Personal Finance

Taking Control of Your Finances

With the 10 most useful money apps.

While finances can often be tedious, the ever evolving financial world can open your eyes to a whole new way of looking at your money. For anyone and everyone, this list will certainly provide at least one app that will change your financial life for the better. From investing to active stock-trading to managing subscription costs, this list covers it all. So, let’s dig in.

10: PayPal

PayPal is everywhere. From paying for shopping/services online with the click of a button to sending money instantly to friends and family, they have you covered. PayPal owns Venmo, the popular money-sending app. Their iOS platform will give you access to a digital wallet, home to your credit/debit cards, bank accounts, and, often overlooked, your prepaid gift cards. Thats right — if you have Visa prepaid cards, they can be loaded into PayPal and used for online payments, direct or split. PayPal will even let you send money to other users using them! When online, instead of remembering or finding your credit card number, expiration, CVV, shipping address, billing address, and other hundreds of necessary fields, you can simply click ‘pay with PayPal’ and have all of this information provided for you. There are a few such services with increasing popularity currently, including Google Pay, but PayPal was the original pioneer of this concept and currently is the most sophisticated platform in executing it.

9: WSJ City

Heard of the Wall Street Journal? For anyone actively interested in the world of finance, the stock market, or just wanting to keep up with global news, a subscription to their newspaper with online access is a great idea. But not everyone can or wants to pay close to $35 a month for access. The WSJ City app was designed for on-the-go individuals to catch up on the news via condensed stories, bullet updates, and flash briefings in a simple and user-friendly interface. The app is free to download and doesn’t require a WSJ login. The only downside, however, is that if you want to read more of a shortened story, it will redirect you to the WSJ website which requires a subscription for full access. Either way, with built-in text-to-speech and reading time estimates, this app does a phenomenal job providing quick and easy access to news of all sorts.

8: thinkorswim

Shifting gears, this app is for the active traders out there. If you’re reading this as an advanced financier or even someone looking to get into the world of trading, the thinkorswim iOS app (companion of the extremely powerful desktop app) is a great start. It offers charting and watchlists, as well as access to stocks, ETFs, options, futures, and forex markets. The options chains allow for custom multi-legged strategies with provided risk-profiling so you can build and manage the perfect position. It’s almost too good to be true — pocket access to nearly all actively traded asset classes. If you want to try trading with a demo account, you don’t even need a TD Ameritrade brokerage account. You can sign up for a demo paperMoney account and get access to all the same features with a 20-minute delay on data. That’s a pretty good deal!

7: Webull

Webull is a newer app to the mobile trading space. They offer zero commissions on stock trading and have recently rolled out support for options. This app is for the intermediate retail trader who doesn’t need all the fancy bells and whistles of an advanced platform, but would like simper tools such as charting, technical indicators, alerts, custom orders, and active position management. They have an intuitive desktop and online trading platform, but the iOS app works very well. Currently, they’re offering a double free stock promotion when you enroll for a new brokerage account. Their margin (leverage) rates are low, too, if you’re looking to gain extra exposure. If you feel bored working with simpler trading apps and are looking to incorporate more quantitative elements to your trading, as an intermediate-level trader, the Webull app is a fantastic option (no pun intended) for you.

6: Coinbase

Crypto is exciting. The cryptocurrency market is a hot topic right now, thanks to the explosion of Bitcoin and its alternatives. While everyone can’t stop talking about it, many people don’t know how to get involved. Coinbase was one of the first cryptocurrency brokers in this space. They have a vast selection of cryptocurrencies to trade in any way you’d like (more on this later). You can invest any amount of money into any cryptocurrency; you do not need to spend thousands of dollars to buy a full Bitcoin, you can invest in dollar amounts. Once you own the crypto, you can hold (HODL) it, sell it later, or even move it to a wallet for online purchases, payments, or to send to others via the blockchain network (they don’t have to be on Coinbase! You can send it to anyone with a working Bitcoin wallet). In terms of trading the coins: you can do so as actively as you want, as there are no pattern day-trading restrictions. If you are eager to get involved in the exciting and revolutionary world of cryptocurrency, but would prefer to avoid commonly complicated unintuitive interfaces, buy your first but of Bitcoin with the Coinbase app.

5: Bobby

Netflix alone makes many billions of dollars just on recurring plan chargers from their subscribers. Hulu has tens of millions of subscribers of their own. Those are just the

largest players, but tens of thousands of smaller services charge customers on a recurring basis and consequently rake in the big bucks. With free trials and small, frequent charges, we often lose track of who we’re paying, how much, and how often. Bobby makes this process simple. When you sign up for a subscription service, enter in the frequency, amount, starting date, and expiration if there is one. Bobby will calculate average weekly, monthly, and annual charges and remind you of upcoming payments. For me, this app is essential in ensuring I don’t overpay for services or pay companies for no reason whatsoever. If you want an app that can directly access your bank/credit card statement and check for recurring charges automatically, look into Truebill. Either app will surely help you take control of your finances!

