Best Money-Saving Apps in 2022
If you are having trouble saving money, you are not alone. Many people find it hard to put funds aside for later use. Meanwhile, there are mobile apps that can save money for us. These digital tools are helping millions of people control their spending effortlessly. Read this post for the best money-saving apps. It also has precise answers to some frequently asked questions about how to save money.
How Do Modern Apps Help You Save Money?
Today’s money-saving apps can help you improve your saving and spending habits. Many of them use advanced technology to work automatically. They use artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide deep and meaningful insight into your financial situation. You only need to link an automatic savings app with your bank accounts, set your saving goals, and allow it to help you handle many tasks, including moving money from your bank and safely putting it aside regularly.
Pros
- They make budgeting and saving money easy and interesting.
- They reduce your likelihood to spend by keeping your funds in separate accounts.
- Your funds at some money-saving apps are insured by the FSCS, which is the Financial Services Compensation Scheme of the United Kingdom.
- Automatic savings apps require little to no effort from you.
- Money-saving apps help you form good saving habits.
- Some money-saving apps pay interest.
- Some apps offer extra perks like access to airport lounges, discounts, and cashback when you use their cards abroad or locally.
Cons
- Many of them require personal information for account registration – a privacy risk to worry about.
- They require you to have a smartphone to use them.
- Some do not offer interest on savings.
Best Money Saving Apps
The best money-saving apps are those that offer a variety of features for wise budget management and cash generation. They are also safe and secure. There are many of them on the market. Below are our top picks.
Nexo
Key features: Nexo is an app for buying, selling, swapping, and growing your crypto wealth. It is a mobile-friendly tool for managing your funds and making 1 to 10 free ATM withdrawals monthly, depending on your loyalty tier. With its Mastercard card, you can get 2% rewards on your purchases and earn interest on your crypto and stablecoins every day.
Fees: €1.99 ATM withdrawal fee after running out of free withdrawals.
Revolut
Key features: Revolut is a powerful and “revolutionary” app that can manage all things money, including fiat and crypto payments. It also offers travel perks and different investment opportunities. Moreover, you can use Revolut for smart savings and effortless payments with its variety of Mastercard cards.
Fees: Monthly fees vary, depending on your plan – Standard: free; Plus: £2.99; Premium: £6.99; Metal: £12.99.
W1TTY
Key features: W1TTY is a financial service and app for saving, earning, and controlling your money. It offers cashback, virtual and physical debit cards, free instant money transfers, bill splitting, and a contactless Visa card. In providing its services, W1TTY has another important mission: “to put the younger generation in control of their finances”. Through a combination of personalised banking and digital intelligence, including spending analysis, gamified learning, made-to-measure finance plans, cashback, and reward schemes, W1TTY’s AI-led tools aim to empower its users to live a healthy financial lifestyle.
Fees: €5 for delivery of replacement card.
Monese
Key features: Monese is a mobile app for saving, spending, and sending money. It offers pots and Raisins for smart savings, putting your money aside until you are ready to spend it. Also, you can open a joint account or a business account without delays.
Fees: Charges €4.95 for card replacement and €1.5 for ATM withdrawals.
Starling Bank
Key features: Starling Bank is an award-winning neobank that offers a variety of accounts for people to get more from their money. You can open a personal, business, or joint account. Starling Bank issues a Mastercard contactless card which can be used anywhere Mastercard is accepted.
Fees: 2% currency conversion fee.
bunq
Key features: bunq makes life easy through mobile banking. It offers four options for anyone to open an account: Easy Savings, Easy Bank, Easy Money, and Easy Green which comes with a free bunq Metal Card. The Easy Savings account can be opened for free within five minutes. In addition, you can get a bunq Mastercard card for convenient payments and cash withdrawals.
Fees: Easy Bank, €2.99/month; Easy Money, €8.99/month; Easy Green, €17.99/month.
Monzo
Key features: Monzo is a neobank that offers an account with which you can organise your money in digital pots or envelopes. Its competitive interest, metal bank cards, and extensive phone and travel insurance allow you to put money in your hands. You can earn up to 2.57% annual interest on your savings with Monzo.
