Two simple spending & saving smartphone apps

Control your spending and saving with these smartphone apps

I am always on the lookout for simple ways to help you control your spending and saving and I have just come across these two cool smartphone apps which can be a great addition to your money saving toolbox.

Weekly Spend Free

One of the hardest things to control is our day to day spending. We can all do our budgeting and make sure we pay our bills but then find it difficult to keep track of our daily free spending on incidentals. A cappuccino here or a new book there can eat into our free cash leaving us all spent before the next payday comes around.

• Once downloaded the set up is quick and easy, just select the start date and set your weekly free spending budget and you are ready to go
• Whenever you buy something just tap the big green 'Log Purchase' button and enter the amount and a brief description, the amount of your spend will be automatically deducted from your weekly budget so you can clearly see the amount still available for you to spend
• Click on the 'Purchases' button at the bottom of the screen to see a log of your expenditure to date
• This app is free but only currently available for iPhone and iPad
• One small negative is the amount of advert pop-ups which can be a bit annoying, buy hey it's free!

Savings Goals (69p)

When you want to save money to buy something in the future you need to keep your motivation high. This simple app keeps track of your savings against various goals so you can easily see how you are progressing.

• Once downloaded you can start setting up your savings goals such as holiday, car etc.
• Enter the target amount you need to save in each goal
• You can also enter any amount already saved
• Set the target date by which you want to save your goal amount
• The app will then automatically calculate the amount you will need to save each week or month
• You can also record any additional extra savings you might make towards your target
• The saving schedule section charts your progress recording your savings made and how much more savings are required to reach your goal
• There is a free version available but this only allows one savings goal to be created

Although there are more sophisticated apps available I really love the simplicity of these two apps and this, I think, makes them more likely to be used on a regular basis.