Money eh? You spend most of your life working for
that next pay cheque, only to look at your bank balance at the end of the month
and think ‘well where the hell all that went?’ – At least that’s always my
experience. Luckily we live in the modern age, so it’s never been easier to
keep on top of your finances.
Expense Trackers are handy little apps that, much
in the same way as LiveStrong and other calorie counters help keep you healthy,
offer a handy little budget book right on your phone to help keep your wallet
in shape. Being a young guy, I haven’t yet mastered the subtle art of
budgeting, so using each of these apps is an absolute necessity and,
increasingly, a pleasure. Below are my top three tried-and-tested Android apps
to help you make the most of your money every month, so you too don’t end up
living off baked beans on toast for the rest of the month (seriously, it gets
boring after day three).
1.PageOnce :
PageOnce is my go-to expense tracker, offering a
beautifully designed user interface, coupled with a super handy account linking
service. Using PageOnce, you can keep track of all your bank accounts,
scheduled bill payments, investments, insurance, loans, travel rewards, and
even phone contracts! That’s right – where most apps will only let you keep on
top of your finances, PageOnce shows you how many minutes, texts or gigs of
data you’ve used and have left to use. Now that’s useful!
Once you’ve entered all your data, PageOnce will
send you helpful reminders of when your next bill is due so you can budget for
all those pesky regular payments, and even let you pay it when your number’s
up! You can’t buy this kind of service these days, especially when great apps
like PageOnce are free!
2.Mint :
Mint is one of the more popular online budgeting
apps, and being a regular user it’s easy to see why. While it allows you to
perform all the usual tasks of a standard expense tracker, Mint also allows you
to categorize your monthly expenses – credit cards, savings and current
accounts, for example. All the data on Mint is password protected, so there’s
nothing to fear should you ever leave your phone in that bar after one-too-many
drinks.
Sounding great so far? But wait, there’s more!
After every month of week Mint will show you an informative infographic of your
expenses so you can truly visualize where all your hard-earned cash goes! There’s
nothing quite like seeing a PacMan-sized chunk of pie chart labeled ‘video
games’ eating up your finances is there?
3. Expense Manager :
For those of you looking for a decent money
tracker, but could do without all the bells and whistles of the apps above,
Expense Manager is by far the simplest app on this list, which allows you to
keep track of your income and expenses with a simply cash flow analysis.
Expense Manager is well-equipped to help you keep track of multiple accounts
and schedule payments, and will alert you when a bill’s due, without getting
you bogged down in style.
As I said, this isn’t the flashiest expense tracker
out there, but it is definitely the easiest to use and navigate your way
around. The app also features a handy exchange-rate checker, for when you’re
balancing the budget while abroad. How very continental.
So there you have it. Three great apps to help you
keep track of your finances in whatever way you want! Whoever said that budgets
were boring?
