We frequently get financial independence for the first time during our time in college. You most likely had a mortgage on your property that was paid for by your parents’ bank a month ago.
All of a sudden, you have to balance paying your bills and student debts while still trying to find extra money to go out with your pals.
Students can use budgeting applications to help them save money before their next student loan is due.
In addition to tuition fees, having to pay for bills, travel, and other expenses can quickly deplete your savings. However, there are lots of budgeting apps available that may assist you in effectively managing your finances, thus saving you time and frustration!
In this post, we’ll be taking a look at the 15 Best Budgeting Apps for College Students in 2024.
The post promises to be very insightful and informative so do well to read it to the end.
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What Is a Budgeting App?
An app for budgeting is one made to assist you in making the best decisions possible regarding your monthly spending and saving. A budgeting tool can help you gain better insight into your spending decisions and routines by centralizing all of your financial goals and obligations.
A budgeting app may offer extra features like financial goal setting and cash flow tracking across different financial accounts, much like the apps you may use from your bank or credit union.
Apps for budgeting can connect to your bank and credit card accounts to give you a complete picture of your finances.
While some budgeting apps focus on a particular method of budgeting, such as an envelope or zero-based budgeting, others cover budgeting more broadly and offer customization based on your needs.
You can track your spending, handle recurring bill payments, set savings objectives, and control your monthly cash flow with the aid of a fully integrated budgeting app.
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Why Budgeting Apps Are Great For College Students
Organizing is important in budgeting. You can track items like bank account statements, credit card due dates, savings account balances, and student loan repayment with the aid of budgeting applications.
They may help you avoid going over budget. You can simply track your income and expenses with the aid of these budgeting tools, which is essential for effective money management.
Utilizing personal financial apps from your phone or tablet anywhere at any time has another advantage. With an app at your disposal, there is no reason not to take charge of your financial situation.
Additionally, developing a budget early in life might prevent debt and other financial problems in the future.
What To Look For In The Best Budgeting Apps For College Students
It’s crucial to take the following factors into account before handing over control of your education funds to a budgeting app: Cost, security, and pros and cons.
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Security
This is speaking of the general safety of the money in your account. After all, as a student, you already have plenty to worry about. You don’t need to worry about whether or not your money is secure.
The majority of the top budgeting applications for college students make security and encryption claims. But if you’re attaching your bank accounts, credit cards, and/or investments to the app, two-factor authentication, or 2FA, is an additional layer of security that experts advise to keep your money secure.
Cost
Even while some of the finest budgeting applications for college students are free, this “free” service might only offer a small selection of tools and features, or it might only be available for a brief period cause of this, it’s critical to study the fine print and pick a budgeting tool that will ideally satisfy your continuing demands while also saving you money on fees.
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Pros & Cons
Once you’ve reduced your options to a few of the most secure and affordable budgeting applications, you should weigh the advantages and disadvantages of those options in light of your particular budgeting requirements.
Customer Service
Having a technical team you can contact when using budgeting software can be useful if you run into a problem. If there is a desktop version in addition to the app, make carefully research the customer service choices before choosing a budgeting app. Reading reviews of people’s experiences with the app you’re thinking of using may also be helpful.
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15 Best Budgeting Apps for College Students
1. Stash
With Stash, a low-volume investing app, you may invest as little as $5 in hundreds of equities and mutual funds. That is why it’s one of the best budgeting apps for college students.
Additionally, you receive a debit card with stock-back incentives along with your bank account. This implies that if you use a debit card, your purchases will add money to your stocks and funds, boosting your portfolio of investments.
Stash offers tools for saving money and investing, as well as advice and educational articles, to help you become a better saver and investor.
The monthly fees for the plans range from $1 to $3 and $9, respectively, and each has unique features that may or may not be suitable for each user.
Due to these advantages, it stands out as a particularly appealing investing tool for novice investors and college students who want to build up their savings.
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2. Chip
With the aid of the Chip app, you can effortlessly manage your finances, increase your long-term savings, and prevent overspending. When you link Chip to your bank account, you gain access to tools like spending analytics, establishing savings objectives, and tracking saving streaks to see how long you’ve been able to save.
The program can also be used to calculate how much money you should set aside each pay period for savings. You must check to see if your bank is supported because only a limited number of banks can link to Chip.
3. Monzo
Monzo is more of an online bank account than a budgeting app for students. You may use your phone to open a full UK bank account for nothing. You may manage your money via the app after receiving the company’s recognizable orange debit card in the mail making it one of the best budgeting apps for college students.
Create monthly spending plans, share expenses with your pals, and manage your money while you’re on the road. You can get a blue card, complete financial visibility with your other bank accounts, and interest on your money by subscribing to Monzo Plus for $5 every month.
Additionally, for an additional $15 per month, Monzo Premium and its white steel card provide you additional benefits including comprehensive phone and travel insurance, interest, and more. The free banking apps are available to download on the App Store and Google Play.
