Best Apps For Saving And Investing

Qoins: Best For Paying Off Debt

Its a money-saving app that does two types of functions as per your need. First, if you have a debt outstanding then it helps you pay it off and second, if you want to save money then you can use it for that purpose.

When it comes to paying off a debt you can pay any type of debt like student loans, auto loans, mortgage loans, and credit card debt. And the Qoins use a simple way in which it transfers small amounts of money throughout the month to make one big monthly contribution towards paying the debt.

If you dont have debt then you can use this strategy to save money for future goals.

Acorns: A Virtual Piggy Bank Turned Investment Account

If you want to dip your big toe into investing while also stockpiling money, Acorns is a micro-investing mobile app that allows just that.

, then link up your checking accounts, credit cards and/or debit cards go wild.

Now, turn on its round-up feature, and Acorns will act like a virtual piggy bank, rounding up your transactions to the nearest dollar and depositing the spare change into your Acorns account. Then it does all the heavy lifting for you.

You can even earn cash back through Acorns. For example, if youve wanted to sign up for Blue Apron, itll give you $30 to invest. Or if you book your next Airbnb through the app, youll snag 1.8% cash back to go toward your investments.

Best for those who are interested in investing their savings and are willing to take a little risk.

Cost: $1 a month for account balances under $1 million

Bonus: Pocket $5 when you .

Available via Apple iOS and Android.

Check out our Acorns review, and read how Penny Hoarder Dana Sitar was able to save at a rate of $420 a year.

Gas Buddy: Best App For Saving Money On Gas

Gasbuddy app help users find gas stations near their locations in the US and different other countries. Their free Gasbuddy card helps you save money on every gallon of fuel you load into the vehicle.

There are many different tools available on the Gasbuddy website and mobile app to find cheap gas prices and stations. You can calculate the cost of your trip for different places, get insights on fuel price trends in different regions and time frames, and gas price maps for specific areas.

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Ready To Start Saving Automatically

If you want to start saving and investing but arent sure where to get started, we recommend Acorns. It allows you to automatically invest your spare change in a low-cost portfolio of ETFs. These ETFs have built-in diversification, meaning you can grow your money effortlessly with this app.

If you decide to give it a try, we do recommend going beyond only investing your spare change. Why? Because while investing your change is nice, its only a start. Its a powerful concept, but it probably wont allow you to retire comfortably with adequate savings.

If youre ready to get started with Acorns, open your account today.

Can You Use Investment Apps To Trade Stocks

Some investment apps allow you to trade stocks and other securities, but that depends specifically on the kind of app and what its designed to do:

• For example, brokerage apps such as Robinhood and Fidelity Investments allow you to buy stocks and ETFs.
• Other apps such as those from robo-advisors Wealthfront and Betterment will buy stock funds and create a portfolio on your behalf.
• Still other apps such as Wealthbase and Invstr allow you to learn about investing or play investing games.

So the ability to buy stocks with an app depends on the app itself.

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Best For Debt Relief: Qoins

One of the most common savings goals is saving to pay off debt. The average American has over $5,000 in credit card debt, and that doesnt count secured debts like auto loans and mortgages.

Thats where Qoins comes in.

When you sign up for a Qoins account, you connect your spending accounts and your online debt accounts like your credit card, auto loan, and mortgage accounts.

The platform has a round-up feature that captures your spare change from everyday spending and deposits it into your Qoins account. Once per month, the companys proprietary algorithm decides where your accumulated spare change is best used and sends additional payments to your lenders to help you pay your debts down faster.

Additional features include:

• Savings. If you dont have high-interest debt and just want a simple round-up savings app, Qoins is still a great choice. You can set savings goals instead of debt goals.
• Bundle. You can use Bundle to set savings and debt goals and find a balance between the two.
• Prepaid . The Qoins prepaid credit card is now available, and a unique rewards program is coming soon. When the program launches, youll be able to use it to earn cash back with each purchase thats automatically used to help pay off your debts faster.
• Learn. Get weekly money tips and financial news delivered to your inbox for free.

The service costs $4.99 per month or you can save $9.89 annually by paying $59.99 per year.

Best Investment Apps Of 2022

Edgar J. NievesTaína CuevasOriginally Published:28 min read

Offers unique social features to connect with other investors

$0 for all self-directed trading

Stocks, ETFs, Fractional shares, Crypto

Lets you invest spare change

$3 or $5 monthly subscription

Highly reviewed broker with lots of experience in the industry

$0 for online U.S. listed stocks, ETFs and options, plus $0.65 per contract on options

Stocks, ETFs, Options, Mutual Funds, Bonds, CDs, Conditionals, Forex, Futures

$0 for stocks, ETFs and option trades

Stocks, ETFs, Crypto, Options, ADRs

Read on to learn more about investment apps, and find out which are the top picks, according to our research.

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What To Consider When Choosing An Investment App

When it comes to investment apps, think about how youll plan to use them. Do you need an educational tool or are you looking to actually trade and invest? Some apps charge fees that can eat into your investment returns, while others have very low costs and offer commission-free trading. If youre interested in trading things like cryptocurrencies, youll want to make sure thats a feature offered by the app or broker not all brokers offer crypto trading.

