If you’re like most people, you could stand to save a bit more and spend a little less. Maybe you want to buy a house or car, save up for higher education or a big trip, or just be a bit wiser with your hard-earned income. Fortunately, you already have a helpful tool right in the palm of your hand: your smartphone. There is a dizzying array of personal finance, budgeting, investing, and money-saving apps available to help you achieve your financial goals, but the following is an overview of some of the best:
Qapital
Qapital helps you save money by rounding up your purchases to the nearest dollar and putting the difference in a savings account where it earns interest. So, if you spend $10.15 at lunch, Qapital will deposit $0.85 into the account. You can also trigger the app to automatically add to your savings account on a certain schedule, when you finish the month under budget, or when you take specific actions or achieve goals. For example, you can add $5 to your savings account every time you make coffee at home instead of buying it at a shop, or you can add $2 every time you go to the gym. Qapital users have taken full advantage of this feature by setting quirky rules, like having the app add to their savings every time the International Space Station passes overhead, or when their favorite team scores. To use the app, you must link your checking account, but there’s no fee for the savings account Qapital sets up, and it is insured by the FDIC. You can also obtain a VISA card for your Qapital account.
Clarity Money
Using machine learning and data science, Clarity Money examines your finances and spending patterns and makes recommendations to help you meet your financial goals. What’s especially helpful about this app is that it identifies unwanted subscriptions you may be paying for and cancels them if you choose. This service can be particularly helpful—maybe you subscribed to a newspaper or magazine years ago, but you don’t really read it, or perhaps you’re paying for an unused monthly gym membership. Clarity Money can help you find and weed out these money wasters. The app also provides customized recommendations for credit cards based on your spending patterns, and access to FDIC-insured saving accounts with scheduled automatic deposits.
Honey
Describing the Honey app, TIME magazine said “It’s basically free money.” High praise indeed, but Honey is a unique browser extension that could potentially save you lots of cash—especially if you do a lot of online shopping. Honey scours the Internet to find the best coupon codes for an item you’re buying, and automatically applies the discount when you check out. Honey doesn’t work with every online retailer’s site, but it does cover many of the most popular, including Amazon, Target, and Walmart Grocery. Chain restaurants like Papa John’s Pizza and Domino’s, as well as online travel booking sites like Travelocity and Hotels.com, are also included. In addition, you can earn up to 20% back on purchases at more than 3,700 online stores.
Paribus
Like Honey, Paribus offers a unique service: it tracks your online spending and automatically determines if a retailer owes you money under their price protection or delivery policies. Then, the app submits a claim on your behalf. For example, if you purchase a video game console on Walmart.com, Paribus monitors the site for any price drops and submits a claim for the difference. The app also offers delivery monitoring and can check to see if you’re eligible for a refund if a delivery arrives late. Paribus only monitors certain stores’ websites, but these include major retailers like Target, Home Depot, and Walmart. One slight drawback is that the app can only file claims in accordance with a store’s policies; if the store does not have a price protection policy, you won’t be able to get your money back, even if the price on your purchase falls a few hours after you buy it. Still, Paribus could help you get some money back, and it’s essentially effort-free. Currently, Paribus is only available for desktop computers and iOS.
Billshark
Billshark’s tagline “no bill is safe” explains the service this app provides. Provide some information about yourself and upload copies of your monthly cable, wireless, Internet, or home security bills, and Billshark will negotiate with the utility to get you a better rate. The company’s fee is 40% of any savings you net, but if it fails to secure a lower rate for you, you don’t have to pay anything. In addition, Billshark employs actual humans to contact your utilities and speak on your behalf; some similar services rely on a combination of bots and algorithms. A reviewer from USA Today noted with approval that her Billshark negotiator texted her during the process to ensure she didn’t mistakenly cancel a service the reviewer wanted to keep. The company claims an 85% success rate as well.