Budgeting can seem hard at the best of times. Without proper care and dedication, even the best-laid budgets fall apart. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In this article, we’re going to explore options for apps to help you get your budget under control.
For comparison, we’ve taken a look into several budgeting and expenditure tracking applications including PocketSmith, MyBudgetPal (by Booster), MoneyLover, Sorted, Wally, Buddy and Splitwise. We’ll take a deep dive into each option later, but first, let's take a look at what these applications do and why you should be using an app to manage your budget!
Our very own Quashed is also featured at the end of this article. While not a pure budgeting app, it helps you to track your insurance policies and spending while finding savings across your various insurances which supercharges your budget.
Why an app?
A pen-and-paper budget or even spreadsheet template will only get you so far before things get messy, lost and eventually forgotten. Using an app to create a budget makes sense. They use easier layouts to make budgeting simpler and can provide a useful overview of your financial position.
Perhaps the best reason to use an app is for expenditure tracking. A budget is of little use if you can’t compare your actual spending to what you budgeted. Many budgeting apps allow you to import bank feeds automatically or add them manually yourself. By categorising in and outgoing money, they allow you to easily see how your actual spending stacks up to your goals. This can help you work out how realistic your budget is and where wasteful spending is occurring, and can also help with making a plan to regain control.
Of course, the real value of budgeting apps isn’t in their budgets. There’s little point in making a budget for the sake of it. The real value comes in working towards reaching your financial goals. From paying off debt, to buying that first house or planning for the next stage of life, a budget will make sure you are on track. Therefore, a budgeting app is only of value to you if it can help you to set, track and manage your financial milestones. With this in mind, let's dive in!
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PocketSmith
PocketSmith is the feature-packed budgeting app that does almost everything. Although its free version is very usable, advanced features such as automatic bank feeds and longer-term forecasts require paid versions of the app. For this review, we’ll stick with the free version as we have done for all the other options.
Importing transactions is fairly straightforward on the free version. You just need to download a CSV file from your bank and upload this to PocketSmith. You then tell PocketSmith which columns relate to which fields and let PocketSmith do the rest. Unlike other apps, this app won’t try to guess what transactions are for you. Instead, you have to tell it. However, they do have ‘rules’ you can apply, to automatically categorise transactions. For example, you can tell PocketSmith that any transactions containing the phrase “New World” should be put to groceries.
The dashboard provides a detailed overview of your budget and spending. There are also a number of reports you can run in PocketSmith, including useful ones such as net worth and cash flow. Net worth allows you to add other bank accounts, assets (such as investment or property) and loans. You can even link loans to assets and tell PocketSmith what your interest rate is. This is great for those looking to pay off debt! A cash flow report gives an overview of money in vs money out and provides some handy projections (the free version will let you look forward 6 months). PocketSmith also offers a mobile companion app which offers access to more basic features on the go.
In short PocketSmith is fantastic for people who know their assets from their liabilities. In fact, some aspects, especially while managing bank feeds, will feel slightly familiar to users of Xero or MYOB. We’d recommend PocketSmith to young couples/families (whether homeowners or not) and anyone looking to pay off debt and start building up.
MyBudgetPal
MyBudgetPal is offered by the KiwiSaver provider, Booster, but is available to all users. We appreciate how decluttered MyBudgetPal is, whilst still keeping all the essential and many nice-to-have features.
Linking your New Zealand bank account is simple. Although MyBudgetPal warns customers that they may encounter issues with banks linking their accounts, we found that the process of linking an ASB account went smoothly with no hiccups. Once imported, MyBudgetPal will attempt to categorise transactions automatically. For the most part, MyBudgetPal does a decent job but you may need to give it a hand. Through the Booster app you can access your budget. We’d call the mobile experience good enough, just not as good as some of the others we looked at.
Booster also allows you to track your investments and debt. You can enter shareholdings into MyBudgetPal and see the value of your investments in real-time. You can even link your student loan account held by the IRD! This makes MyBudgetPal great for those who want to see an overview of their position in one place.
Who is MyBudgetPal best for? Anyone whose financial goals involve tracking assets and debt would greatly benefit from MyBudgetPal. First home buyers and those looking to prepare for retirement should definitely check MyBudgetPal out!
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Money Lover
MoneyLover probably has the most visually appealing UI of all the apps we compared. It’s great for people new to budgeting and for expense tracking but unfortunately it doesn’t allow access to bank feeds from any NZ banks (it does support Australian banks, however, so this could be on the horizon). Despite this, adding transactions is extremely simple but does have to be done one by one.
Once you have your transactions in, using the app is a pleasant and straightforward experience. Creating budgets is intuitive, and, compared to PocketSmith, their dashboard is simplistic but tells you what most users care about, or how close to budget you are. Although you can add investments and debt, these features are not as fully-fledged as some might like.
We’d recommend MoneyLover for anyone new to budgeting with a relatively low volume of simple transactions. This makes MoneyLover awesome for students or anyone starting that first job looking to make their money go further.
Sorted
Okay, this one is a tool to help you build a budget rather than a fully-fledged budgeting and tracking app. But before you skip past, hear us out. Some people might prefer the simplicity that Sorted’s budgeting tool can offer.
Sorted’s tool will ask you some questions to get started, such as what your spending looks like and what your goals are. Then it gives you a template for a budget. You can easily enter your budgeted amounts on an annual, monthly, fortnightly or weekly basis, and add in saving and investing goals. Sorted will then generate an annual budget for you and compare this to your income! There’s no fancy expenditure tracking or coding going on here, it’s a simple tool to help you build a simple budget.
