We’re fast approaching the end of the first quarter of 2023, which is the perfect time to reflect on and re-evaluate those resolutions you made at the beginning of the year.
A popular resolution many Americans make every year is to be smarter with money, whether that means earning more, spending wisely, or saving more.
Unfortunately, savings plans often fall by the wayside as real life (inflation, rising cost of living) intervenes, making us lose focus.
To help you counter this, we have compiled a list of the latest money-saving apps that will motivate you and keep your savings on track throughout 2023.
How Do Money Saving Apps Work?
We could all use a little push to build a nest egg.
A money-saving app helps you save money and improve your spending habits. It can be downloaded and installed on your phone, tablet, or as a browser extension on your PC.
Different money-saving apps do different things; some round-up and save your spare change while others give you discounts when shopping. There are even apps that will even help you grow your nest egg with that sweet, sweet interest.
Depending on your financial goals and preferences, you might need one or a few.
Top 6 Money-Saving Apps in 2023
There’s a dizzying array of savings apps emerging from the FinTech scene, making choosing the best app difficult.
We scoured the internet, downloaded and used several saving apps to review 6 of the best ones. We considered factors such as app features, fees, and who might benefit most from them.
For most of these, you’ll need to download the app, set up a profile, and link your cards or checking account.
⦁Best for Goal Setting – Qapital
Qapital is a neobank (an online bank with no physical branches) that makes it fun to save money.
With a Qapital account, you can manage transfers and balances and gain interest on your savings as you would with a normal bank. If you want to access your funds when offline, you can use the Qapital debit card.
What we like the most about Qapital is the gamification aspect that makes saving more engaging and fun. The app allows you to set up multiple rules that trigger saving.
This is how it works: Qapital has applets (small, mini-apps) with different savings goals. You can set an applet and have your account transfer some money when you attain a goal, like hitting a fitness milestone or breaking a guilty pleasure rule, like ordering takeout.
You also decide whether the money goes into an investment portfolio or an interest-bearing FDIC-insured account. You earn 0.10 percent interest, which is a bit low for an online savings account.
We love the Payday Divvy feature which can help you divide your funds between saving and spending.
Qapital app offers a 30-day free trial, after which you’ll pay $3–$12/month. Higher tiers offer a debit card and more customization features.
Where to get the app: Download for free on the App Store or Google Play.
⦁Best Micro-Investing App for Beginners – Acorns
We all know saving money and investing are important, but remembering to tuck your money away can be daunting.
Acorns is a popular saving and investing app that rounds up your transactions to the nearest dollar and deposits the difference into an Acorns investment account.
The app then invests this loose change into 1 of its 5 ETF-based investment portfolios developed by Dr. Harry Markowitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist. Acorns will ask you about your income, financial situation, risk tolerance and goals to get you into the right investment portfolio.
However, given the nature of the stock market, investments are not guaranteed. The selected portfolio has the potential to increase or decrease.
Acorns also allow you to set up a retirement plan (Acorns Later) or an investment account for kids (Acorns Early).
There’s a $3–$5 monthly fee, which is reasonable considering that all of the saving and investing happen in an automated fashion.
Where to get the app: Download for free on the App Store or Google Play.
⦁Best for Couples – Zeta
Do you know what’s better than saving? Saving as a couple!
Thanks to Zeta, you and your partner can save for a common goal, such as paying down debt or saving for a trip.
What we love most about the app is that it caters to all types of couples – those living together, engaged, married, or new parents.
Zeta allows you to sync multiple accounts to track spending and manage bills together.
You can also sign up for a joint no-fee banking account and enjoy perks such as contactless payments, digital checks, bill pay, and access to the Allpoint ATM network.
If you want to boost your financial knowledge, Zeta has an online publication called Money Date Mag with articles about love and money in the modern age.
To ensure that your sensitive personal and financial data is kept private, Zeta uses bank-level security.
Where to get the app: Download for free on the App Store or Google Play.
⦁Best for Simplicity – Digit
Digit is similar to Qapital and Acorns in that you can connect a bank account and make small contributions towards a savings goal.
But unlike these two that require you to stipulate specific criteria before the money is transferred, Digit uses a special algorithm that evaluates your money spending patterns, checking account balance and goals you’ve set, and then computes a unique number to set aside.
Digit makes deposits towards your savings goal throughout the month. The amounts are, however, varying and deposits only happen when the system detects that you can afford it. This simplifies a lot of legwork.
The only downsides are the $5 monthly fee and that you won’t earn monthly interest.
We recommend this set-it-and-forget app if you’ve struggled with budgeting in the past or are often stressed about bank account management.
Where to get the app: Download for free on the App Store or Google Play.
⦁Best for Busy Online Shoppers – Honey
Shopping is only a way to spend cash. Despite what you see on TV or read online, you’re never truly “saving” money when shopping. But if you want to spend less, Honey can help you do exactly that.
Honey is a saving app that started out life as an internet browser extension for Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari browsers.
How it works is the app automatically finds discount codes and coupons for any purchase you’re making at any eligible online store and adds them to your shopping basket. According to their website, Honey covers over 30,000 sites and millions of items.
With Honey installed, you’ll see a pop-up in the checkout phase. Simply click the pop-up, and the app will try out all available coupon codes before automatically applying the best one.
Where to get the app: Download for free on the App Store, Google Play or download the Honey browser extension.
⦁Best for Monitoring Daily Activity – Mint
Last but not least, Mint is a savings app that puts together your banking and investment data in one place to provide an easy-to-understand summary of your finances.
Besides presenting all your financial information, Mint can help you monitor your bills, payments and other transactions. The app also displays your TransUnion credit score and gives you actionable tips to improve it.
To make it easy to tell where your money is, what it’s doing and how you can improve your finances, Mint renders all data in stylish charts with large text.
Intuit, Mint’s parent company and the powerhouse behind TurboTax and Quickbooks, employs the latest technology and security measures to ensure customers’ personal and financial information is safe.
If you’re using an Apple Device, make sure it uses iOS 10 and above to be able to use the Mint app.
Where to get the app: Download for free on the App Store or Google Play.
The Takeaway
Money-saving apps can be a great tool for improving both your spending and saving habits.
These apps offer a variety of saving incentives, ranging from auto-save functions to goal setting and regular spending insights to help you pinpoint areas in which you can cut down on your spending.
Remember, there’s no one best money-saving app for everyone. The best app will depend on your unique needs and goals.
Saving money while in debt is almost impossible. If you have credit card debt and need debt relief, contact us today to see if we can help you, too!
