6 Budgeting Apps to Help You Track Your Spending

In the current economic climate managing your money can be a struggle, especially if you have too much debt.

The first step you can take to improve your finances is to create a budget to better understand your spending. A great way to do this is by using a budgeting app to track and gain insights into your spending habits.

Why Track Your Spending

Drawing up a budget and tracking your expenses against it can help you navigate unforeseeable financial circumstances and make the most of your money.

Here are a few reasons why you might want to consider tracking your expenses:

Identify overspending: By tracking what you spend your money on, you can get a better sense of where your money is going. This can help you identify areas where you can cut back, and it can help you make mindful spending decisions.
Save money: Once you have a better understanding of your spending, you can identify how you can save by cutting back on items where you are overspending.
Allocate your money better: A budget allows you to more aside funds for your essential expenses, allocate money towards your financial goals.
Reach your financial goals: Whether you’re trying to save for a deposit for a home, pay off debt, or build an emergency fund, a budget can help you stay on track.
Reduce debt: By tracking your spending and sticking to your budget, you can free up money to pay off our debt faster and build a good credit record over the long term.

By keeping track of your expenses with a budget, you can manage your money better, settle debts and achieve financial goals.

How to Select an Expense Tracking App

There are some essential features that a budgeting app should have, if you are serious about taking charge of your finances.

Below are the factors to consider when choosing a budgeting app:

Ease of use: Look for an app that is user-friendly, so that you can track your expenses and budget your money with ease. For example, the app should allow you to link to multiple accounts so you can track spending across all your bank accounts.
Cost: The last thing you want is to spend a fortune on an application that is supposed to help you better manage your finances. Look for an application that is free with minimal in-app purchases. But if a more costly application has useful features that will better help you reach your goals it may be worth it depending on the costs involved.
Features: Decide what the essential features are that you need and then compare the apps option on the market.

More sophisticated apps allow you connect the app with your bank accounts and automatically sync your income and expenses to the app. The alternative is that you need to manually enter your expenses.

Some apps are simple expense trackers, but more advanced apps can auto-generate a budget based on your habits.

Here are a few examples of features to consider:

Expense tracking: The app should allow you to record, and track your expenses by category (e.g., rent, groceries, entertainment).
Budgeting: The app should allow you to create a budget based on your unique situation and provide reports to show where your money is going.
Income tracking: It is helpful to track your income as well as your expenses especially if you have income from multiple sources.
Reporting and analytics: The app should provide you with helpful reports and insights into spending habits. This will help you identify areas where you might be able to save money.
Sync with accounts: Some apps can sync with your bank and credit card accounts. This automatic feature saves you a lot of effort and makes it easier to keep track of your money habits.

Aside from the features to look for, here are some other important considerations:

Security: Make sure that the app you choose has strong security measures in place to protect your financial information. Security measures such as two-step verification and secure password-protected logins are examples.
Compatibility: Be sure the application you choose is compatible with and syncs with all your devices.
Customer support: Consider whether the app offers customer support in case you have any questions or issues. The best way to tell if the after sales support is good is to read reviews.

Six Expense Tracking Apps to Consider

We will explore the following applications to help you select the best option:

The Spending app.
22Seven.
GoodBudget.
Splitwise.
EveryDollar.
YNAB (You Need a Budget).

Let’s dive into the details of these apps.

Spending Tracker

This app allows you to track your expenses, create a budget, set financial goals, and receive alerts when you are close to reaching them.

Spending Tracker Functions

Income and expense tracking: Input your income, expenses, debts, and loans into the app to get you a clear picture of your financial situation. The app allows unlimited entries.
Receipt scanning: Scan receipts to keep track of spending habits.
Budgeting recommendations: Based on your habits, the app can suggest budgeting goals and provide tips on how to stick to them. This can be helpful for people who are trying to save money or pay off debt.
Custom categories: Users can create custom categories for spending, and it allows you set different goals for different categories.
Bill reminders: The app can send reminders when bills are due, to ensure you never miss payments.
Reports: The app generates reports that shows you how much you have spent in each category. This gives a clear view of where you spend the most money to help you curb overspending.
Set and track financial goals. You can set financial goals and the app sends you notifications to help your reach your goals.

The Spending Tracker app is free to download and use. You can also upgrade to the Pro version for a once-off cost of R49.99.

The app is best used for those who are getting started with money management.

22Seven

Created by South African financial services company, Old Mutual, the 22Seven app allows you to track your expenses, create a budget, and pulls all your financial data into the app.

22Seven Functions

See all your money in one place: You can link your various banking accounts to the app to get a complete picture of your financial situation.
Track spending: It allow you to track expenses and categorizes them into groups, such as groceries, transportation, and entertainment. This helps you to identify areas you maybe overspending and make changes.
Budgeting: Create and manage budgets, set financial goals, and track your progress. The application can also generate a personalised budget for you.
Simplify tax management: It is easier to prepare your tax returns because the app categorizes all your income and expenses, and this information can be exported into other formats.
Investment tracking: Unlike some of the other applications on our list, the 22Seven app allows you to manage your investments. You can invest your money through the app from as little as R250.
Financial recommendations based on your habits: The app gives guidance on how to make the most of your money.