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4. Mint
A well-known free program called Mint makes setting up and maintaining a budget simple. This program enables you to create a budget based on many categories, such as weekly dining expenses or college textbooks and other supplies. Mint is one of the best budgeting apps for college students.
You can create your categories and set financial restrictions on how much you are willing to spend on each. When you link the app to your bank account, Mint creates a spreadsheet to record all of your expenditures for each category.
This gives you an easy way to quickly examine how much you’ve been spending in each category so you can decide where to make budget modifications.
5. Squirrel
The ideal app to use for saving money for special occasions is Squirrel. Think of it as a budgeting app and a mood board together. Each monetary objective is given its own “bucket,” which serves as a savings account.
You may set goals, itemize your goals, create a budget, and even share your bucket with friends using the app. You can link your accounts with Squirrel and Pinterest to better visualize your financial goals for students. On iOS and Android, you can get it for nothing.
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6. Acorns
One of the first apps to make use of RoundUp saves was Acorns. Rounding up your expenditures to the nearest dollar number and investing the difference is what this strategy entails.
Even with its minimal cost, the software can be highly helpful for those attempting to save money because it is simple to use.
With RoundUp, you can even employ the multiplier option. If you paid $1.50 for a coffee, you can increase the 50 cents you want to invest by 10 and round it up to the nearest dollar. So you get $5 for buying that cup of coffee.
Try using your debit card for a month if saving leftover change with RoundUp doesn’t seem like it will make much of a difference. Then you can see how much the RoundUp strategy adds up. If you use your debit card almost exclusively, your monthly expenses may range from $50 to $100.
7. Personal Capital
If you’re concentrating on investing or saving for retirement in the future, Personal Capital is a useful money-saving tool to utilize. With the help of this software, you may calculate your net worth using an asset allocation tool and view your investments on your dashboard.
To gradually increase your finances, Personal Capital can also help you keep track of how much you’ve saved and how much you’re spending.
This program can provide you with information on your progress based on data from all of the accounts you connect to it, which is useful if you’re saving for retirement and utilizing it to plan.
You can use this information to guide your decisions on where to cut costs and where to save so that you can change your budget as necessary.
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8. Clarity Money
College students can simply track their finances with the help of the straightforward, free budget app Clarity Money. You must connect your accounts to it, and once you do, it will lay out all of your spending for you.
Your transactions will be automatically sorted into the subset of various (usually wide) categories into which your expenditure is divided.
Your spending will be divided into the current month and the month before. The current week and the previous one might likewise be used for this. To determine how much you spent in a given category, use search transactions. You can look at this expenditure up to a year in the future.
9. Wally
The go-to app to help you boost your savings, set goals, and receive insight into your spending is Wally. Your student budget may be centralized after all of your accounts are synced to Wally, allowing you to easily learn, manage, and improve your financial situation.
Wally lets you create a budget that works for you, whether you want to save money for a city break or your graduation ball. With the aid of its built-in financial calendar, the app also provides you with insights into your expenditures to aid in smarter savings. It is one of the best budgeting apps for college students.
You may schedule reminders for payments like rent or student loan payments using its calendar feature. The group feature, however, is ideal for maintaining a home on a student budget.
Fear not, international students. Wally’s global network, of 15,000 banks in 70 countries, means that you won’t be left out. The app is free and available for download on the App Store.
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10. Chime
A newer, innovative way to bank is through Chime. Chime gives you access to a real bank account, which is unusual for applications. You receive a spending account, a Visa debit card, and a savings account if you choose.
Instead of using the traditional “brick & mortar” method, this sort of banking is made to be done through smartphones.
Chime aims to eliminate the irritation and hassle of bank fees making it one of the best budgeting apps for college students. Chime just does not use them as a result. Chime does not impose any minimum monthly obligations either.
The SpotMe service is a unique Chime feature. Without charging you anything, SpotMe can cover purchase overdrafts on your debit card up to $100. To prevent you from going over, SpotMe will refresh your account if it falls below a certain threshold.
11. Splitwise
One of the best budgeting apps for college students living with roommates is Splitwise. To ensure that everyone pays their fair amount, it enables you to keep track of balances and other shared expenses.
The group feature aids in grouping your spending, and your balance displays who is owed what. To let your friends know when you have paid up, you may also keep track of any cash or online payments.
The free edition of Splitwise has all of its essential features and is great for students on a budget.
However, Splitwise Pro offers an ad-free experience while you scan receipts, save preset divides, and exchange currencies for $3 per month. Both Android and iPhone users can download the software without charge.
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12. Dollarbird
Another budgeting tool is Dollarbird, however, it functions differently from many other money-saving applications, like Mint. Instead of categorizing expenditures, this program bases tracking of spending on calendar systems.
By using this strategy, you may find it simpler to handle your finances daily as opposed to weekly or monthly ones.
To utilize this software, you must manually enter your transactions rather than having them entered for you.
Additionally, Dollarbird asks you to confirm recurring purchases, which makes you more conscious of your daily spending. With the help of this tool, you’ll be able to determine how well you’re sticking to your spending plan and whether any changes are necessary.
