Looking to take control of your finances, but don’t know where to start? Your phone could help, thanks to a number of budgeting and savings apps.
Saving money, tracking expenses and sticking to an allocated budget can be tough, and it takes time to build towards your goals. But, like just about anything nowadays, when it comes to budgeting there’s an app for that. To help you sift through your options, we’ve compiled a list of six apps that caught our interest.
While you are exploring budgeting apps, you might like to check out Canstar’s App, the all-in-one money app to help streamline your finances. It’s free!
Canstar App
Canstar’s free budgeting app allows you to log in and connect multiple accounts, including your bank account, savings account, credit cards and loans, and view them all in the one place. The app then automatically tracks and categorises your transactions into groups, so you can easily see where you are spending money and where you could cut back. Other features include bill trackers, goal setting and challenges. Plus, there’s a built-in credit score tool, and you can compare a range of products (such as loans and savings accounts) and services (such as phone or internet plans) with Canstar and Canstar Blue all in one place, without leaving the app.
Beem
Beem (formerly Beem It) is a free instant payment app owned by Eftpos. Through the app you can pay and receive money in a matter of seconds. But it also comes with other features, including a tracking and splitting feature for shared bills or group expenses.
Although it’s not strictly designed for budgeting, Beem could be useful to help stay on top of shared expenses, whether that’s with housemates, a partner, your family or friends. Beem also supports BPAY. That means one person can pay the electricity bill with BPAY, for example, and then request payment from other people within the app. However, all members of the group do need to have Beem downloaded and set up to use this feature.
- Availability: iOS and Android.
- App Store rating: 4.9, 81.0K ratings.
- Google Play rating: 3.8, 12.5K ratings.
Raiz
Although Raiz is primarily a micro-investment app, it also includes some budgeting features. Raiz is best known for its ‘round-up’ feature, which rounds up your transactions to the nearest dollar and invests the change.
Raiz also offers a My Finance feature, which gives you a personalised overview of your spending and forecasts your future cash flow using your linked accounts. You can also see where you spend your money based on categories like ‘shopping’ and ‘food and dining’.
Raiz is free to download, but there are fees when you start investing. For Standard portfolios, it is currently $3.50 per month for accounts under $15,000, or 0.275% per year for accounts $15,000 and over.
Buddy
Buddy is a Swedish budgeting app that allows you to create budgets and track your expenses. Unlike some other budgeting apps, you do not have to sync your bank account to the app. Instead, you can add transactions to the app. You can also sync your transactions with a partner or loved one and create shared budgets.
Buddy is free to download, but you have to pay a subscription to unlock full functionality of the app. It currently costs $4.99 per month or $34.99 per year. Buddy is also only currently available on the App Store.
- Availability: iOS.
- App Store rating: 4.7, 1.7K ratings.
WeMoney
WeMoney is designed to give you a ‘360-degree view’ of your finances. Through the free app, you can connect accounts, including supported savings, loans, credit cards, super, buy now pay later, investment and cryptocurrency accounts. This can give you a clearer picture of your net worth. Through the app you can automatically categorise your transactions, track your bills and subscriptions and set monthly budgets and money goals.
Other features include the ability to check your credit score and an offers section. But, it’s important to note WeMoney only displays offers from its partners and may not cover all your options. Additionally, to create an account you will need to provide some photo ID (such as a driver licence or passport). WeMoney says it uses bank-level encryption, but as with any budgeting app, it’s important to weigh up whether you are comfortable sharing your personal information.
Splitwise
Splitwise is another app that could help you manage shared bills and expenses. Splitwise is a bill-splitting app that automatically splits payments between members of a group and tallies up who-owes-who what.
Splitwise is free to download, but there are in-app purchases if you want to access the app’s ‘pro features’, which include no ads, currency conversion and the ability to save default splits. Additionally, like Beem, to use the app with a group of people, everyone needs to download the app individually.
- Availability: iOS and Android.
- App Store rating: 4.2, 6K ratings.
- Google Play rating: 4.3, 127K reviews.
Frollo
Frollo is a free Australian budgeting app. You can sync all of your financial accounts (such as your transaction, savings, credit card, loans, super and investments) with Frollo and see them in one place. Frollo then categorises all of your transactions and keeps track of your regular payments and when they are due.
You can create multiple money goals within the app and track your progress. Frollo can also send you money tips and notifications – for instance, letting you know if you have upcoming bills. Canstar also has a budgeting app created by Frollo.
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Your bank’s app?
It’s also worth checking what budgeting features are offered by your bank or financial institution. There are a number of banks that automatically categorise your spending, so you can see how much you are spending each month and where.
Some banks also offer round-up features (similar to Raiz) on their transaction accounts. This rounds up your purchases to the nearest dollar and transfers the change to your savings account. Banks that offer this feature include ING, Bank Australia, P&N Bank and Up.
Other ways to budget
You might prefer to go old school and create a budget yourself. We’ve written about making a budgeting spreadsheet, as well as creating a budget with a pen and paper. We’ve also written about different budgeting approaches, including the 50/20/30 method and the bucket strategy.
If you’re not a fan of budgeting at all, you could also try doing an ‘anti-budget’ or ‘paying yourself first’ through your bank’s app. This is where you automatically transfer part of your pay to your savings as soon as you get paid. You’re then free to spend the rest of your pay as you like.
While you’re sorting out your finances, it may be a good idea to check your savings account and make sure it’s working as hard as you are. Check out the savings accounts with the highest interest rates on Canstar’s database, or see which providers won our latest Savings and Transaction Account Awards.
More apps to consider
Want more finance or money saving apps? Canstar has also written about:
- 6 popular investment apps
- 9 apps to help you save on groceries
- 8 fuel apps that can help you save money
- Money-making apps
Please note that this is just a selection of budgeting apps available. There are other budgeting apps out there and Canstar is not making recommendations about any particular platforms. It’s important to do your own research before deciding if any of these kinds of apps are suitable for you. You may want to speak to your bank, for example, before downloading third-party apps that use your personal banking information, particularly your login details. If money is taken from your account due to a security issue or privacy breach related to a third-party app of this kind, your bank may hold you responsible for issues such as fraud. Financial protections and safeguards you may have otherwise received as a customer may be impacted based on the terms and conditions of agreements with relevant providers.
Main image source: Rido/Shutterstock.com
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This article was reviewed by our Content Lead Ellie McLachlan before it was updated, as part of our fact-checking process.
