Staying in budget – there’s an app for that

As the lockdown continues to wreak havoc on many households’ incomes, this is a good time to finetune your monthly budget and start maximising the money you have available to you. And as with most things in life today, there’s an app for that. Money apps have fast evolved from the early days when they simply helped you track your spending. They’re now excellent tools that can be used to keep your budget on point – and as you know, that’s what we’re all about.

So, we rounded up some of the apps you can use to help you track your spending, prioritise your debt repayment strategies, maximise your savings and, most importantly, stay in budget. All the apps featured below are available on the iOS and Android platforms.

• Moneysmart: This app will show you how much you can spend daily after your fixed expenses have been taken into account. Even if you do overspend, the app will recalculate to make sure you reach the end of the month.
• Moneylover: The app generates reports based on your spending. Once you have used the app to help you plan your budget, it identifies each transaction and automatically puts it into a category such as groceries, rent or pets. Moneylover will send you an alert once you are close to your spending budget for a particular category. You can take a photo of any till slip and it will automatically be added as an expense.
• SNAPnSAVE:  This simple, free app lets you know before you go shopping which items are registered as earning cash-back rewards. Once you find an offer you are interested in, you click “book offer” on the app and later upload a picture of your till slip as proof of purchase. Once you’ve accumulated cash in your SnapnSave wallet (R50 minimum) you can cash-out using various methods. You can transfer your cash directly into your bank account via EFT (electronic funds transfer). You can request an instant cash ATM code and then draw the cash from any Standard Bank ATM.
• Debt Payoff Planner: This app does just what the title suggests. You list all your debts and then you can choose a debt payoff strategy. For example, you could choose to use the Dave Ramsey debt snowball strategy where you pay off the debt with the lowest balance first or you could use the debt avalanche strategy where you pay off the debt with the highest interest rate first. An easy summary table gives you a snapshot of your total debt, how much you will repay each month, how much interest you pay in total and how long it will take for you to be debt-free.  The app also provides links to financial literacy articles with information focused on how you can deal with debt.
• Mint: Thisapp allows you to track accounts and your spending and helps set budgets based on your financial figures. A bonus feature is that it acts as a credit rating tool – helping you to keep track of your credit score and providing helpful tips on what you can do to improve your credit profile.

With an app at your fingertips, making smart money management choices to stay in budget, is a click away.