Personal Finance

The Best Personal Finance Tools

Over recent years, there has been an incredible surge in the number of useful tools used for personal finance. Smartphones and the internet allow you to check you bank statement on the go, create a comprehensive budget in minutes, and invest your money at the click of a button.

But with so many useful tools out there to choose from, how do you know which ones will really be valuable? We’ve narrowed it down for you and put together this list of the top personal finance tools to add to your arsenal.

New and Exciting Finance Tools

Finance iPhone Apps

Stockpile – This is a newer investing platform that allows you to buy securities from your phone. However, their main selling point is that they offer fraction shares. This means that, if you want to buy a share of Apple, but don’t have $1,000 Stockpile will let you invest with just $50. A good app to download if you’re just starting to invest and don’t have a lot of capital!

Clink – A new micro-investing app geared towards Millenials that lets you link your bank account and transfer money directly into one of their savings accounts. They seek to make investing easier by allowing you to easily transfer money between your accounts.

Trim – Labeled as a “financial health” company, Trim helps you find and eliminate unnecessary expenses or subscriptions. They claim to have saved their users $20 million so far by eliminating unnecessary day-to-day expenses. With so many companies switching using a subscription model these days (Spotify, Netflix, ClassPass, etc.) this app could help you save some cash.

Albert – Albert monitors your bills, balances, and spending so they can notify you if you’re at risk of overspending. Additionally, they will front you money from your next paycheck if you’re in a pinch. Think of it like a virtual assistant who makes sure you don’t overspend!

TwineTwine is a really cool app with a lot to offer. You can either earn interest on your cash (for short term goals) or invest that cash to take advantage of stock market gains (for long term goals).

It’s also great for shared goals, where multiple people can invest/save towards their saving goals and track their progress together.

EarninIf you haven’t seen their commercials, Earnin is a cool app that lets you get paid for the work you’ve already done. By doing this, they eliminate the need to wait 2 weeks for a paycheck. Could be a good download if you’re in a pinch and need cash.

Earnin App

Investing

These apps are perfect for people looking to start investing or plan for retirement.

Acorns/Stash – Acorns and Stash are two of our favorite investing apps, especially for beginners. We lumped them together because they essentially operate the same. Both apps will track your spending and round any purchases you make to the nearest dollar. The difference (or spare change) is then invested in a diversified ETF.

They essentially take your spare change and invest it for you! Perfect if investing is something that easily slips your mind.

Acorns Investing App
Stash Invest App

Titan – “Built like an old-school hedge fund inside a mobile app”. Titan software analyzes top-performing hedge funds and then looks at the top-performing stocks in each fund. They then create their own fund based around these top-performing stocks to try and offer you the highest return on your money possible. 

Titan Finance App

Betterment/Wealthfront – Betterment and Wealthfront are two of the best retirement planning apps on the market. We’ve lumped these together as well because they both do such a fantastic job. 

They make it incredibly easy to open an IRA or 401(k) and set up automatic contributions. As with most apps these days, they link directly to your bank account.

Another reason why we love these apps is because of their transparency. They send detailed monthly and quarterly statements in regards to how your money is performing, charge minimal fees, and use robo-advisors to automate the investing process.

Betterment Robo Advisor

Robinhood – Robinhood is probably our favorite app on this list. They allow you to invest in stocks, bonds, ETFs, options, gold, or cryptocurrency and have completely eliminated trading fees. They also recently announced cash management, so that any cash you have in your account that isn’t invested will earn interest.

Robinhood is a must-have app for anyone who wants to take control of their finances. 

Robinhood Broker

Fundrise – Fundrise has unlocked the world of real estate investing to everyday investors. Essentially, they’ve compiled a portfolio of real estate projects and allow you to invest in their assets.

They boast 8.7%-12.4% historical gains and are a great option if you’re looking for diversification.

Fundrise Real Estate Investing

Nextseed – Nextseed is another intriguing investment option. They vet business-opportunities from entrepreneurs and offer the best options on their platforms to be invested in by you.

This is good for business owners because it helps them raise more capital for new projects. It’s also good for you because they’re bringing you new investment opportunities.

The avenues you can take are either term notes, revenue sharing notes, or preferred equity. If you’re not sure which is best for you, they do a good job of explaining the options on their website.

NExtseed

Budgeting

Organizze – Although there are tons of budgeting apps out there, Organizze is our favorite. It’s just so simple to use and we like the fact that everything needs to be input manually. This makes you really aware of how much money is coming in or flowing out.

Your Banking App – Personal banking apps have come a long way over the past few years. Regardless of the bank you use, there are most likely detailed features for budgeting and spending analysis. The screenshots below are from the Bank of America App

Budgeting App
Banking App

You Need A Budget – YNAB takes budgeting to the next level. This is detailed software (that costs money) to really help you improve your budgeting. However, based on the testimonials from their website, it really works. 

They help people overcome massive debt and break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle.

Best Personal Finance Tools - You Need A Budget

Financial Literacy

These are a few good options if you’re looking for ways to increase your financial literacy or get top news about the economy.

Robinhood Snacks – Robinhood Snacks (offered by Robinhood the company) is one of the best options if you’re interested in newsletters. They will send you top tidbits about the stocks, IPOs, or business in general and consolidate it into a quick morning newsletter. They also offer their opinions on certain topics which is valuable.

You can receive newsletters daily or weekly. 

Robinhood Snacks

Google/Yahoo Finance – Google finance is the best if you’re looking for information on stocks or stock markets. Yahoo finance is the best if you’re looking for relevant news around the markets.

Nerdwallet – Nerdwallet is one of the best one-stop shops for all things personal finance. They have detailed information on credit cards, brokers, savings accounts, mortgages, and personal loans. If you have any in-depth personal finance questions, this is a good place to visit.

Nerdwallet

Business Insider – Although these articles aren’t always specifically related to the economy, this is the best resource for getting top business news.

Forbes – If you’re looking for other news related to business and investing, Forbes is another great choice.

Honorable Mentions

TurboTax – Although tax season only comes around once a year, we highly recommend TurboTax. They make filing your taxes a breeze and even link directly to Robinhood to automate your filing completely. 

Intuit Mint – The only reason that Mint is an honorable mention is that it didn’t fit into any one category. Mint is one of the most comprehensive personal finance tools on the market and helps with everything from budgeting, bill tracking, credit card management, credit score, investing/retirement planning, and bill payment. 

They have a great service for all things personal finance related and we’d definitely recommend their service.

These are just a few of the tools out there that can help you stay on top of your finances. We hope that you found this list helpful! If there are any tools that we forgot, feel free to comment them below!

Kevin Martin

Kevin is an ambitious entrepreneur that is obsessed with all things related to finance. From a young age, Kevin has always been involved with side hustles ranging from online selling to freelance work. Over the years, Kevin graduated from side hustles and started launching multiple online and offline businesses. Kevin is a serial entrepreneur who loves starting new businesses and exploring all things related to business and finance. He is constantly looking for new ways to save money, invest money, and create income streams.

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