Top 15 Apps to Save Money

“Saving money” is a rather abstract goal that seems extremely easy at first – all you have to do is spend less on things that you don’t really need to have. In reality, this process is that much harder, for a number of reasons. Money saving process needs dedication, persistence, and a lot of patience to get at least somewhat tangible results.

However, we all live in the twenty-first century, with the Internet being extremely common all over the globe, and billions of people having personal smartphones that can do all kinds of things. This includes saving money, too. There are many different applications for both Android and iOS that are created with the sole purpose of helping people save money, be it via consistent budgeting, investments, cashback, or even something as simple as rounding up each and every one of your purchases and creating a separate savings fund out of that money.

Unfortunately, having this big of a market also creates a problem of picking the one app that fits your specific needs the most. As such, we would like to present you our list of top 15 apps to save money. This list goes over a variety of solutions, both free and paid, and covers several different ways to save money.

Free budgeting apps

Our top 15 best budgeting apps list starts with several examples of apps that are completely free. As the name suggests, all of these examples can be used by any smartphone user free of charge, with no additional features locked behind a paywall of sorts.

1. Acorns

Technically speaking, Acorns is an investing app first and foremost. However, it is far from how regular investing apps work, since the way Acorns receives money for investment purposes is somewhat different.

Acorns can be linked to your spending account, so that it can look at each and every one of your purchases and round it up to the next dollar value. For example, a $8.37 purchase would be rounded up to $9, and that $0.63 is added to your Acorns investment account. All of that money can then be automatically invested in a portfolio based on your preferences, and you can get returns based on that investment, too.

There are several different portfolios that Acorns provides, with each of them composed of exchange-traded funds. These portfolios can be aggressive, conservative, sustainable, and so on. Aggressive portfolios have more stocks, conservative ones focus more on bonds, and sustainable include a range of companies that comply with environmental and other requirements.

Acorns has two different subscription types – Personal and Family. Personal offers an investment account, a retirement account and a checking account with all of the aforementioned features. Family also adds a kids investment account to that package.

2. Mint

Mint is one of the most famous apps in the field of budgeting, offering a host of abilities for tracking budget analysis. You can link all kinds of accounts to the app in question, be it your bank account, your credit account, and so on. The app in question uses the information about your transactions to provide you with insights based on your spending patterns.

The main feature of Mint is the ability to categorize each of your purchases based on some sort of factor. Each category can be personalized and there is no limit on the overall number of categories, and you also have the ability to set a limit for a specific spending category. That way, Mint would be able to send you a notification if you are close to the aforementioned spending limit.

It has a great interface, is completely free of charge, and boasts one of the largest user bases in the entire industry. However, it is also an app that is completely focused on your past and/or current spendings, which makes it less than useful for people that are more interested in saving up money for some sort of specific goal in the future.

3. INXY

There are quite a lot of different money saving methods right now, and they are not just about discounts or budgeting. For example, there number of different subscription services is at all-time high now, with food delivery, entertainment industry, and even something as basic as your weekly mail delivery is considered a subscription.

The problem with subscriptions these days is that they often become rather hard to manage if you have too many, which leaves a lot of people with subscriptions they may not even use anymore, but still pay for on a regular basis since the process is automatic. As such, providing an overview of your current subscriptions is a great way of saving money and a great niche for an entire market of apps and services, such as INXY.

INXY is a free subscription tracking service that makes it far easier to find subscriptions that you no longer need. It can scan your transaction history (after you sync it with your bank account) to find all of the recurring payments that you currently have. There are also many other useful features in this same app, such as integration with many different services, customizable alerts, subscription reports, notifications, and so on.

4. Wally

When it comes to the most convenient budgeting apps, Wally is definitely one of the best ones on this market. It is a mobile app that does nothing but budgeting – offering budget tracking, budget visualization, and more. All of that is packed into a user-friendly interface to make the matter of personal finance management as simple as it gets.

Wally itself is what the market calls a “freemium” app – a solution or service that offers a limited set of features for free with the ability to acquire more features by paying a one-time fee or subscribing to a service. When it comes to Wally, Premium users are able to take advantage of category customization, recurring payment notifications, budgeting calendar, capability to convert to and from a variety of currencies, and so on.

5. Qapital

Qapital is another great tool for accumulating your savings in several different ways. One of those methods is the aforementioned “rounding up” method, when each purchase from a linked financial account is rounded up to a single dollar. As an example, your order in the bakery for $10.59 is going to be rounded up to $11, with $0.41 going towards your savings account.

Qapital also gives its users the ability to transfer set amounts towards the savings fund on a regular basis. The overall interest rate on the savings account is rather low – only 0.1%, but it is still better than zero. Higher tiers of Qapital subscription have access to more complex automated investing rules, but these tiers also cost more.

Speaking of tiers, Qapital offers three different subscription tiers, each with their own exclusive benefits, such as debit cards, deeper customization, and so on. It is also possible to create a Dream Team to share information and finances with friends or family.

6. Albert

Albert is great for people with a relatively unsteady income, since its main feature is income analysis. Albert can analyze your recurring bills, past spendings and income to generate a personalized budget recommendation specifically for your financial situation.

This particular personal finance app can also detect increases in your spending trends or your bill increases, providing you with notifications about either of those, so that you are always aware of any kind of unwanted event like this. It is also within Albert’s capabilities to provide its users with cashback for specific payment types, and offer two different types of investing – picking everything by hand or letting one of the service’s “Geniuses” pick your investment plan with your desires in mind.