13. Digit
Your ability to save money is intended to be made simple by the Digit system. The plan is to calculate how much cash you could be saving and do it automatically for you. In this way, you are aware that you are saving money but are also constrained to just spending what is necessary.
This is accomplished by the software automatically saving money every few days after evaluating your expenditure to determine how much you could be saving. The FDIC has your savings covered.
Link an account to the Digit app so you can manage your finances (only permits linking one at this time).
You can choose the minimum balance your account can have before the digit must transfer funds back into it to prevent you from going into overdraft using the low balance protection setting.
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14. YNAB (You Need A Budget)
Another best budgeting app for college students is YNAB. The software provides users with a pleasant, intuitive UI that is straightforward and convenient to use. When you add money to your account, you may use YNAB to categorize each dollar with a specific label.
Because you have a set budget, eliminates any uncertainty while spending your money. You can change your budget by shifting allotted funds from one category to another when unplanned expenses, such as emergencies, arise (and they will, without a doubt).
Another benefit of YNAB is that vendor names are automatically put in so that when you enter an expense, the system immediately selects the most recent budget category that was utilized for that vendor.
There are no calculations on your part necessary when you need to balance a budget category because they are done for you.
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15. Curve
The curve is one of the best budgeting apps for college students because it integrates all of your credit cards, debit cards, and loyalty cards into one.
This frees up more mental space for your studies because you only need to carry one card around with you and memorize one pin.
The key benefit of Curve is that throughout the first 30 days, you can receive 1% cash back on each card for nearly every transaction made anywhere in the world. By recommending friends, you can keep receiving cashback.
Referring a friend to Curve earns you 30 days of Cashback. The Curve app lets you track your spending, just like Monzo does. Downloading the app from the App Store, Google Play, and App Gallery is free.
Making A Budget
Knowing how much money you earn and how you spend it is essential to setting up and sticking to a monthly budget. Therefore, your income and expenses are the two main components of any typical budget.
Calculate your monthly income in its entirety, taking into account all sources of passive income as well as your salary, earnings, tips, interest, and child and alimony support.
Then make a list of your monthly important expenses. Costs like rent, utilities, insurance, bank fees, and the bare minimum on credit cards may be included.
List all non-essential items next, including recurring subscriptions, streaming services, your typical food and leisure expenses, and anything else you frequently spend money on but could do without.
Check previous bank and credit card statements to be sure you are not missing anything. Add your necessary expenses to your nonessential expenses to determine your total monthly expenses.
Do your income and expenses balance each other out? If so, that’s a terrific place to begin. The time has come to make a budget, though, if your balance isn’t where you want it to be. You may select the greatest budgeting app for your requirements by being aware of your goals.
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What Characterizes a Succeeding Budget?
The process of creating a budget starts with determining your financial objectives and tracking your spending and saving patterns. When you have a thorough understanding of your financial situation, you will be better equipped to deal with both anticipated and unforeseen financial issues.
It’s critical to have the right attitude when handling your finances. A crucial first step to taking control of your finances is creating a budget. For those who have never used a personal budget, it could take a few cycles for their habits to adjust. And the correct app can assist if you need to change your money habits.
Conclusion
Perhaps you just started college and are unfamiliar with budgeting. Or perhaps you’re a seasoned college student juggling several financial pies. No matter your level of experience, though, one of these 15 Best Budgeting Apps for College Students will undoubtedly make it easier for you to handle your student loans this year.
We hope you found this post as helpful as promised. Kindly let us know what you think.
FAQs
The general rule of thumb is to allocate 50% of your monthly after-tax income to needs, 30% to wants, and 20% to savings or debt repayment. You may make better use of your money by consistently maintaining a balance between three key areas of expenditure.
Yes, Mint’s parent company, Intuit, uses cutting-edge security and technology to protect the personal and financial data of its users. Multi-factor authentication as well as software and hardware encryption are security measures.
According to College Board data, students who have moderate spending habits should create a 12-month budget of about $27,200. $18,220 a year would be a reasonably lower budget.
When you retire in 47 years, if you start saving $1000 each month at age 20, you will have $1.6 million. If someone starts saving at that age, their monthly contributions total $560,000. Due to their early start and an estimated annual growth rate of 4%, their investments have increased by almost $1.
Although nothing can be guaranteed, generally speaking, budget tracking apps are thought to be very secure against cyber criminals. So maybe now that you know that, you can stop worrying. Don’t worry about what might occur if you use a website to assist you in creating a better budget. Consider the consequences of not doing so.
Steinberg advises college students to retain one to two months’ worth of money in checking and to place the rest in a high-yield savings account or a retirement fund if they are in control of their spending and according to their budget.
Reference
- thestayclub.com – 10 Best Budgeting Apps For Students
- post.edu – 10 Best Budgeting Apps for College Students to Help You Save Money
- gotechtor.com – The Top 15 Budgeting Apps for College Students
- walletwiseguy.com – 8 Best Budgeting Apps For College Students
- forbes.com – Best Budgeting Apps Of September 2024
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