This app is free from Old Mutual, and it syncs with most South African bank accounts and investment accounts from other financial institutions.

The application is suited to financially savvy individuals who want a holistic picture of their finances.

Goodbudget

This is a personal finance app for budget planning and generally managing your money.

It’s based on the cash envelope budgeting method but makes use of virtual envelopes.

The Envelope Budgeting Method Explained:

The old cash envelope budgeting method is a simple, but outdated way to manage your money. It involves taking your cash income and creating “envelopes” or categories for things that need to be paid such as groceries, fuel, rent, entertainment and so on.

You then place a specific amount of cash into to each envelope and that is all money that is available for that category of spending.

The advantage of this method is that it helps you stay within your budget and avoid overspending. It can also be helpful for those who find it difficult to track their expenses and stick to a budget using other methods.

The advantage of this app is that it can sync across multiple phones thus perfect for sharing a budget with a spouse or family member.

The expense splitting feature can also be useful for those who want to keep track of shared expenses.

Goodbudget Functions

Budgeting using the envelope method: It makes use of different ‘envelopes’ for different types of expenses.
Transactions management: You can view and schedule transactions in advance and see upcoming transactions.
Reports: It allows you to view your income versus your spending with reports that are illustrated in a simple-to-understand chart form.
Track and mange debt repayments: The app gives you a bird’s eye view of your debt repayment in one place.
Sync and share budgets: It allows you to create and share budgets and spending habits across users and devices.

The Goodbudget app has a basic always free version and the Goodbudget Plus costs R119 per month or R1190 per year.

The app is best for those who prefer a more compartmentalised way of managing money.

Splitwise

Splitwise allows you to enter expenses and assigns each person’s share of the expenses. It also keeps a running total of how much money each person or group owes.

Splitwise Functions

Assign expenses and split bills: It adds expenses and assigns them to specific people or the entire group. You can also add taxes and tip amounts to the expenses.
Recurring account allocation: The app allows you to set up recurring expenses for things like rent and other monthly bills.
Reminders: With the app you can send payment reminders to members of the family, or group who owe money.
Track balances and organise expenses: The group members can all log into the app, add new expenses, view their balances and make their payments in an instant.
Integrates with different payment applications. The app integrates with a range of payment applications so that payments can be made seamlessly.
Charts and reports: Spending habits of friends and/or other group members is shown.

Splitwise is free to use, with the option to upgrade to a premium version for a fee. The premium version allows multiple currency expense tracking and allows for customized payment reminders.

The application is best used for tracking shared expenses with a group of people such as family or friends.

EveryDollar

EveryDollar is a personal finance application that helps you to manage your money through a range of simple-to-use features.

EveryDollar Functions

Setup saving groups: You can create savings groups that allow you can specify how much you want to save.
Personalise your budget: It allows you to rename and organize both expenses and income items.
Access across devices: It is able to operate across devices and it syncs information to avoid entering the same items different devices.
Create budgets and add notes: EveryDollar allows you to add notes within budgets on items to give context to income or expense items.
Split bills across accounts: You can split your expenses across accounts. This means if you pay for something partly from your cheque account and partly on your credit card, it will reflect on the app.

The basic EveryDollar function is free. EveryDollar Plus is R249,99 per month or R1 549.99 per year.

This app is best suited for those looking for a simple no-frills approach to expense tracking and money management.

You Need a Budget (YNAB)

YNAB is a budgeting app that makes use the “Four Rules” system that guides you through the budgeting process to make better financial decisions.

YNAB Functions

Budgeting: It has simple budget creation and expense tracking that helps you to make more informed decisions. You can categorize your expenses and see where your money is going in real-time.
Reporting: Various reports and graphs allow you to view where your money is being spent.
Sync with bank accounts: The app links bank accounts and credit cards to the app so you can track all your financial transactions in one place.
Debt tracking: You can track your debt by viewing your debt repayments on, for instance, your credit card or loans.
Goal setting: Users can set financial goals, such as saving for a down payment on a house or paying off debt and track your progress.
Data privacy: YNAB keeps your personal and financial information private.
Offers a range of educational resources: to empower you and help you learn more about how to make your money work for you.

The YNAB has a 34-day free trial and after that the subscription cost is R259,99 per month or R1 699.99 per year.

The application is best suited to individuals who want a comprehensive budgeting tool that helps them manage their money.

Conclusion

Cyber Finance believes that knowledge is power and knowing where your money is going to each month will put in in a far better position to manage your money.

A spending and budgeting application can help you save money and cut back on unwanted expenses.

Best of all, knowledge of your spending will identify when your spending is starting to spiral out of control and will help you to avoid taking on new debt by spending more wisely.

But, if you are struggling to manage your debt, approaching a debt management company, such as Cyber Finance for help can help you take control of your money.

Cyber Finance can help you pay off your debt, by negotiating lower interest rates on money you owe, and they will support you as you work towards becoming debt-free.