Looking for the best budgeting apps for college students that will help you monitor your spending in college?
For most students, learning to live cheap and budgeting is not easy. When you think you’ve got enough money to last a month, it turns out you will need more before the end of two weeks. Thus, a supplementary budget becomes necessary. However, some students find themselves in such situations due to being unaware of how they're spending money and hard-hitting questions such as: Are you making the right decisions when it comes to personal finance? Are you able to spend wisely without using some of the best budgeting apps?
The truth is that poor spending can throw one’s plans into disarray and it gets worse for a student struggling to make ends meet. Whether you need to budget for everyday expenses, college textbooks, a night out with college friends, or a college paper for sale at EduBirdie, these apps will point you in the right direction.
College Budgeting: Apps That Will Help You Spend Wisely
The digital age keeps surprising everyone, and there is no doubt millennials are the luckiest lot. Forget about years gone by where simple accounting required tons of papers stashed in folders. It is a new age where computer and mobile applications take precedence in simplifying tasks such as budgeting that allow them to:
- Stay in control of their finances
- Easily track and pay their bills
- See all their finances in one place
- Manage their spending and monitor their investments
- Plan for their future (retirement) Manage their home & business (if they have both)
This post explores the best apps for college students that will help you be in control of personal finances. In particular, it lists the best applications for easy budgeting while emphasizing the exceptional features of each. Take a look.
1. Best Overall: Monarch Money
If you want one budgeting app to rule them all, Monarch Money is the best pick right now. It pulls all your accounts into one place, tracks your spending and net worth, and lets you set custom budgets that adapt to your life. What sets it apart is how well it handles shared finances, so if you split expenses with a roommate or partner, you can both stay on the same page. It is a clean, ad-free way to take full control of your money while still in college.
- Connects all your accounts in one dashboard, including checking, savings, credit cards, loans, and investments, so you see your full financial picture at a glance
- Tracks net worth automatically and shows how it changes over time
- Custom, flexible budgets that adapt to your actual spending instead of locking you into rigid categories
2. Best for Tracking All Your Accounts: Empower
Empower is not just an application for budgeting, but also one that features powerful functionalities. It tracks your money, analyzes investment fees and tracks expenses. It is the most ideal for a modern student who wants to experience the power of digital assistance since it combines human and robotic financial advice in one platform. In this review, learn how Empower can help you manage your money better.
- Track your portfolio and see your full financial picture in one place
- Optimize your investments with advanced retirement projections
- Get started for free and take control of your retirement today
3. Best for Type-A Personalities: YNAB
YNAB, also referred to as you need a budget, is arguably one of the most popular budgeting apps for college students in the market. It is ideal for those who want to manage finances around their income. With it, you are in control of daily expenses, investments, repayment of debts and savings. Whether you want to sync it with your bank account, YNAB is compatible with both desktop and smartphones. It is, therefore, a suitable application for students who want to remain in charge of their money goals.
4. Best to Keep from Overspending: PocketGuard
Another budgeting app a student will find useful is Pocket Guard. It is not synced with your bank account but also helps you to keep track of income, expenses, and savings. Because it helps with tracking bills such as TV, phone and internet, Pocket Guard is all you need to cut back on unnecessary expenses by finding cheaper options.
5. Best Money Management App: Quicken
Quicken Simplifi is one of the cleanest budgeting apps out there for students who want to know exactly what they can spend right now. It builds a real-time spending plan that updates as money comes in and bills go out, so you always see what is safe to spend after recurring expenses and savings goals are accounted for. It syncs with your bank accounts, tracks subscriptions, and flags spending you might have missed. For a student trying to stretch every dollar, the always-current view of your finances is hard to beat.
- Track all your accounts in one place and automatically categorize transactions to save time
- Get 30+ customizable reports and "what-if" tools to make smarter financial decisions
- Plan for retirement with detailed roadmaps and scenario planning built right in
If you're not a fan of paying — you can see a long list of Quicken alternatives to better manage your money.
Bonus: Spreadsheets
Whether it’s Google Sheets or Excel, nothing can beat the classic spreadsheet. True, it may not come with all the bells and whistles that you would expect in a finance tool, but it works well.
One of the obvious plus-points of using a spreadsheet is users have complete control over how they can track data. Plus, it is a safer option since you don’t have to integrate your financial accounts online.
Need help setting up your spreadsheet? Tiller Money automatically imports daily spending, account balances, and transactions into Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel. You can customize the spreadsheet to your liking or they also have free budget templates you can use. Tiller Money keeps you up-to-date on your spending with daily account activity emails.
Tiller Money costs $79 a year. Try it out at no cost with a free 30-day trial.
Wrapping up the Best Budget Apps
You learn tons when you start college, and often one of the most practical— and unspoken—knowledge is learning the best budgeting apps for college students.
Tired of using journals to budget? Other budgeting tools you may want to try can be found here. Like most of the apps explored above, the features of a good budgeting app give you the ability to sync with your bank account thereby take control of personal finances through filing expenses into folders.
Whether it is money spent on groceries, phone bills, eat out, rent or entertainment, these money tools help you plan for what you need to budget for every item in your list of expenses, including repayment of student loans, credit card debt, auto loans and more.
Before you go, you might be leaving free money on the table. Sign up for a few of these apps and you could pocket $250+ this month just for playing games and completing simple tasks. Most people start earning within minutes. See all verified apps here, free to join.
