Family budget program

Quicken provides an overview of your banking, investment, retirement, and credit card accounts in one place, and tracks your spending categories for you. Mint is free and supports a large number of banks and other financial institutions. Mint is a well-known and popular app, and it shares several similar features with Quicken.

Intuit once owned Quicken, then it purchased Mint in —thus the similarities. But Mint is different from Quicken in an important way: it is free. This means you will have to deal with ads, but you will get almost all the same integral features you would get with any other app. It allows you to connect with your bank and lenders, sends you alerts when bills are due, and the interface is clean and easy to understand. It does not nail your budget down to every precious dime, so you have some flexibility.

But you can override these entries and create your own limits and categories. CountAbout earns a spot because it offers an easy-to-use and ad-free budgeting interface.

CountAbout is browser-based and offers two versions: Basic, which is most appropriate for budgeting novices, and Premium, which has more in-depth features. If you want an app that automatically connects to your financial institutions and downloads your transactions, go with the Premium version.

The basic version allows you to import your transactions from other sites, but you'll have to update it manually. MoneyDance includes banking features and account management all from a convenient desktop app. This app is essentially a Quicken app for Mac users. It does everything that Quicken and many other apps do, helping you to set up a budget and sounding alarms when bills are coming due. It lets you make charts and graphs to help track your spending.

The homepage is a comprehensive snapshot of your current financial situation, and it is compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux. It also does a few things that not all personal finance budgeting apps offer.

Moneydance keeps track of your investments and helps with stock split and cost basis computations. It may not be appropriate for budgeting beginners, but it has a lot to offer for more experienced personal money managers. Software app Personal Capital is pretty popular and offers a lot of free tools that make it a good choice for just about anyone.

It is a budgeting tool that lets you import transactions from your various accounts, just like most others. Unfortunately, it doesn't let you create your own budget categories. You're stuck with the list the app provides. After you understand how to navigate the site, you can create numerous charts for both spending and savings, comparing your budget from one week or one month to the next.

This app is very well suited to those who want to grow their wealth. Attention is given to the limitations of the family budgets as measures of income adequacy and to their use as indexes of interarea cost-of-living differences.

Briefly, the general limitations of the budgets program with respect to defining poverty are: 1 as measures of income adequacy, 2 as measures of interarea cost of living differences, and 3 as adjustment of factors for various sizes and types of families.

Cons Some user reviews complain of ads, glitches in app, expenses assigned to wrong category. Information about Goodbudget has been collected independently by CNBC and has not been reviewed or provided by Goodbudget prior to publication. No, users manually create "envelopes" and input their transactions. Security features include bit bank grade encryption in a secure data center.

On Personal Capital's secure site. Cost App is free, but users have option to add investment management services for 0. A budgeting app and investment tool that tracks both your spending and your wealth. Yes, bank and credit cards, as well as IRAs, k s, mortgages and loans. Data encryption, fraud protection and strong user authentication. Pros Free to use Includes money-tracking dashboard, plus a net-worth tracker as well as a breakdown of your investment portfolio Offers free investing tools, such as a retirement planner, education planner and fee analyzer to check portfolio fees Syncs to your bank accounts and credit cards as well as other financial accounts Offers Daily Capital blog for financial planning tips Security features include data encryption, fraud protection and strong user authentication.

Cons Budgeting features aren't as comprehensive as other apps Investment management services come with cost. Information about GnuCash has been collected independently by Select and has not been reviewed or provided by GnuCash prior to publication. Allows users to import their bank account information. Pros Free to use Compatible with most computers Good accounting option for startups and small businesses with limited budgets Offers helpful data visualization of your budget with graphs and reports Available in multiple languages and tracks multiple currencies Website offers an extensive FAQ section for user support Users can create recurring transactions and set reminders when things are due Finder tool allows users to easily search for specific transactions Security features include not being an online, cloud-based program.

Cons Double-entry accounting method used may be more helpful for small business owners versus individuals trying to manage a budget Desktop software interface looks outdated. Making a budget can be done in as little as five steps: Calculate your net income: First, find out how much money you make each month your cash inflow.

Your net income is the amount of money you earn after taxes and can be found on the pay stub you receive through your employer. List your monthly expenses: Next, you want to look at your monthly costs your cash outflow.

