:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/GettyImages-2156345694-e953466ec1e949f3b9b19fe44298f42f.jpg)
While it’s always a good idea to consult a financial advisor before making any major money decisions, many apps can help you save money daily.
Here are some of the best money-saving apps on iOS and Android. They can give you discounts when shopping, help you manage your finances, and guide you to save more effectively.
Acorns
What We Like
Automated savings feature makes saving money easy.
Great for getting new investors interested in buying shares.
IRA matching options.
Lets you invest for your kids.
Acorns, also called Raiz, is a popular saving and investing app on iOS and Android devices. After connecting your bank account and cards, Acorns rounds up your transactions to the nearest dollar and puts the difference into your Acorns account.
This loose change is then invested into an Acorns-managed portfolio, which you select, and has the potential to increase in value over time. Given the nature of the stock market, it does have the potential to decrease in value, too.
After the initial setup, all of the savings and investing happen in the background in an automated fashion, which makes Acorns a good option for those who have trouble motivating themselves or remembering to set aside money every month.
Download For:
Qapital
What We Like
The savings applets make reaching financial goals more engaging.
Qapital sends you a free debit card, which you can use to access your funds when offline.
Qapital is a neobank, which is a bank that runs digitally via smartphone and tablet apps and has no physical branches you can visit. The Qapital apps allow you to fund your Qapital account with your existing bank account, manage balances and transfers, and gain interest on your funds as you would with a regular bank.
What sets Qapital apart from its rivals, though, is its gamification of goal-oriented savings through the implementation of applets (small, mini apps). Each applet can be set up to transfer a set amount of money to a savings goal when a specific requirement is met. You can have some money put aside when you meet a fitness goal or when your favorite sports team wins.
Download For:
Shoeboxed is an app designed to save you money by helping you keep track of your expenses for claiming on your tax return, filing an expense report, or giving to a client.
The Shoeboxed app works by using the camera on your iOS device to take a photo of a paper receipt. It then extracts all of the expense, payment method, date, and location information and saves it digitally. This data can then be sent in an email or exported as an Excel document or other file format.
Information from all scanned receipts can also be searched from within the app or on the Shoeboxed website, which is convenient when trying to match expenses with an item or date.
Download For:
Swagbucks
Swagbucks is a popular free service that can be used to earn gift certificates for major retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Nike. By using the smartphone app or the website, you can earn points by completing surveys, watching videos, or shopping through referral links.
These points, referred to as Swagbucks, can be redeemed for gift certificates, and that’s all there is to it. Something particularly cool is that you can redeem Swagbucks for a PayPal gift certificate, which is essentially extra money that you can spend on anything, such as groceries, or deposit into your savings account for a rainy day.
Download For:
Groupon
What We Like
Features money-saving coupons for numerous cities and countries.
Discount coupons for clothing, eating out, events, and more.
Groupon has almost become a household name due to its popularity, and with good reason. This coupon site/app has a huge presence in the USA and abroad and offers an enormous number of coupons for almost everything from restaurant meals to cultural experiences.
All you need to do is present the chosen Groupon coupon when purchasing the selected product or service to get the discount. The savings offered by Groupon aren’t small either, with examples of the type of coupons available including 90 percent off Microsoft Office, $20 off Lindt chocolates, and hundreds of dollars off an Apple Watch.
The Groupon app is free to use.
Download For:
Thanks for letting us know!
Tell us why!