4: Cash App

The Cash App has been growing increasingly popular lately, and for good reason. It is an extremely handy app for sending money to others using your existing balance or debit/bank account. The user interface is quite clean, easy, and even fun. When signing up, users create their own ‘CashTag’, such as $JohnSmith. This cash tag can be sent to anyone, allowing them to easily send you funds. Every user has their own CashApp QR code, like Snapchat, allowing someone else to quickly scan it with their phone and send you money instantly. CashApp has also entered the crypto space, thanks to its fathering by Jack Dorsey. You can use their app to buy and sell Bitcoin directly through the iOS app, arguable one of the most convenient methods entirely. They’ve even added support for buying stocks with fractional shares! Admittedly it’s a slightly tangential integration, but displays their dedication to simplifying peer-to-peer finances. To heighten their credibility, this app is owned by the popular merchant services provider Square — you probably know them from the checkout counters at your local coffee joint.

3: Robinhood

This app is controversial, but brilliant nonetheless. The Robinhood app surfaced a few years ago with the simple though lofty goal of democratizing the financial system. Critics and old-timey brokers scoffed at such a crazy proposition, and yet, they’ve managed to achieve just that. They pioneered the commission-free trading revolution, allowing all stocks, ETFs, and options orders to execute on their platform with no fees. After gaining traction, they added technical charting, margin, level II market data, advanced research, and a sophisticated web trading platform. Now, they have support for all popular cryptocurrencies (though currently you cannot send or receive them like you can with a wallet). This app is not for the professional active traders out there, but I would say it is a must-have for anyone else. The user interface is extremely nice and simple to use, and order execution (even with options) is much better than I expected. Robinhood, I would say, is solely responsible for the big brokers (Schwab, E-Trade, TD Ameritrade, etc.) moving to a zero-commission equity trading model. It’s easy as ever to sign up for Robinhood and buy your first stock, and if you use a friend’s referral link, you can even get one for free.

2: Acorns

Set it and forget it is their philosophy. You walk into a coffee store and buy a coffee for $3.76. This app will automatically ‘round-up’ the rest of the purchase to the nearest dollar, investing the remainder into a professionally managed portfolio of your own, comprised of extremely well diversified ETFs. The model is astoundingly effective despite the simplicity, as these roundups accumulate fantastically over time. You choose your investment risk-profile — how much risk you are willing to take while maximizing returns. If you want as little risk as possible, you would choose the ‘conservative’ portfolio which focuses on bonds and debt related ETFs. If you want to take on more risk to maximize portfolio gains, the ‘aggressive’ portfolio concentrates your money in the stock market and other riskier assets that typically have higher annual returns. (Remember, as always: only risk what you can afford, and when your expected returns rise, your risk most certainly rises as well.) If you really believe in this system, which personally, I do, all that is required is a simple switch of mindset. When the list price is $13.89, it’s actually $14. The rest is taken care of for you — not thrown away, or extra money you’re losing for no reason, but money set aside and invested for your future, later use, a rainy-day fund, or anything you choose. If you’re a power user, they have options for recurring investments — every week, month, or year, automatically deposit x dollars into your portfolio. This app is amazing for building strong financial habits and working towards building a secure future for yourself!

1: Personal Capital

Coming in at number one… Personal Capital! This app isn’t as well known as some of the others, however I would argue it’s the most important. It is pretty close to the sole foundation of my financial life. When you sign up, you link all of your financial accounts, and in short, it will keep track of them for you. It calculates your net worth — what you own less what you owe — and tracks all of your investments and holdings. Across all your brokerage accounts, it shows you how you are doing, not just how each account fairs. This app is not just for investors or traders. It’s for everyone. Bank accounts, IRAs, 401(k)s, homes, cold cash, bond-certificates, etc. are all account types you can link. They can even assign financial advisors to your account to help you manage your overall finances. Every day, they send a report regarding all your financial holdings, cash, etc. and a weekly report on what they call the “You Index,” a measure of how your net worth fared throughout the week. I think this app is the key to taking your finances head-on, truly consolidating them in a way that’s non intimidating and fun to manage.

Sources

• https://www.nerdwallet.com/reviews/investing/advisors/acorns
• https://www.acorns.com/invest/
• https://www.nerdwallet.com/reviews/investing/advisors/personal-capital
• https://www.nerdwallet.com/reviews/investing/brokers/robinhood
• http://www.bobbyapp.co/
• https://www.webull.com/introduce
• https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/exchanges/coinbase/
• https://www.magnifymoney.com/blog/investing/thinkorswim-review/
• https://www.cardpaymentoptions.com/credit-card-processors/paypal/
• https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wsj-city-business-finance/id1046979092

Most Recent Stories

• Building Your Financial Future as a Teen
• The Market’s Big Lie
• The Coming Eviction Crisis Will Be Merciless (Yet Mostly Ignored)
• The “Ask Gap”: Yet Another Statistic Proving Income Inequality
• This Big 5 Personality Trait is the Best Predictor of a High Salary

This article is for informational purposes only, it should not be considered Financial or Legal Advice. Not all information will be accurate. Consult a financial professional before making any major financial decisions.