One of the most important lessons you can teach your children is the important of money. It is a something everyone should be aware of and understand the value of. Currency is something that we cannot live in our society without, it buys us shelter, food and water, clothing, and everything else we as humans need to survive.
While of course this does not mean that you should make money the most important thing in your world, it does mean that everyone should at least understand how to make a basic budget. Unfortunately this is a skill that is not brought up in most schools, but luckily, smartphones that most of us keep in our pockets everyday can help us with that. So let’s take a look at some of the top apps for managing your finances.
1. Splitwise
Splitwise is an incredibly useful app for anyone who lives with roomates. It lets you easily split costs between individuals or as a group. So let’s say one person paid rent to their landlord at the end of the month, they would add the total cost into the app, select the group with their roommates and enter the amount they paid. This would then split the cost equally between all of the members of the group, notifying them of the payment. You can also just select any individual as well and split the cost between only two of you. It then keeps a running tally of how much each person owes each other until it is paid. Once it is paid you can enter the payment into splitwise and settle up.
2. Mint
Mint is a budgeting tool that lets you build your budget exactly how you would like, allocating costs to different categories. These categories range from essential payments like rent, electricity bill, et cetera, to things like an entertainment budget. It then lets you integrate your bank account with it so it can track your spending.
It will automatically add the spending into your budget, using the information from the payment to put it in the right section. For example, if you stop at a gas station and buy $40 worth of gas, it will automatically add that to your gas expense. Of course it is not always perfect, for example if you also pick up anything else and spend $50 ($40 on gas + $10 on snacks), it will put the whole thing into the gas expense, even though it was not. Luckily it lets you manually edit any payments, so you can ensure they are allocated to the correct expense! If you are not interested in connecting your bank account there are many other budgeting apps that you can use, or even something as simple as a spreadsheet budget can be extremely useful.
3. Your banking app
One simple way that is often overlooked when it comes to being more financially responsible is by downloading your bank’s app and monitoring your money. Check it at the end of every week and see where you have been spending the most money, and decide if that is a reasonable amount to be spending. For example, if you notice a good portion of your paycheck is getting spent on going out for lunch everyday, stat taking lunches more often. Often banking apps also let you set up automatic transfers to savings each paycheck. This can be very useful if you have enough money leftover after your budgeted costs. Most banks should have a phone app by now. If your bank does not, it may be time to start looking into other banks.