

You Need a Budget, or YNAB for short, is another zero-based budgeting app with a slightly different take. Who It’s Good for: People who want to create a zero-based budget and avoid unnecessary spending each month. The Plus version walks you through Dave Ramsey’s seven baby steps to financial freedom, including paying down debt, building emergency savings and giving to charity. There is a free budget app version of EveryDollar or you can upgrade to EveryDollar Plus for a fee. This app, which you can download on Apple and Android devices, makes it easy to assign every dollar you have coming in each month a place to go. The EveryDollar app, created by Dave Ramsey is designed for people who follow the zero-based budget approach. The goal is to have $0 left over to eliminate wasteful spending. Zero-based budgeting means giving every dollar in your budget a job each month. Best for Zero-Based Budgeters: EveryDollar Who It’s Good for: Overall, PocketGuard is a great free budget app for people who are interested in saving money on bills and like having visuals like pie charts to track their budgeting progress. The app reviews your recurring expenses, such as cable TV, cell phone service and streaming subscriptions, and helps you find better deals on them with different service providers. PocketGuard is also a handy budgeting app if you’re interested in lowering your monthly expenses. This financial app helps you create your budget based on your spending habits and alerts you to areas where you could save money. Where it differs, however, is in its approach to budgeting. Similar to Mint, PocketGuard syncs up with your various financial accounts. PocketGuard is another free budget app that’s designed for people who like simplicity when it comes to managing their money. Who It’s Good for: Mint can work well for beginning budgeters or anyone who wants to be able to see exactly where his money goes at an easy glance. Mint also allows you to check your credit score for free and get free credit monitoring.

When you download the Mint app for Apple or Android devices, you can sync up your bank accounts to automatically record budgeting expenses and income. Mint is one of the most popular budgeting apps and it’s a solid choice if you’re interested in using a free budget app to track spending and income each month.