We think this one is great for first-time flatters or anyone looking for a simple tool to help them come up with a budget and nothing more. It could also be great for scenario planning, say you want to see how that new promotion or lifestyle change will impact your finances. Sometimes less is more and if that appeals to you, then definitely check Sorted’s budgeting tool out. But if you’re after more advanced features or want to track spending, you’re best looking elsewhere.
Wally
If your focus is on tracking spending, then Wally might be what you are looking for. The mobile app links to your bank account (we had no issues linking an ASB account) and offers unique features to help the app better track your spending automatically and keep you informed. This includes push-notifications for transactions. You can even let Wally use your location to try and better guess where you’re spending your money.
Wally makes a great alternative to PocketSmith or MyBudgetPal, having the best mobile app experience of the three in our opinion. However, Wally offers no desktop browser options, meaning you can only use it on mobile. We’d recommend Wally to those looking for a relatively straightforward experience who would find the app to be convenient.
Buddy
Buddy is a new budgeting app that can be seen as a jack of all trades when it comes to managing your finances. It allows you to create budgets, track your expenses, and share budgets.
Furthermore, the app is fully customisable and you can add multiple accounts for spending and saving, allowing you to see your total net worth. What you have at your fingertips is a fully personalized and specified budgeting plan which is visually curated by you. Bonus points for the ability to have light and dark mode displays!
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Splitwise - For splitting expenses
If you live with flatmates, family, or are traveling with friends, Splitwise would be a great option for helping to keep track of your shared expenses.
When there’s no solid way of tracking your shared expenses, it’s easy to get lost with how much you are spending and saving. Splitwise enables you to track every aspect that comes with sharing expenses, such as total bill payments, what each person owes and who they owe to, as well as any outstanding balances.
Splitwise is great due to the versatility of being able to use it for many different purposes. For example, road trips can be nightmarish when going in a large group, trying to keep track of gas money, food and places you may be staying. Maybe your date nights have shared costs. Maybe you live with friends or family where bills are split. Regardless of your situation, Splitwise easily allows you to quickly add, settle, and track all your shared expenses.
Features you might want to look for when choosing a budgeting app
Even though our list only details a handful of great budgeting apps, there are still countless ones out there for you to choose from. Here are some common features you might want to keep an eye out for when selecting an app to help manage your finances. The table below details how the apps we’ve talked about weigh up with these features in mind.
Rating on the app store
Making sure an app has good testimonials is always a good place to start. The star rating on an app store will let you know how much other people are enjoying the app too. It's important to take this one step further and have a look at the review section as well, just in case anyone has had any alarming experiences with the app too.
Ranking on app store for the Finance category
Most budgeting apps will fall under the finance category unless otherwise specified. Seeing how an app ranks against other budgeting apps is important as it only earns a spot on the list based on how many good reviews it has. The better the reviews, the higher the star rating will be, and therefore the higher the spot on the designated category list it will be.
Free version vs premium version/features
Most budgeting apps are free, however, some will offer a premium plan or features which allow you to be more specific with your budgeting, give the ability to sync bank accounts so you don’t have to manually input your transactions and so on. Some offer these features for free as well. Prices for premium versions range from $2.00-$40.00 and typically charge by month or on a yearly basis.
Shared budget function
There are so many instances in which expenses are shared these days, whether that be household expenses with flat mates, splitting bills or groceries with your family and friends, going away on trips in groups, date nights, splitting gas money and so on. Being able to share budgets is a great feature to look out for if you do have shared expenses so you never have to worry about who owes what to whom, or when things have been settled.
Syncing to your bank account
This feature is sought after as it saves time and is easy to keep up with as the app will automatically pick up on transactions going in and out of your account. Without it being synced, you will have to manually enter in all your transactions, which can lead to difficulties staying consistent in the long run.
Star rating | Ranking on app store (finance category) | Free version available | Premium features available | Cost of premium features | Share budget | Syncing to bank acc (for free) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
PocketSmith | 3.4 / 5 | #55 | Yes | Yes | Plans from $14.49-$28.49/month | No | Yes |
MyBudgetPal | 3.9 / 5 | #35 | Yes | No | - | No | Yes |
Money Lover | 4.6 / 5 | #105 | Yes | Yes | Plans from $2.49/month -$19.99/year | No | No |
Wally | 3.4/5 | Not ranked | Yes | Yes | Plans from $8.99/month -$39.99/year | No | Yes |
Splitwise | 4.7/5 | #11 | Yes | Yes | Plans from $2.99/month - $29.99/year | Yes | No |
Buddy | 4.7/5 | #14 | Yes | Yes | Plans from $4.99/month - $34.99/year | Yes | No |
Data sourced on 26 Jan 2023
And last but not least… Quashed
While not purely a budgeting app, Quashed helps you to track your insurance premiums and policies all in one place. Insurance takes up a big chunk of our budget - the average New Zealand household will spend more than $100,000+ on insurance over our lifetime. Being able to save 20-30% on insurance costs will mean between $20,000 to $30,000 back in your pockets. However, most of us, do not know what we current spend and how much we can save.
In comes Market Scan - the most popular feature within Quashed. It helps to compare prices and benefits of policies in a matter of a couple of minutes. Car, House, Contents, Motorcycle and Life insurance are some of the types of covers you can compare and shop via the platform. In 2023, Market Scan has found that the average insurance shopper could be saving $2,023+ across their cars, house and contents insurance.
Quashed is free to use - save your insurance today.
