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In a world with ever-changing technology and thousands of apps released every day, Spendaholics Anonymous presents the best five apps for all areas of your financial life. The best part is, they’re free.
Check out these five free apps to help save some money. (CU Independent/Mandi Meek)
TSheets by TSheets.com LLC
The worst part about waiting for your paycheck is the surprise of the total. Next time, take the guesswork out of it.
TSheets is an electronic time card that you can clock in and out of to keep track of your hours. You could use this app to keep track of the time you spend studying for your classes, but you could also use it to track data of how many hours you spend playing video games, partying over the weekends, or snowboarding. Available for iPhone and Android.
iHandy Tip Calculator Free by iHandySoft Inc.
One app will save you money while at Absinthe House or Hapa with your crew. When you get the bill, you might think it’s easiest to guess-timate the tip. But when you check your bank account the next morning, you realize that in your drunken stupor you left a 50 percent tip. This is why they created tip calculators. Shocking, we know.
This tip calculator is not only practical, but it’s cute. Truthfully, the graphics are pretty cheesy, but they have functions. There are little person icons indicating how many people are to split the tip. Stars represent the quality of service, which corresponds to a percentage point. There is a place to enter the check amount, and finally the bill is broken down into the following: total to pay, total per person, total tip and tip per person. Available for iPhone; sorry Android users, it’s time to upgrade.
Discount Calculator free with Shopping List and Sales Tax Guide Mobile To Go by ChuChu Train Productions
You have to hate when stores have sales that say an additional discount is taken at the register. As a reformed spendaholic, that requires you to either a) try to calculate the savings in your head or b) whip out your phone and punch numbers into your new favorite shopping buddy.
Not only does this app calculate up to two discounts and sales tax, it lists the sales taxes by state. This may not always be accurate because of the type of item you are buying, but it is a good reference for estimating your price. You also have the option to write a description of the product to add to a list. In the list section, all products added are totaled up by original price plus tax, total discount price plus tax, and finally total savings. Once again, this app is only available on iPhone.
Lemon by Lemon, Inc.
Many spendaholics are victims of clutter. As they try to sift through what financial documents are vital to keeping to their budget, they tend to accrue weekly grocery ads on their coffee table and receipts in their wallet. At least now you have found a way to deal with the latter.
This app has nothing to do with lemons unless you have a receipt from buying them. It allows you to scan or manually add receipts and then filter these transactions by category, label month or currency. The best feature of the app is that it allows you to export the receipts, which then sends you an email. It keeps track of your spending in the last thirty days or seven days. This is a quick resourceful app for those who don’t know when to throw receipts away. Available on iPhone.
Mint.com Personal Finance — manage your money, budgets, expenses and bills by Mint.com
The all in one layout of this app is exactly what any budget-conscious consumer is looking for. Mint keeps track of all your accounts including bank accounts, credit cards, store cards, and PayPal. On the website you can set a monthly budget which the mobile app will then automatically follow. It will also keep track of your spending in various categories and track the total amount of cash and credit debt in all your accounts. The alerts feature is handy because it sends you notifications if you are over budget or have a low balance. Mint can also track your investments. Available for iPhone and Android
Now there is no excuse not to know how much your next paycheck will be, what to tip, how much a sale item will cost, where your receipt went, or what is in your accounts. Embrace your inner-techie, and you may find yourself in a budget-conscious state of mind.
Contact CU Independent Assistant Opinion Editor Mandi Meek at Amanda.meek@colorado.edu.
