The Best Free Personal Finance Apps on iOS This Year

With the emergence of new COVID-19 variants, the majority of the world is scrambling to prepare for the next wave of cases, and economic recovery is proving more difficult than expected. Even on an individual level, the pandemic is making managing personal finances very difficult. In fact, Indian and Australian researchers recently found that, globally, the COVID-19 caused a fall in income, even in higher classes. As a result, most individuals are struggling to cope with the conditions the pandemic has brought about.

As difficult as it might seem to navigate today’s economic issues, we actually have a wealth of digital tools that can help simplify our problems — so why not use them to make managing your personal finances much easier?

So without further ado, here is a list of free, iOS-friendly apps from around the world that can help you get started on managing your finances during the pandemic:

For Paying Bills: Prism

App store rating: 4.7

With Prism, paying your bills is easy and stress-free. Simply input all your pending payments and the app will do the rest, tracking your due dates and sending you persistent reminders so you never miss a payment. You can even authorize it to automate your payments for a completely hands-free experience. The app has the ability to pay over 11,000 bills ranging from credit cards, utilities, cable, phone, insurance, and internet bills, so you’re able to have all your bases covered.

Helps split expenses: Spendee

App store rating: 4.5

When running a household that has multiple adults that contributing to paying the bills, it is hard to track all your expenses. With the latest version of the Spendee app, though, you can create a shared wallet and personalized categories to help track all your purchases. The app can even import bank transactions to give you a more accurate picture of your finances.

Best for budgeting: Petal

App store rating: 4.8

If you struggle with budgeting and find it a very labor-intensive task then we have just the app for you. With its sleek and simple design, the Petal app proves that budgeting doesn’t have to be such a painful process. Its comprehensive Spend Planner feature allows you to visualize and track your expenses, preventing you from overspending.

As a bonus, it recently added new insight tools, Top Merchants and Top Categories, to help you keep track of where you spend your money the most each month. This way, you can tweak your spending accordingly, rejig your budgeting, and even manage debts with ease.

Best for Beginner Investors: Acorns

App store rating: 4.7

If you want your money to work for you, Acorns is a wonderful app. This automated investing tool is great for both beginners and casual investors. With its Round-Ups feature, you can buy, say, a hamburger for Rs 249 with your debit card, which the app will round up to Rs 250. The surplus of Rs. 1 is then taken and automatically invested in a diversified portfolio built by expert investors. This helps you – quite literally – invest while you spend.

Best for Manual Tracking: Google Sheets

App store rating: 4.8

If you’re the type who likes doing things by hand, the Google Sheets app has a broad array of functions and templates to meet all your needs. By personally constructing budgets for everything from monthly household expenses to mortgage payments, you can actually feel more involved in the process when it comes to allocating your money as compared to leaving it up to automated apps.

Moreover, Google Drive’s improved search functions and file shortcut system will let you retrieve files you want for budgeting while on the go.

Wrapping it all up

On the whole, it’s now much easier than ever to stay on top of your finances. So what are you waiting for? With most apps being free to use, mixing and matching different apps to suit your needs is a simple way to ensure that you’re more financially free in the future and it also removes a lot of the stress that comes with struggling with your finances.

Leave a Comment