Six of the Best Budgeting Apps

Man opening wallet, with debt expense bills and credit cards, at a table.

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published 31 January 2024

The popular budgeting app Mint is shutting down, leaving about 3.6 million customers in search of another way to track their spending.

Intuit, the company that owns Mint, is encouraging users to migrate to Credit Karma, a credit-focused app that Intuit owns. But so far, Credit Karma doesn’t offer the budget-setting tools that Mint provided, and it’s unclear what features will be added in the future. Here’s a look at other budget apps you can download through the Apple App Store or Google Play. All prices listed are as of November 2023.

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The first is based on what’s known as the zero-based budgeting method, in which you assign every dollar in your bank account to a specific expense. If an emergency arises, the app helps you make changes to your budget to accommodate any unexpected expenses. The second rule is to plan for large, infrequent expenses (say, for home repairs or annual insurance premiums) by setting aside money for them each month, while the third rule encourages you to make adjustments if you run out of money in one of your budgeting categories by moving money to it from a different category. YNAB’s fourth rule is to “age your money” — in other words, once you get used to budgeting and spending less, you can pay for your current monthly bills with money you saved from the previous month rather than from your most recent paycheck. In addition to providing budgeting advice, YNAB also offers live money-management workshops online.

Quicken’s Simplififeatures easy-to-navigate menus and charts and it creates a personalized spending plan you can use to monitor your income and expenses. Your spending plan adjusts as your expenses change, and the app’s features let you easily tweak your budget. In addition to tracking your spending, Simplifi helps you plan for the future, projecting your cash flow based on upcoming bills so you can change your spending accordingly.

Tiller (www.tillerhq.com) may be the best app for you if you like using spreadsheets to balance your budget. After you link your financial accounts to Tiller, you can use one of its templates to create a customized budget spreadsheet in Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel, and the sheets automatically draw in updated information about your spending and balances from the linked accounts. You can also have Tiller send you daily email updates about your account balances.

After you download the Honeydue app, you can invite your partner via email or text message to download it, too. Once you both have the app, you can monitor your budgets and track your spending habits for joint accounts. (Your partner won’t be able to see information about your individual accounts and vice versa.) You can also coordinate bill payments and discuss how to manage your budget in the app’s chat section.

While some budgeting apps help you stay on track with your partner, Monarch lets you team up with your financial adviser. As with other budgeting apps, once you connect your accounts to Monarch, you can track your spending. However, Monarch also allows you to securely share your account information with your adviser so you can collaborate on your savings and investment goals. You can also share the app with your partner or someone else from your household, who will have his or her own login.

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Fidelity Investments Morgan Stanley

Ella Vincent is a personal finance writer who has written about credit, retirement, and employment issues. She has previously written for Motley Fool and Yahoo Finance. She enjoys going to concerts in her native Chicago and watching basketball.