This application is great at identifying questionable charges, so if you feel like your money is disappearing and you have no idea where, Bill Guard might be just the place to start looking for answers.