Common monthly expenses include rent or mortgage payments, utility bills, loan payments, insurance costs, transportation, child care, groceries, dining, household goods, travel, streaming subscriptions and memberships. Also include in this category your savings contributions, such as in a k or high-yield savings account.

Label the monthly expenses as fixed or variable: Go through your list of monthly expenses and now label each as a fixed essential items or variable cost nonessential items. Examples of fixed costs are rent, utility bills, transportation, insurance, food and loan payments. Your dining, travel, clothing beyond the basics , subscriptions and memberships are variable costs.

This is an important step in the process because it helps you see where you can cut back if you need to. Determine the average monthly costs for each expense: List how much you spend on each expense per month and add them all up. Plus, its goal tracking and reporting features help you monitor your progress. YNAB is more expensive than its free counterparts and it takes more time to develop your budget. Despite these drawbacks, it's the best budgeting software for taking control of your money because it gives you the necessary tools to create a value-driven spending plan.

The app is built around its four rules , which include giving every dollar a job. The program will guide you through the process of allocating every dollar so you can spend intentionally. Its customizable reporting and goal tracking features, which include attractive and informative charts and graphs, help you stick to your plan. YNAB also provides comprehensive education, including more than free online workshops, and offers real-time updating so you'll always know where your money is going and can make adjustments on the fly.

We chose Honeydue as the best option for couples because it is specifically geared toward helping you manage your money with a partner.

You can link accounts and customize what information you share with your partner while also communicating about money issues directly through the app. Notifications even alert you to upcoming bills or when you or your partner exceeds pre-set spending limits in your budget categories. Honeydue is designed to help couples manage their finances together and its features are focused on joint communication.

Honeydue makes sharing information about money simpler by allowing you to respond to your partner's transactions with a note, a thumbs-up, or other emojis. You can also aggregate your linked account information to see all of your individual and joint transactions in one place. Honeydue makes tracking spending easy by automatically categorizing transactions as well as allowing you to add your own custom categories.

And while there are fewer reporting options than with some other programs, customizable alerts help ensure nothing falls through the cracks. We chose PocketGuard as the best option for college students because it makes it easy for busy students to see at a glance how much money they have available to spend. Its goal tracking features and intuitive pie chart help even beginning budgeters see if they're on track. And most of its features are free, which is ideal for those on a student budget.

For college students who are newer to managing money, PocketGuard's simple user interface and intuitive pie charts make it easy to start budgeting and tracking spending. PocketGuard's In My Pocket feature also reduces the risk of overdraft accounts by keeping tabs on money available to spend at all times.

While the free version doesn't include as many features as the paid option, most college students will likely find the program is robust enough and can avoid committing to a monthly subscription fee. And algorithms in the program that help you identify and cancel unwanted subscriptions can help college students identify opportunities to keep more money in their pockets.

We chose EveryDollar as the best option for families because it allows you to create a budget in less than 10 minutes that can be completely customized to your family's needs.

It allocates every dollar but makes it simpler than other programs to go through the process as a family. And it instantly syncs across all devices, so everyone can see what's been spent.

EveryDollar is an ideal choice for families who want to take a hands-on approach to budget together and who don't want to pay a costly monthly fee. It allows you to allocate every dollar that you're spending and provides a customizable template to make the budgeting process easier. For those who want added features, including the ability to link bank accounts, upgrading to the paid version is necessary.

We chose Personal Capital as the best option for investors because it offers robust budgeting software and provides a retirement and savings planner with tools to keep tabs on investments. You can track your net worth, monitor your cash flow, and get an investment checkup so you can manage your money all in one place.

Personal Capital integrates budgeting software with other financial tools in one financial dashboard. You can track spending, monitor investment performance in real-time, set retirement goals, and track your net worth all in one place.

You can also access special features such as an investment checkup, which compares your portfolio asset allocation to the target allocation for your age and circumstances. The investment checkup feature is only available on the desktop version, though.

However, the iOS and Android apps still offer plenty of features including interactive tools for tracking your investments and cash flow. Financial advisors are willing to talk with you about your plans, but you can expect to be upsold on Personal Capital's wealth management services if you take advantage of this feature.