21 Jan 2021

Latest Posts

Decoding the FAFSA Simplification Act: What You Need to Know
Saving for the Unexpected: A Key to Financial Success
MONEY HACKS: The Spring Real Estate Rush: What You Need to Know

At the beginning, of every year, many people make resolutions about health, relationships, and money. Whether it’s making a goal to pay down debt, finding a significant other, or losing a few lbs, there’s an app that can help. The power of our mobile devices continues to grow and apps for everything we do are coming into the future. We’ll be focusing on budgeting apps that can help you get a handle on your financial life.

My MoneyNav

Description: My MoneyNav is our holistic educational experience designed to help you achieve your financial goals. After signing up, you'll receive access to your personalized financial planning dashboard with recommended action steps and goals catered to your needs. In the platform, you can establish your budget, track your spending and gain access to our advisors and one-on-one coaching services at the click of a button.


  1. Who is this for? My MoneyNav is for individuals that are ready to take the next step in their financial lives. MyMoneyNav allows you to aggregate all of your financial information and accounts in one place. 
  2. Pros: It’s free, accountability will be held through automatic reminders and customized resources, and users can customize a spending plan that can connect all of their accounts.
  3. Cons: You'll need to check and categorize transactions so that they are properly named and tracked through the system. 

Mint 

  1. Description: Mint is one of the most well-known budgeting apps available. It provides a complete financial picture in the palm of your hand. After signing up you can keep track of your bills, spending, and set a budget. It can remind you when bills are due, what you owe, and how much you can pay.
  2. Who is this for? Someone that’s looking and willing to manage all their finances in one place and have access across all of their accounts. Mint gives you the tools and you manage the categories.
  3. Pros: It’s free, automatically updates and categorizes your transactions, and users can customize spending categories, receive free credit scores, and can connect all of their accounts.
  4. Cons: It commonly incorrectly categorizes transactions so you’ll need to continually monitor your account. It also doesn’t teach you about your spending habits, instead of serving mainly as a spending tracker.

You Need a Budget (YNAB)

  1. Description: YNAB is more than a budget tool. It actually helps you build and stick to a budget by giving every dollar a job. It directly connects transactions from your bank accounts and then you manually categorize spending.
  2. Who is this for? For the committed budgeter because it requires a service fee to use. You’ll have a strong involvement in the process.
  3. Pros: YNAB is more than an app and it will focus on teaching you how to live on a budget. It has four main rules: give every dollar a job, embrace your true expenses, roll with the punches and age your money. It allows you to set up budgets for individual projects so that’s convenient.
  4. Cons: Slightly expensive ($84 a year or $11.99 a month).

PocketGuard  

  1. Description: PocketGuard does as its name implies and guards your wallet against spending too much. It’s easy to set up and connect to your bank accounts and once that’s done, you can track your monthly bills and expenses. It crunches the numbers to show how much money is left to spend at any given time.
  2. Who is this for? For someone that needs to know exactly what they can spend on a whim or with a serious purchase.
  3. Pros: PocketGuard will inform you of potential ways to save with more affordable monthly service costs for things like your phone, TV, and internet services. Similar to Mint and Wally it's free!
  4. Cons: Their budgeting tools are more simplistic and may not be suited for more complicated financial situations.

Wally

  1. Description: Wally works well, for one thing, budgeting. It helps you track your income, expenses, and can give you a picture of your remaining budget to help you avoid overspending. Wally lets you take a picture of receipts to track your budgets.
  2. Who is this for? This is for someone that wants to be more involved with where their money is going. It’s going to provide you with the most insight into where your money is going and you can easily upload your expenses.
  3. Pros: It’s free to use and it’s compatible with all foreign currencies. Unlike the other apps, you hate typing in all your expenses you can simply scan receipts to make the process easier.
  4. Cons: It’s been flagged for having more complicated navigation than other finance apps.

Budgeting apps can help you achieve your money goals and track where every dollar goes. You may need to try one or two to see which one works best for you, but as soon as you find a good fit you can start managing your cash flow plan. There are tons of budgeting apps similar to these, but just be careful with downloading or giving your information to programs you haven’t fully researched. It’s always good to proceed with caution when handling your financial life.