Guest Post: Finance Apps That Will Make Your Life Better in 2017

These Finance Apps Will Make Your Life Better in 2017

By Josh Wilson, a Millennial working to become his generation’s personal finance thought leader. Josh dreams of a day when all Millennials can thrive through financial literacy and patience.

Many of us are glued to our phones these days, and even if we aren’t, we at least have them close by most of the time. It makes sense, then, that apps have sprung up to help us manage our lives. You can order food via an app, keep in touch, get directions, or even deposit a check. And now, with a whole slew of relatively new financial apps, you can even manage your finances.

It is easier than ever to handle your financial life via an app, and it just makes sense. After all, if you are always on your phone, why not use it to take care of relatively mundane tasks like balancing your budget? Or better yet, why not outsource tasks that you really don’t want to do, like tracking your spending, to an app that can do it automatically for you? In 2017, these apps can do that for you — and more. Read on to learn more about some of the best finance apps that you should download to make your life better (and easier) in 2017 and beyond.

Budgeting Apps

 Let’s face it. Nobody really likes to budget. It can be tedious and time-consuming, yet it is necessary if you want to keep your finances in order. After all, you can’t exactly manage your money if you don’t know how much is coming in each month and how much is going out in bills and other expenses. That is why budgeting apps are so handy — they do that work for you.

The first is a classic — Mint from Intuit has been around for years, and for good reason. It helps users create a budget and track spending, all in one place. You can link your bank and credit card accounts through the app, which will let you know when bills are due. Mint will even give you advice based on your spending habits, and provide you with a free credit score to help you stay on track.

If you are in serious debt, then You Need a Budget (often called YNAB) may be an even better choice. This app is designed to help people get out of debt and stop living paycheck to paycheck. While it does charge a small fee, it pays for itself with online classes, service and support. YNAB forces users to make a budget based on their actual income — not a projected income — and helps balance budgets based on this reality.  For this reason, YNAB is probably the best app for anyone who is looking to make a serious change to their financial lifestyle.

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Robo-Advisor Apps

If you are interested in investing, then a robo-advisor app may help you reach your investment goals. These apps can assist you as you set up your asset allocation and keep your portfolio balanced. After putting in your basic information, such as risk tolerance, age and investment goals, the app will then perform the work of picking the best investment for you.

The Betterment app works on both iOS and Android and allows you to check your balance, make deposits and withdrawals, and link your checking account. Personal Capital works similarly, allowing you to monitor all of your investment through the app — even if you are not a customer of the advisory service. Through this app, you can view your investment returns, compare them to market benchmarks, and view asset allocation information.

If you are a Charles Schwab customer, the Schwab app is useful as it allows you to manage your investments with the app itself — trading, editing trade orders, canceling orders, depositing checks and more. The Schwab app is the only app that currently has the same functionality as the company website.

Investment Apps

If you want to get on track with saving and investing, then you may be searching for an app that can help you achieve those goals. Enter Acorns — one of the best apps that can help you save automatically. The way it works is simple: after downloading the app, you link one or more cards to the app. Then when you use that card, Acorns rounds up the purchase to the next highest dollar and invests that amount in a portfolio of low-cost exchange traded funds that you select based on your risk preferences. The money that you are investing is likely money that you won’t miss — 50 cents here, 75 cents there — but it can add up over time. The app is free for college students and costs $1 per month for most other users.

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Thank you to Josh for this guest post! I’m currently searching for a full-time job, and when I do, I know I’ll need to budget and save a lot more so I think some of these apps will really come in handy! I’m personally interested  in Acorns – so I can save a little here and there; an amount I won’t miss!

What do you think? Leave your thoughts for Josh below!