Fees: 3% on every withdrawal above £250 within 30 days; £5 for delivery of replacement card.
Wirex
Key features: Wirex lets you have full control over your fiat money and cryptocurrencies. It does not charge any fees for fiat-to-fiat exchanges and offers a multicurrency account with a Visa card. As of July 2022, Wirex supports effortless exchange of nine traditional currencies, which include EUR, GBP, USD, CAD, and RON, as well as nine cryptocurrencies, including BTC, LTC, ETH, WXT (its own crypto), NANO, and XRP.
Fees: Standard, free; Premium, €9.99/month; Elite, €29.99/month.
Best Ways to Save Money
In addition to using money-saving apps, anyone finding it difficult to save money on their own should try to learn new habits. Otherwise, they may not get the most from having such an app. Therefore, we recommend doing things in the following ways that help people save money:
- Set savings goals:
The amount of money you need to put aside regularly will depend on what you plan to spend later. Therefore, decide whether you want to save towards a short-term goal like a professional development course or a long-term project such as your retirement.
- Record your expenses:
Keep a note of all your expenses, including payments at grocery shops, restaurants, salons, and supermarkets, as well as utility costs and money transfers. Write them in separate categories. This will give you a clear picture of your spending habits, so you know where your money goes.
- Set and review your spending limits:
Knowing what your spending habit looks like will help you to set limits on the things you pay for or buy. If you do this weekly, you might see a need to reduce (or increase) the limits when you start earning less (or more) money. There are various ways you can cut back on your spending: you can set an “eat/drink out” limit; use second-hand shops occasionally; or delay a purchase for about 30 days to see whether you will still have a need for it (that is, using the 30-day rule). That way, you will “magically” cut your overspending and save good money with time.
- Budget for savings:
In one of our previous posts, we wrote about the best apps for personal budgeting and explained the three popular methods of creating a budget. One of them is the 50-20-30 principle, where each number represents a share of your income that should go into payments for needs (such as food and accommodation), savings, and wants, respectively. Based on this principle, 20% of your periodic earnings should always go into your savings account.
- Check your account history regularly:
Try to check your bank account regularly. This will help you see any incorrect charges from your account, a sudden increase in a regular subscription, or a continuous payment for a service you no longer need. Should you find any strange transactions, you can contact your bank to fix them. We recommend that you use the online or mobile banking option of your financial institution to regularly check your account history.
How to Stop Spending on Unnecessary Things
Below are some tips to help you avoid spending your money on things that are not necessary:
- Focus on your needs:
Create a list of your needs and wants and focus on spending more on the former than the latter. For example, luxury shopping is a want that is not necessary when you are struggling to save money.
- Shop with a list:
Do not go to the store without a list of the things you need to buy. That way, you can stay focused on spending on your needs and avoid other “attractive” items on display.
- Bring lunch from home:
If you commute to and from your place of work, it is incredibly simple to get used to buying your lunch at a nearby restaurant every day. But this is not a good savings habit. Instead, try to cook and pack your own lunch to take to your workplace often. You will be surprised at how much you will save in a short time.
FAQ
Get an automatic money-saving app!
Using advanced technologies, automatic money-saving applications determine how much you can afford to save and then automatically transfer that amount from your bank account to a virtual savings account. Thus, they help you save money with little or no effort from you.
The 30-day rule refers to the practice of taking 30 days to think about something you suddenly feel like buying. The idea is that if you still see a need to purchase the item after about a month of pondering over it, then go ahead. That way, you can stop spending on unnecessary things.
Money-saving apps come with electronic features that help you to gain small cash rewards or allow you to keep aside a share of your money in the bank for later use in the future.
You should have your annual income saved at the age of 30. It is a general rule of thumb.
The easiest way to save $1000 in 3 months is to put aside at least $11 daily, $83 weekly, or $333 monthly.
Conclusion
In modern times, the best money-saving apps include those that offer various features for growing your income and limiting your expenses. They provide digital pots or envelopes, cashback, loyalty programmes, automatic savings, investment, spending cuts, and anything else needed to manage money wisely.
In this post, we have given you a list of the best money-saving apps to use. They can help you develop good saving and spending habits to increase your available cash. Use them because they will benefit you!