7. Chime

Another rather famous advocate for convenience and simplicity is Chime – a personal finances app that offers you an online checking and savings account with many different advantages. Some of these benefits are no monthly fees, a fee-free overdraft (up to $200), no requirements for minimum balance, and so on

Chime can also contribute to your savings in a way we have already mentioned before – by rounding up each of your transactions to a single dollar and transferring the remainder to your savings account (you make a $4.68 purchase, it rounds up to $5, $0.32 gets transferred as your savings). Recurring transfers to your savings account can also be set up with Chime.

8. Ibotta

Ibotta represents another large group of apps that save money via rebates – a form of cashback that the buyer is able to receive from either the manufacturer or the seller once the product itself has been purchased. One of the biggest points of difference for this type of app is its number of retailers that they can work with – and Ibotta has one of the biggest ones, with about 150 middle to large retailers working with it.

The process of receiving a rebate is rather simple – find the store that you would be shopping in and add one of the available options in the app. Once you have purchased the item itself, you can take a picture of the receipt and Ibotta will give you a rebate for this purchase. The lower limit for withdrawal is $20, and there are two main withdrawal options – PayPal and gift cards. It is also possible to tie your payment cards to an Ibotta account to eliminate the need to create photos of your receipts at all – the rebates should be provided to you within two days after the purchase.

9. Receipt Hog

Receipt Hog is another participant of this rebate strategy – and all it takes for you to use it is to take a picture of your receipts and give a rating to your visit to said store. Receipt Hog operates with a system of coins, and enough coins can be withdrawn to a PayPal account. The lower threshold for the withdrawal is 1000 coins – you would get $5 for that. The more you withdraw at once – the more money you get ($15 for 2900 coins, $25 for 4300 coins and $40 for 6500 coins, for example).

Receipt Hog has several different reward levels depending on the nature of the purchase, and users can also participate in various surveys to receive more coins. Any receipt within two weeks of the current date can be added to your Receipt Hog account.

10. YNAB

On the more sophisticated side of financial apps we have YNAB, or You Need A Budget – a budgeting app with one of the most saturated feature sets on the market. It is great for budgeting between several people, it offers an extensive goal tracking system with savings, and its real-time finance tracking tools are rather impressive.

YNAB can connect to a variety of financial accounts, from credit cards to loans and bills. You can use it to plan loans, receive reports about your net worth, categorize your transactions, manage multiple budget groups at once, and so much more than that. While it is a rather extensive budgeting application with many different use cases, its subscription price tag is also somewhat higher than most of the market.

11. Prism

Keeping up with your bills can also be a way to save money if you want to avoid paying extra for missing due payment dates. For this exact use case we have Prism – a free personal finance app with the sole purpose of making an easier and a more convenient way to manage your bills in one place.

Prism allows you to sync all of your different account balances and your bills in one app, so that you can pay for each and every one of these bills using the app in question. That way you are guaranteed to avoid late fees, and would have a much more detailed view of your spendings when it comes to your bills. Prism can also alert you if your current bill turns out to be a lot higher or lower than the previous one, so that you can double-check everything and make sure that there is no problem that might affect you down the line.

12. PocketGuard

Speaking of budgeting, we also have one more participant of this specific line of apps that are hyper focused on budgeting. This one is called PocketGuard, and it has quite a lot of features when it comes to managing your budget. It can sync with multiple accounts at once so that you always have a full picture of your financial situation. It can split your budget into several groups, including both your bills and your necessities for the month – and send the remaining part of the money to your savings account.

PocketGuard also has a system of goals that you can work with automatically and customize them however you want. You can use it to track your bills and other recurring payments like subscriptions to various services – and you can even negotiate better rates for some services using the same app. It can also be used to set up spending limits, custom notifications, and has a rather friendly UI.

13. Marcus Insights

Marcus Insights is another rather convenient app that combines multiple features we have already discussed before. It is a budgeting app that tracks and organizes your expenses, providing an overview of your current financial situation at a glance. It has the ability to take a part of your finances for a specific goal or purpose and set up recurring transfers for this purpose.

Additionally, this same app can detect subscription services and cancel the ones that you may find inconvenient or no longer necessary. Your credit score can also be displayed with the help of Marcus Insights, and you can also receive insights about most of your financial information from Marcus.

14. Rakuten

The last app on our list that goes over the topic of rebates is Rakuten – a well-known service that offers both cash back and rebates for specific purchases in its mobile app, as well as with its Google Chrome extension when shopping online. Their partner network is rather extensive, offering all kinds of advantages for many different stores and other websites.

For example, Rakuten mobile app users have a 5% cashback for restaurants, and new extension users are eligible for a $10 bonus as soon as they have spent over $25 with the extension. Their network of partners includes over 2000 different companies, and the Rakuten app can also offer coupons for in-store purchases.

15. Stash

The last contender on this list goes back to the idea of an app that combines investing opportunities and budgeting features. This particular app is called Stash, and it is less budgeting and more investing when compared with something like Acorns. Stash offers a taxable brokerage account, multiple different investment plans, a variety of investment-related features, and so on.

Stash also has customizable goals for your savings account, it can track your spendings and it can use the aforementioned round-up system to improve your financial situation bit-by-bit. Additionally, Stash’s automatic investing capabilities are vast and varied, and their own investing account does not have any kinds of hidden fees or overdraft fees.

Conclusion

“Saving money” is a goal that is somewhat abstract, since there are many different ways and methods that can be used here. As you can see, each of these methods also has several different mobile apps that can ease the entire saving money process for a regular user, and we hope that our list of top 15 apps to save money was helpful to you when it comes to figuring out what app to pick for your specific use case.

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