BEST BUDGETING APPS PH | Managing Your Finances | Budgeting Basics

I downloaded and tested over 20 apps for you guys. Hi everyone, it's Charm again from Ready to Adolt Philippines, a channel about personal finance, entrepreneurship, and adulting how-tos. The season of spending is here, and that means that budgeting is more important than ever. So I posted these polls a few months ago over at our Facebook group, and of course in our Instagram stories, and the results are here. I've been tinkering with these apps for a couple of months now, and I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on them. But just take note that I'm reviewing it solely on the free app version. And someone who has been using this app for years might have a different opinion and experience than I did. I categorized them into four kinds, and I'm not gonna go too deep into these because this can be a separate video. What I wanted to do with this video is to suggest apps that you can try out for your method of budgeting. So with that said, let's start the video. So the first app category is the envelope system. If you're not familiar with the envelope system, it's basically a cash system where you stuff cash in different envelopes marked with different budgets. So for example, you have a grocery budget, a rent budget, an electricity or utilities budget, you have an eating out budget. And if you ran out of cash, let's say, in your eating out budget, then that means that you can no longer eat out because your budget doesn't allow you to anymore. And usually it's by month. And this method of budgeting is actually great for people who want to develop a self-discipline when it comes to managing their finances. So when you're new to personal finance, this is typically a really good method of budgeting to start out with. And the app that I recommend for the envelope system is called Money Lover. And this is available on iOS and Android. It's free for both. It does have some ads that pop up here and there. It has the daily reminder feature, which I know a lot of people like. And it also has a free passcode feature. You can connect your bank account, but it's only available for Metro Bank. And it's Php 1,290 per year. So I don't think it's worth it to spend that money if it's just gonna be connecting one kind of bank here in the Philippines. And it's easier to do it just manually. The subscription for this is originally Php 1,098. And that's for lifetime already, which I love. I usually prefer it when it's already a one-time pay rather than a monthly subscription. But during the two months that I've tested this out, it's always at Php 549. So I think that's like a permanent discount that they're giving out. So Php 549 to Php 1,098 for a lifetime subscription. So the user interface is pretty simple and direct. The icons are really cute, which I really like. And one of the cons is that sometimes it has too much ads. And also you only have one wallet and one cash. So one can be like a bank account and then one is the cash on hand. But if you want to put in all your bank accounts, then you have to upgrade to premium. Another app that's also great for people who are used to the envelope system or want to practice the envelope system is GoodBudget. The reason why it wasn't my top pick is because of the price. The app itself is actually quite good. It's very similar to Money Lover. The thing is, it's Php 369 a month or Php 3,090 a year. Another is, of course, Fudget. I've also mentioned them before. For me personally, it's too simple. But again, if you like the simplicity, then try out Fudget as well. The next category of budgeting app is the All-in-One app. The All-in-One apps, as the name suggests, have all your financial data in one place and you can easily track all your bank accounts, even your investments, your credit cards, and the cash on hand that you have. So basically, you can see the entire overview or your net worth through the app. If you're someone who doesn't like using excels or spreadsheets, then these apps might be for you. For this type of app, I actually have a lot of top picks but let's start with the Wallet app. The Wallet app was very highly recommended by you guys and I checked it out and I really love the interface. It's also free on iOS and Android. There are no ads which a lot of people love. There's no daily reminder so maybe you can just manually use your phone alarm for that. It also has a free passcode feature as well and you can also link banks but it's limited to BPI, BDO, and Metrobank. It has more options than the first one but it's still pretty limited and it's also available for premium. The premium charge is Php 289 per month or Php 1,109 a year or a one-time payment of Php 2,490 so that's lifetime. And the reason why this is more expensive than the first one because if you're someone who doesn't like using spreadsheets and everything is on this app, I think that it's worth it to spend a little more for the premium. So the user interface of the app is also pretty clean. It's pretty detailed and really easy to use. A thing that I love about the app is you can actually customize the dashboard so depending on what you want to see whether you want to see a pie chart or you want to see an update on your net worth or etc then you can customize the home page of the app. And a con of the app is that it is limited to three accounts. Again, more than the first app that we talked about because it's also an app for an all-in-one thing so I feel like three accounts is actually quite good for, you know, a free version. So the runner-up for this is the Money Manager which was also highly suggested by you guys and the reason why I had to mention a runner-up is because this is way cheaper than the first option. It's P199 for lifetime. It's also free on iOS and Android. It does have some ads. It also has the daily reminder feature and the passcode feature but you can't connect any banks which it's okay because you can all input it manually anyway. The thing about this app is that it can look overwhelming at first but once you get to know the app, it's actually pretty simple and comprehensive. So if you feel like you didn't really like the wallet app then you can also check out the Money Manager. There's a third runner-up and if you're an Android user then you might want to check out BlueCoins as well. BlueCoins is actually made by Filipinos so it's not available on iOS. That's why it wasn't my topic but it's actually a pretty good app as well at P325 per lifetime. Other apps that you can check out are Banktivity 7 and also Andromoney which is free