Personal finance software and other tools can help you take control of your financial life, but they don’t all serve the same purpose.
Some focus on one financial function — budgeting, expense tracking, saving, banking, investing or taxes — while others handle multiple financial needs.
Here’s how to choose the best personal finance software or app to reach your financial health goals, along with some of our favorite tools.
Types of personal finance software and apps
There’s a wide assortment of options. We’ll focus on the personal finance software that covers most needs.
Budgeting: Budget software and apps help you track and categorize your spending. In most cases, you sync your financial accounts — checking, savings, credit cards, loans and investments — and the tools automatically categorize your spending. You can typically add spending limits by category to set up your budget. Read more about the best budget apps, which have some of the same features.
Before you build a budget
NerdWallet breaks down your spending and shows you ways to save.
Savings: Want to build up your emergency fund or save for a new car? Software and apps make it simple to reserve money each month. Some services automatically transfer money into your savings account or a special account to help you save without thinking about it. Explore NerdWallet's picks for the best money-saving apps.
Investment: Investing puts your money to work toward long-term goals such as retirement, but it can be overwhelming for beginners and pros alike. Investment software and apps help you build a portfolio and make trades with confidence. Check out the 11 best investment apps.
Taxes: Tax software makes it easy to prepare and file your taxes. Most services simplify complicated tax code by asking you straightforward questions and guiding you through deductions. Review NerdWallet’s best tax software picks.
What to look for in a personal finance tool
When choosing a personal finance tool, consider your goals, what you need your software to do and how sophisticated you’d like it to be.
If you want an app that tracks your expenses and income, for example, look for a budgeting program that syncs with your bank and credit card accounts.
A few other factors to consider as you shop around:
Cost: Personal finance tools often have a free version and a premium version that includes extra features for a monthly, annual or one-time fee. Consider upgrading if your financial situation is complex — you’re a small-business owner, for example — or if you want the peace of mind the added features bring.
Account restrictions: Certain types of software limit the number of accounts you can add or restrict you to just one type. So if you have checking, credit card and investment accounts to monitor, look for a service that can handle them all.
Spending reports: Are you a visual learner? Opt for a tool that breaks down your spending (by category or amount) using charts and graphs. Bonus points if you can customize the reports to fit your financial goals.
Human support: Sometimes you need more than a standard user guide or FAQ page. Look for apps and software that provide additional support — say, one that lets you speak to a human or offers a robo-advisor.
Free credit score: Some tools help you stay on top of your credit score with weekly and monthly score updates and have simulators that show how certain financial decisions could impact your credit.
Track your spending with the NerdWallet app
Track your budget and see all of your finances together in a single place. Get timely insights to make smart financial decisions – all for free.
Other tech tools to help you manage your money
If you’d prefer to track your money yourself rather than use software or an app, consider these budget spreadsheets and templates. With those, you input recurring and one-off expenses, either in Excel, a PDF or online documents.
We’re partial to the NerdWallet budget worksheet. You enter your monthly income and a wide range of expenses, from life insurance premiums to travel expenses to credit-card payments. Then it shows how your spending compares with the 50/30/20 budgeting method, which suggests that 50% of your income goes toward needs, 30% toward wants and 20% toward savings and debt repayment. You can also download this worksheet in an Excel document.
If software and worksheets seem like too much right now, try this simple budget calculator, which uses the same 50/30/20 budgeting method to give you an idea of how to spend and save your money. You can also go wireless and pick up a budgeting book.
One of the most common types of percentage-based budgets is the 50/30/20 rule. The idea is to divide your income into three categories, spending 50% on needs, 30% on wants, and 20% on savings.
To be fair, the free version of Mint was like this, too. Even with the inescapable credit card offers, NerdWallet has a clean, easy-to-understand user interface, which includes both a web and a mobile app. The key metrics that it highlights most prominently are your cash flow, net worth and credit score.
NerdWallet's top competitors include SmartAsset, Frank, and Credit Sesame. SmartAsset offers a consumer-focused financial information and advice platform operating in the financial services industry.
Mint, a budgeting app acquired by Intuit in 2009, is shutting down as of Saturday, March 23, 2024. Mint shows users an overview of their financial well-being by displaying the current status of multiple linked accounts on one screen.
The 40/40/20 rule comes in during the saving phase of his wealth creation formula. Cardone says that from your gross income, 40% should be set aside for taxes, 40% should be saved, and you should live off of the remaining 20%.
Consider an individual who takes home $5,000 a month. Applying the 50/30/20 rule would give them a monthly budget of: 50% for mandatory expenses = $2,500. 20% to savings and debt repayment = $1,000.
The reason for closing down the Mint app is the supposed consolidation of Intuit's personal finance products and to prioritize their focus on Credit Karma, which has more features and functions than Mint. However, some key features that made Mint what it is are said not to be available in Credit Karma, like budgeting.
How does NerdWallet protect my personal information? We use industry-standard security controls, such as cryptography, to protect your personally identifying information. And our partners TransUnion and Plaid do the same.
But on March 23, the popular app shut down, leaving millions of people in need of a new budgeting tool. Intuit -- the company that owned and operated Mint -- encouraged people to switch to Credit Karma, which it acquired in 2020.
We take our responsibility to protect your confidential information seriously, using 128-bit encryption to protect your data. You can learn about NerdWallet's security practices here.
Yes, NerdWallet is safe. NerdWallet supports multi-factor authentication (MFA) in addition to other industry-standard security controls. It encrypts your financial data (128-bit encryption) for enhanced safety.
Ryan Reynolds's Mint Mobile was bought by T-Mobile for $1.35 billion. Ryan Reynolds has assumed many guises since he shot to fame in the 1990s. And while the Deadpool star has become a widely recognized actor, he's also become closely associated with his two brands—Aviation Gin and Mint Mobile.
Will Credit Karma have the same budgeting functionality as Mint? Credit Karma does not currently provide budgeting features the same way that Mint has in the past. We know that many Minters love our budgeting features, so we understand this may be disappointing.
Both Mint and Credit Karma are owned by financial technology company, Intuit . Mint has more budgeting and wealth features than Credit Karma. Intuit is moving Mint's 3.6 million customers to tapping into its higher score customers. (Mint is shutting down, and it's pushing users toward Credit Karma ).
But amid ongoing inflation, the 50/30/20 method no longer feels feasible for families who say they're struggling to make ends meet. Financial experts agree — and some say it may be time to adjust the percentages accordingly, to 60/30/10.
The 50/30/20 has worked for some people — especially in past years when the cost of living was lower — but it's especially unfeasible for low-income Americans and people who live in expensive cities like San Francisco or New York. There, it's next to impossible to find a rent or mortgage at half your take-home salary.
Yes, the 50/30/20 rule can be used to save for long-term goals. Allocate a portion of the 20% to savings specifically for your long-term goals, such as a down payment on a house, education funds, or investments. The rule is intentionally meant to bring focus to savings.
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