The following is a guest post from Louise Baker from Zen College Life.
If you are a personal finance geek, then you’re probably always looking for ways to save money by doing it yourself. Why pay someone else to do something you can handle on your own? Now, managing your personal finances on your own is easier than ever with the use of personal finance iPhone apps. With the time and money you save, your iPhone will practically pay for itself! There are dozens of these types of apps available through the iTunes store, but here are five must-haves.
1. PageOnce Personal Finance This application lets you monitor a variety of accounts on your phone. This well-respected company has arrangements with thousands of banks, credit card companies, and online retailers that allow you to organize your account and complete secure transaction. You can even check your cell phone minutes and frequent flyer miles in one place. Seeing everything in one place helps you make better decisions about investments and large purchases, and the credit card organizer ensures you will never get behind on payments. There is a free version, but for the premium version without the advertising, you'll need to get the paid version.
2. Bloomberg With the Bloomberg name, you know you can trust this app to organize your investment tools well and provide you with up-to-date personal financial news. The app is free and available in 12 different languages, which could be a major plus for some investors. Investment success and failure can come down to making decisions at just the right moment, so iPhone owners should take full advantage of the power at their fingertips. If you need real-time portfolio tracking right on your iPhone, get this app.
3. Spend - Budgeting This app is a budget tracker specifically tailored to your needs. You can track on any timescale (daily, monthly, semi-yearly, etc.), and schedule both recurring and one-time expenses. Create different budgets for work and home, and easily move around funds. Find out where your money is going so you can make more educated decisions about where to cut back. Seeing it all on your phone just makes it that much easier.
4. DebtTracker Pro by SnapTap Probably all personal finance geeks would rather manage wealth than debt, but sometimes it becomes a necessity. The DebtTracker app manages loan information and creates payoff schedules with reminders. It allows the freedom to calculate different levels of debt based on hypothetical principal payments. It requires you to put in a lot of information yourself, but it keeps you disciplined and on track.
5. Save Benjis This app is popular with both major investors and coupon-clipping soccer moms. It allows you to instantly compare prices on nearly any item based on in-store and Internet prices. With all of the effort you put into personal finance, you cannot afford to lose it all by simply shopping unwisely. But don’t waste your time shopping around for the best price. Let Save Benjis do it for you!
I never expected to see 'iPhone' and 'save money' used in the same sentence, much less in a PF blog.
Posted by: Lurker Carl | July 13, 2010 at 11:36 AM
When does FMF have an app?!
Posted by: Tyler | July 13, 2010 at 11:58 AM
Hehe, that's a good point lurker.
I currently use a combination of Tracfone and an iPod Touch. I admit the Touch was also expensive, but what can I say, we all have our weak spots.
Nevertheless, the Touch allows me to run almost any iPhone apps, including all the financial stuff. My personal favorite is SplashMoney, which has all the flexibility I am looking for, and by setting up dummy accounts, you can budget your money out.
Spend is very good, but lacks the level of flexibility and features that I am looking for, but again, I can vouch that it's good. Even Spend Lite may be good enough if your budget is basic, and that app is free.
I also use Bloomberg, but I don't know the rest and will check them out, so thank you for this article.
That said, I am also in the process of researching a more suitable method for me that would not require a PDA-like device of any kind. Because as much as I like these things, they're still expensive, and I would hate to have to replace this thing some day.
Posted by: Eugene Krabs | July 13, 2010 at 12:52 PM
I agree with Lurker! No iphone, no apps, no financial problems. Beauty!
Posted by: MC | July 13, 2010 at 02:38 PM
I'm not sure what the point of having some of these apps is when I already track this stuff somewhere else. As far as I am concerned the only personal finance app I would really want is my budget, and thankfully YNAB delivered that not too long ago!
In regards to the iPhone and cost I can attest. Not only does the iPhone itself cost money, you then get lured into buying apps! And I have certainly purchased my fair share, although most were $2.00 or less.
Posted by: Rob | July 13, 2010 at 05:24 PM
Dang...all the iPhone haters made it here too...haha.
Well, personally, I really like mine and it's been the single most used product in my everyday life. You can think of it as wasting money but there are ways to reduce the cost and actually save money by maximizing its usage and helpfulness.
That's my 2cents.
Posted by: Eric | July 13, 2010 at 07:19 PM
My wife and I both use iReconcile on our respective phones. It allows you to track any number of accounts. With a single 20 dollar yearly subscription, we can both keep our phones in sync. No more calling to find out from the other if there are sufficient funds or if a particular bill has been paid or when it is due.
As part of our debt payoff tracking, I keep all our debt accounts current in the app. It has been a great incentive for both of us to see the grand total go down each pay period.
As for the wisdom of owning an iPhone (or any smartphone) when you are in debt, we have saved more in bank fees and late fees by having a more consistent and more difficult to lose method of keeping track of our money (i.e. paper checkbook register) than what our monthly cell phone bill comes out to.
Posted by: Malcolm | July 14, 2010 at 12:00 AM
Surprised to not see Mint on here. It seems pretty nice bit with my credit union, if I log onto Mint via the iphone app it locks me out of logging in to the CU's website normally.
Other than that major hiccup............
Posted by: Chris | July 14, 2010 at 07:28 AM
@Chris - thats what I came in to say - I love Mint and use it all the time. I do not have an iphone, but am currently drooling over the android phones and my get one when my contract expires. (chalk it up to personal weakness - but at the same time my work does expect us to have a smartphone, and gives us $50/month towards our phone bill). Mint is one of the first aps I plan on installing.
Posted by: Sarah | July 14, 2010 at 10:02 AM
I'm a long-time FMF'r, and love doing budget/financial things online. Plus, I just bought an Iphone. But I'm also an IT Security professional, and want to put a strong caution out there to folks.
Anything that you are accessing online accounts with money in them, should not be done from a phone, at least not without understanding the risks.
* Almost all phones don't have antivirus or security software on them. They almost never are behind a firewall, and only some are encrypted.
* Most phones aren't locked. If you lose them, and they have the passwords to your bank/brokerage/credit card online accounts, anyone could log in and possibly transfer money or other bad things. It is worse if you have them set to auto-login.
* Some now have capability to "auto-wipe" a phone if it is lost. Check this our for yours if you run these type of apps.
I understand it is also risky to not budget or track expenses. But I would recommend and plan on myself sticking with tracking and comparing on the phone, but not actually logging into accounts with money in them from the phone.
BTW - Kiplinger's this month recommended an Iphone app that takes a picture with your phone of the RFID number on an item in a store, compares prices of near stores and online, and tells you if it is a good deal. I haven't used it, and it might be similar to the one mentioned above(Benjis), but I'm going to check it out.
Posted by: Tim | July 14, 2010 at 10:20 AM
If we ever get smart phones, the first app I'm getting is the one I saw on tv that sounds like Save Benjis - you scan the barcode of the item you want or type in the name and it finds the cheapest place to buy it. Woot. That said, I don't see us getting smart phones anytime soon...the monthly cost is just too high imho.
Posted by: Budgeting in the Fun Stuff | July 14, 2010 at 11:43 AM
Another great iPhone app for personal finance is the Wikinvest Portfolio Manager app. I like it because it lets me keep track of my investments and the markets in real time.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wikinvest-portfolio-manager/id384583497?mt=8
Posted by: Barbara | August 26, 2010 at 05:19 PM