on Android but not on iOS. So yeah, if you didn't like the other apps that I suggested then you might want to check those out as well. I just want to give you guys options, okay? Let's move on from the all-in-one app. So the third category for the budgeting apps is the supplementary app. This category of apps are best paired with a good old-fashioned spreadsheet or Excel. So this is what I personally use. They can be very similar to the all-in-one app but it's less extensive and less comprehensive and it's best used for the very simple but very important need of tracking your daily expenses. So it's very straightforward. It's best when you're just inputting income and expenses and that's it because you're going to be transferring everything to the Excel spreadsheet anyway. If you guys have been watching my previous videos you guys would know what app I chose for this and it's called Monify. I've talked about this app a lot of times and this is what I personally use. So naturally, I would recommend it to you guys as well. It's free on iOS and Android. It doesn't have ads which I love but it also doesn't have the daily reminders. So what I usually do is I use the built-in alarm in my phone and I set a reminder every 9 p.m. to jot everything down in my Monify app to jot everything down, to input everything in my Monify app. It does have the passcode feature for free but you can't connect any banks to it. But, and here's the best part, it's only Php 149 to upgrade to premium and that's a one-time pay. It's pretty worth it for me. The user interface is super simple. It's clean and I love that there's always a pie chart at the home page. The colors are very easy in the eyes, the design as well. Can you just tell I really love this app? It's not even sponsored. They should really sponsor me. So yeah. But yeah, joking aside, the main pro for me is really the chart type. I love seeing everything that I spend easily summarized in a chart and a con would be someone commented that they don't have the option to see your expenses quarterly. So they have, I think, daily, weekly, monthly, and annually. So they don't have a quarterly chart which a lot of people measure their net worth quarterly. So if that's a deal breaker for you, then you might want to check out some other apps. Spendy. Spendy is kind of an all-in-one app as well but I placed it here because the free version is pretty limited. So basing it on the free version, this is more of the simplified tracking in common expenses kind of app. So I added this last app category. If you're a beginner or if you're someone who gets intimidated with all the numbers, the charts, or the graphs, then these apps might be for you. These apps are great to get your foot through the door of budgeting and these apps aren't really enough for the long run or for the long term. I really recommend the first three that I mentioned but it's really fun, it's really cute, and it incentivizes you to input your expenses or your income. So I had to include it in this list. My top pick is called Moni or Moni? I'm not very sure. M-O-N-N-Y. And it's the app with the rabbit or bunny logo. As I mentioned, cute, kawaii. I don't know if I said that right. This was my top pick because this was the most comprehensive. So if you're someone who visually likes cute things, this will really encourage you to track your expenses. So it's free on iOS and Android. It doesn't have ads, again, which is great. They have the daily reminder but the passcode is only for premium. But the premium is only P149 per lifetime. It doesn't link your banks. Again, the user interface is cute and the mascot is a bunny and it talks sometimes. So yeah, why not? So a con for me would be the charts, the graphs, the top expenses are only available for premium. I get that this is for beginners and it's really beginner-friendly but also the premium isn't so expensive. So it's not even that big of a con. So some other apps that I recommend for beginners are Accountbook. It's also very cute. It's actually a Japanese app. So again, very kawaii. So the other one is called Fortune City. And for this app, it's actually a gamified version of a budgeting app. So if you're someone who likes games similar to like Sim City, I think you're building like a town or a neighborhood. And every time you input data like income or expenses then your town becomes bigger and you become a better mayor. So if you're someone who wants, again, to get your foot through the door of budgeting like you're really bad at it and you feel like you really need some incentives to budget other than the fact that you are gonna be much better with your money if you budget other than that incentive then you might want to try out cute and fun apps. So yeah, let's wrap this up. When it comes to looking for a budgeting app of course you want to look for something that works for you. Like for me, Monify worked for me but when I suggested it to people some people preferred other apps and that's okay because personal finance is personal so it's not a cookie cutter for everyone. Personally, the best tool for me is really still a spreadsheet but I understand that a lot of people don't like dealing with spreadsheets. So it's really great if these apps can help you start your financial journey by knowing where your money goes. And I am going to link down below a summary of the 14 apps that I decided to keep and share with you guys. I tested more than 20 apps but I deleted a few because some were not free some were not in English and some were just really bad and I want to save you guys the hassle of trying out bad apps. So yeah, if you want a more comprehensive overview of all the apps that I've mentioned how much they are, what features they have the pros and cons and etc I will be linking the spreadsheet down below and if you appreciate this video and me testing over 20 apps over two months then please give this video a like. Share this video to your friends and to your families especially if they're looking for new apps or they're starting to budget especially because of the new year and of course, don't forget to subscribe and hit the notification bell so you get notified every time I upload another video which is every Sunday at 6 p.m. And if you guys want to see more of me then please follow me on Instagram Again, I know that adulting is already hard but personal finance really doesn't have to be that's why I make these videos for you guys. This has been Charm from Ready2Adult Philippines and I will see you on my next video. The season of spending is here and that means that Oh no, what happened?