The simple tech tools that can help you budget better

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When I was younger, I was fairly dismissive of the idea of “having a budget”. I just put all my money into one savings account and tried not to look at or think about it. What’s wrong with that?

A possibly even more embarrassing admission is that I didn’t really start properly budgeting and monitoring my spending until I started editing the Money section. And I’d argue I still pale in comparison to seasoned budgeters who track every cent, but at least now I have some level of oversight on my money.

There is a host of budgeting apps on the market.Credit: Michael Howard

It’s all about finding a method that works for you, with no technique being strictly better or worse than others (apart from the single savings account special − if you’re still doing that consider this an intervention. Having a single account is not ideal as it can be hard to differentiate between spendable money and savings).

What’s the problem?

However, there is an array of apps and spreadsheets and templates that can make the whole (somewhat overwhelming) process much easier. But as a reader emailed me to say last week, it can be a bit confusing to know what ones are worth using, or if you should even use one at all.

What you can do about it

Now I can’t pretend I’m an expert on every budgeting app on offer, so I put the call-out to some money experts to get their thoughts:

• You Need a Budget: Renae Vercoe, financial adviser and founder of Money Mode, says her clients are a fan of You Need a Budget (YNAB), a popular paid budgeting app for both iOS and Android. “The app allows you to allocate a ‘budget’ to your different categories of spending,” she says. “You link your bank account to the app and can keep track of how you are measuring up against what you allocated in your cashflow exercise.” However, before jumping into this, Vercoe recommends completing a cashflow spending plan to map out all your expenses over the course of the year. “It’s important to then work out how much money per pay cycle needs to go to each category of spending so you can smooth out your expenses for the year and not overspend in the months when expenses may be lower,” she says.

• Spending Tracker: Victoria Vivente, financial adviser and author of Know Your Worth, backs Spending Tracker, a free app for both iOS and Android that takes a simple, no-frills approach to budgeting. “I use a ‘retrospective’ method, where I add what I’ve spent afterwards into categories using the app,” she says. “I can see afterwards as a reflection on a monthly basis if my spending is matching my goals and tweak accordingly.” Vivente also uses different bank accounts for different budget categories, saying it’s the easiest way to see quickly what she has left to spend in a certain area. “It’s a nice balance of ‘gentle accountability’ where I still have oversight, but it’s not obsessive.”

• Frollo: Pascale Helyar-Moray, founder of Grow My Money, has tried numerous budgeting apps in her quest to “stay afloat” in a household with three children and two adults working full-time. Her final choice is Frollo, a free, Australian-made budgeting app for iOS and Android. Helyar-Moray describes it as “budgeting on steroids”. “I connected it to our bank account, and then it largely did the rest on its own,” she says. “Frollo has an incredibly helpful dashboard, which gives you a real-time position thanks to its open banking connection into your bank account. You can summarise your spending by income, lifestyle, living − and everything is neatly summarised by pie charts too.”

• Up: Finally, my humble contribution is Bendigo Bank-backed banking app Up, which I’ve been using for nearly 6 years. You don’t need a Bendigo Bank account to use it, and it allows you to easily set up savers for different expenses and automatically split your salary into each one. It categorises your spending and lets you track it over time, and warns you of upcoming bills, and it’s super easy to use. For anyone like me who’s keen on a more light touch approach to budgeting, this is a great option.

Advice given in this article is general in nature and is not intended to influence readers’ decisions about investing or financial products. They should always seek their own professional advice that takes into account their own personal circumstances before making any financial decisions.