4 of the best expense tracker apps to help you budget

The best way to get ahead financially is to make and stick to a budget. This allows you to create a cash surplus, which you can save and put toward your goals – whether it’s buying or renovating a home or investment property, getting a new car, saving more for retirement, or paying for your children’s education.

A good budget ensures that you are not spending more than you earn, accumulating unnecessary or bad debts, or becoming unable to repay your debts. This way, you will maintain a good credit history and credit score, which is important when it comes time to approach lenders for help with those major life goals.

There are dozens of great free or affordable personal finance apps available for Australians that have robust budget tracking capabilities. Here are four of our favourites:

Pocketbook (getpocketbook.com)

This budgeting app lets you track all of your expenses to find out your monthly spend. It connects to your bank account and tracks your income and expenses automatically for you. Pocketbook can also automatically organise your spending into categories, such as clothes, groceries and fuel, showing you where your hard-earned cash is actually going and where you can save.

Cost: Free
Available: Android and iOS

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MoneyBrilliant (moneybrilliant.com.au)

MoneyBrilliant connects to over 200 financial institutions, so even if your accounts aren’t all in one place you can still get a single snapshot of your finances. Connect your bank accounts, credit cards, loans, mortgages, superannuation, and even your loyalty cards. You can set ‘money priorities’, categorise your spending transactions, and get reminders when bills are due in order to avoid late payments.

Cost: Try MoneyBrilliant Basic for free or pay a monthly subscription for MoneyBrilliant Plus to access more advanced features.
Available: iOS and Android

ASIC’s TrackMySpend (from moneysmart.gov.au)

ASIC’s free TrackMySpend is an easy-to-use app with great features. Track your weekly household budget, costs for special events such as weddings or holidays, work or travel expenses, and miscellaneous expenses such as coffees. Nominate a spending limit per week, fortnight, month or year and see at a glance how you are travelling. Separating ‘needs’ from ‘wants’ allows you to identify opportunities to save, while adding tags to categories expenses can let you set spending limits for categories such as ‘eating out’ or ‘clothes’.

Cost: Free
Available: Android and iOS

Wally (wally.me)

Wally lets you balance your income and expenses to better understand how you’re spending your money. It’s simple, easy to use and intuitive. With a 360-degree look at your money – what’s coming in, what’s going out, what you’ve saved, and how you’ve budgeted – it’s easy to ‘set and forget’ your budget and keep moving toward your financial goals.

Cost: Free
Available: Android and iOS

Another important part of staying on top of your finances is knowing what’s in your credit history. Your credit score is what lenders look at when assessing whether you’re a good loan risk. Get a free copy of your credit report today.