Top 10 Best Budgeting Apps in the UK 2021 (Mint, Emma and More)

Budgeting apps were developed for overspenders; people who live paycheck to paycheck and can't seem to get their money to stretch far enough each month. In the past few years, these apps have gone from simple spreadsheet-style programs to entire budgeting, saving and debt-eliminating machines. 

The app will connect with your bank accounts and analyse your spending patterns by considering your historical data. Some also include tools for improving your monthly subscriptions, interest rates and savings goals, presenting the information into easily-digestible graphs and charts. 

But budgeting apps can do so much more than that. They can be pocket assistants, gently nudging you before you indulge in your third takeaway coffee of the day, or letting you know before purchasing that it will take you over your limit. Some even offer options for investing, so there's an app for you no matter your budgeting needs. 

This section will discuss the key questions you need to answer to find your ideal budgeting app. We'll also let you in on some valuable advice which will help you pick the right one for you. Let's get going!

When shopping for a budgeting app, the first question you need to ask yourself is, "Who is this app tracking?". Here, we'll take a look at the three basic options based on the user, or users, that are looking to benefit from it.

If it's just your money that you're looking into, download a basic app geared towards personal finances. You might not need all the bells and whistles that some apps provide as you won't need to integrate various people's bank accounts.

The more streamlined your experience is, the more likely you are to stick with it. Your app needs to have just the right amount of integration to link to your accounts but not so many options that it gets confusing. Budgeting apps are there to make your lives easier, not harder!

If you're in a relationship that pools all or some of your recourses together to pay for joint purchases and bills, you'll need an app geared towards couples. 

These are excellent for organising funds to automatically transfer out of both of your bank accounts to pay for rent or household bills. They also often include additional features like integrating joint accounts, multiple logins, and joint savings functions.

Then finally, there are budgeting apps for families. When you add kids to the roster, financing suddenly becomes a lot more complicated! On top of organising your bills and subscriptions each month, joint accounts for mortgages, rent, and food, you also need to budget for your children. 

School projects, trips, clubs, clothes – there's much more to budget for when your family starts to grow, and it can become a little chaotic. A family budgeting app will allow you to keep track of all of those categories, making sure you don't overspend in any area.

Connecting your bank accounts to a budgeting app makes it much easier to get a clear view of your finances in its entirety, and there are two main ways that apps do this. In order to ensure you only download an app you feel comfortable using, we've listed which style each of our recommendations uses in the specification tables. 

The problem with connecting your bank to an app is that you might need to hand over your bank details to a third party, which opens up another way for fraudsters to access your details. 

Open banking, however, allows you to log in to your bank account directly so that the budgeting app only has access to read your statements, not access to your login information. This keeps your money secure and your mind at ease. 

Screen-scraping apps, meanwhile, essentially give over your bank details to the app so that it can access any transactional information that happens on your account. Unfortunately, this means that a third party can access all of your bank details, including your logins. 

If you use a reputable company, it shouldn't pose too much of a problem, but your banks might not be obliged to help if any money goes missing. Many banks have strict rules about allowing third-party access to valuable information, and if you provide the app with your login details, it could be going against their policy. 

Budgeting apps have developed considerably from when they were just used for tracking your spending, but each provides different services. Figure out what your goals are, then work from there.

If your number one goal is to save more money, go for an app which heavily features this service. There are multiple features that allow budgeting apps to help you save, but here are three we particularly recommend:

• Highlighting wasteful subscriptions is a feature that analyses standing orders. It evaluates your recurring bills and points out where you can cut a few ties and save money.

• Calculating affordable savings targets gives you something achievable to work towards. The app calculates how much money you have to spare after bills, food and luxuries, and works out what you can afford to save. Sometimes we have unrealistic savings goals, and falling short each month can give you a real negative feeling towards your finances, but this feature eliminates that.

• Automated savings works like a standing order. Once you've got an exact figure of how much you can save each month, you can automatically transfer that amount into a savings account. It suddenly becomes much easier for you to reach those savings goals without having to do anything extra.

If you seem to live from paycheck to paycheck, regularly dipping into your overdraft to pay for those unexpected expenses, choose an app that's more of an accounting tool with features such as these:

• Categorised spending organises your expenses into sections like leisure, food, bills, subscriptions and eating out. This helps you budget for all of the areas of your life that require money. It's an excellent way to keep on top of things, making sure that you're always left with enough to last you the entire month.

• Historical spending analysis allows the app to look back across your expenditure for the last six months or so, adding your expenses into categories and informing you where your buying habits lie. It clearly shows where your money is going and where you could be overspending. It really puts your finances into perspective.

• Habit alerts are excellent if you know that your willpower runs at a minimum when it comes to spending! Some very clever (and a little bit pushy!) apps will alert you not to spend any more money on, say, clothes, because you've already spent your allotted amount.

• Debt tools are perfect if you're looking for a way to claw back some of your debt. Once you've inputted all the relevant information, the app tallies up your debts and help you find ways to make regular contributions to pay them. These are great if you don't know what you're doing with loans and need a helping hand.

You're clued up on all of the best focuses, features and functions of a budgeting app, so now all that's left to do is choose which ones to download! With everything from making your first stock investments to apps designed to help you finally save that deposit, our list is sure to have something to keep you on track. 

Seeing as you're already on the road to becoming your best budgeting self, how about trying out a few free apps to see what other spends you can cut down on? Our suggestions can help you skip the costly gym and dating website fees and save money creating restaurant-quality food at home – sounds good to us!

We hope you've found this guide to the best budgeting apps in the UK useful and that it's helped you gain a bit more clarity on what you can do to improve your finances. As many of these apps are either free or offer a trial-period, why not download a few and see which one fits?

Author: Roxy Pratley