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Keeping yourself on a budget is challenging. Between subscriptions, auto-paid bills, and recreational expenses like eating out, movie tickets, or trips to sporting events, remembering what you’ve spent, when you’ve spent it, and what you’ve got left until your next payday can be a lot. That’s where technology comes in — a sea of apps out there can help you budget and save. With so many choices out there, how do you know which ones are the best for you? That’s where we come in. Let’s break down some of the best choices out there to help you get your budget squared away.
EveryDollar
EveryDollar is a fantastic tool that helps you keep track of your spending and where every dollar is going. Some of its most notable features include the ability to track when you’re getting paid, allowing you to know when to schedule spending like bills or subscription fees.
You can also split transactions. For example, let’s say you went to Target or Walmart to get groceries, but while you were there, you also bought that pair of shoes you’ve been eying for a couple of months. With EveryDollar, you can split the bill from your grocery store trip into multiple line items, allowing you to keep every dollar accounted for.
Simplifi
Simplifi is the mobile app for Quicken; it’s not the mobile version of the service Quicken provides, but its automated procedures go a long way toward helping you budget and save. It allows you to create spending plans by analyzing both your expenses and your income to tell you where you’re spending your money and how you can save it better.
You can also set up watch lists and spending limits, which means that if you find yourself spending too much on certain things, like, say, eating out or concert tickets, you can cap those budget items or monitor them more closely to prevent overspending on things you don’t need. Simplifi does cost $5.99 a month, but with your newfound budgeting prowess, that should be no sweat at all.
Rocket Money
Rocket Money is one of the most popular budget and savings apps around. It connects seamlessly to your accounts, and excels at finding and tracking expenses that you may forget about, particularly things like subscriptions. While it may not have the bells and whistles of something like Simplifi, what it does have, it does incredibly well. It allows you to easily create budget items, track your spending, and automatically categorize transactions into various types for easy monitoring and tracking. If you have a 401k or a stock portfolio, you’re able to link those and other investment accounts, and it works well for tracking business income and expenses.
Rocket Money has a free version, but you can also sign up for either $4 a month (if you pay yearly) or $12 a month. If your goal is budgeting, you can’t go wrong here. 
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Monarch
Monarch’s big strength lies in its versatility as a tool. It allows you to connect multiple accounts, so if you and your partner have separate bank accounts, it makes tracking all of those easier. It also allows you to invite that partner to view your joint expenses without creating a new account and spending more money, making it even easier for couples and households to track their spending together.
It allows you to roll over any excess you may have had from month to month in budget categories. Plus, its interface is incredibly easy to use and operate, making it even easier to see where your money is going each month. Monarch has a free seven-day trial and costs $8.33 per month after that.
You Need a Budget
If budgeting is your goal, You Need a Budget, or YNAB is an absolutely stellar tool. With it, you can set recurring expenses, and track every item that comes in or out, assigning monthly values so you know exactly how much you should be spending and how much is actually being spent. You create buckets for each expense you have, as well as for short- and long-term goals. Then, when your paycheck comes in, that money is assigned to the buckets that need it.
This gives you the flexibility to see where your money is going, adjust your spending, and shift your money around to places where you may need it more in the short term. You can allocate funds to longer-term projects, see trends in spots where you might be overspending, and quickly see where every dollar that comes in is going. Want to up your fun spending budget? You can, and you know exactly where that money is coming from. Want to save up for a new PS5? Set up a savings bucket for it and put a little in that bucket each month. YNAB is incredibly versatile and will help you get your spending in order quickly.
YNAB offers a 31-day free trial period and then costs $14.99 per month or $9.08 per month, depending on whether you pay monthly or annually for the service.
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