Benefits Of Budgeting Apps

Its too easy to shirk your budget when you dont have someone or something holding you accountable. We dont have to tell you why budgets are important, but we will tell you a few of the specific advantages budgeting apps can offer.

YNAB, Pocketguard, and Mint are just a few of the best budgeting apps weve found.

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Robinhood Best App For Active Trading

Robinhood is the app to have if you like a smooth interface and avoiding trading commissions, whether youre trading stocks, ETFs, options or cryptocurrency. Youll get to do it all with no commission and using a slick mobile interface that makes smooth work of it all.

Minimum balance required: $0

Fees: No commissions for stock, ETF, options or crypto trades

• You can access a stocks page from a search bar at the top of the screen and then pull up charts and vital statistics.
• The stripped-down app is simple to navigate, and after a while youll move intuitively from screen to screen as you trade the market.
• A feed that aggregates stories from news and investing sites, so that you keep on top of whats going on.
• After youve decided what you want to trade and enter the number of shares to buy or sell, swipe up and the order is on its way.

• Who is it best for?

  You like trading stocks for free and having a simple way to quickly do so.

What Are Savings And What Is The Best Account To Earn Money

Want to get rich? Save more of your paycheck.

People hate hearing that advice. They immediately fire back with a dozen reasons why they cant do that. But personal finance follows simple mathematical rules, like laws of nature. These rules dont care whether you build wealth or not, whether you have persuasive excuses. Your results come down to the simple math of your savings rate and your investment returns.

While investing is its own science, saving money is something we can all understand intuitively, even if we dont like doing it. Still, it helps to know exactly what were talking about when we talk about savings.

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What Is The Best Round

To help your kids or teens save money, Greenlight is the best option. Its designed for kids, gives parents control features, and offers automated savings including round-ups.

What to learn more about money and investing? Signup for me free weekly newsletter.

*Early access to direct deposit funds depends on the timing of the submission of the payment file from the payer. We generally make these funds available on the day the payment file is received, which may be up to 2 days earlier than the scheduled payment date.

**Round Ups automatically round up debit card purchases to the nearest dollar and transfers the round up from your Chime Spending Account to into your savings account. Save When I Get Paidautomatically transfers 10% of your direct deposits of $500 or more from your Spending Account into your savings account.

Best Apps For Budgeting:

1. Mint: Touted as a top pick from both of our experts, Mint is great for beginners and visual learners. Once you connect your accounts, the free app lets you easily view your transactions from the last 90 days, tag different expenses into categories and set alerts if you overspend in a particular category.

2. PocketGuard: PocketGuard helps you figure out how much you have left to spend on all the extras by connecting all your accounts and then subtracting your recurring bills, expenses and savings goals to let you know how much is in your pocket.” The free app gives you a snapshot of how youre spending, and where you might want to make changes, according to Palmer.

3. Goodbudget: For fans of the old-school envelope budgeting system, try Goodbudget, which will help you keep track of your expenses in specific categories. In the free version, you can connect one account and organize up to 20 envelopes, or spending buckets. For $7/month or $60 annually you can have unlimited envelopes and unlimited account connections.

4. YNAB : Cult favorite YNAB uses a four-rule system to help users maintain a zero-based budget, which basically means every dollar you earn is accounted for at the end of the month. YNAB is a paid service , but comes with free workshops and budgeting guides that some of the free apps may not provide.

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How Much Money Should I Invest

There is not a set amount of money you should invest, instead your overall contributions should be tailored to your goals. With any new financial endeavor, the best strategy is often to start small as you get comfortable with the ins and outs. Luckily, many of the apps listed above have minimal fees when getting started. Consistent contributions and proper management over time can help you initial investment grow considerably.

Best Automatic Saving Apps

We all know saving money is important, but finding the motivation or even remembering to tuck your money away can be the hard part. We found several apps that help you save money the way that works for you. Apps that round up change, for instance, move your spare change into a savings account.

For most of these, youll need to download the app, set up a profile, and link your checking account or credit card.

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Simple: Best Banking Alternative

Simple is an all-in-one savings app that offers a free checking account, debit card, and budgeting tools. To help you avoid overspending, the app scans your available funds and shows you how much you can safely spend each week. It can also automate your savings by rounding up every debit transaction to the nearest dollar and automatically moving the money to an FDIC-insured savings account.

Simple banking accounts are mobile-first, so its a good tool for those who prefer banking on a smartphone. But because it doesnt have brick-and-mortar branches, you might look elsewhere if you think youll need in-person help.

Available on: iOS and Android

Price: Free

Best Money Apps For Teens

Money apps are ideally used starting at a younger age and are still useful for teenagers. The ones Im mentioning are specifically geared toward teens.

With cash, its easy to forget how you spent it. Unless you go directly to a bank or use one of the many banking apps for minors or young adults, its difficult to convince yourself to save money in your pocket.

In many ways, the money apps below are better than cash or . Find some more money apps for kids here.

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Best For A Savings Challenge: Qapital

Qapital works like Acorns. You can connect your bank account to the platform to automatically round every purchase up to the nearest dollar. Qapital invests your round-ups in the low-cost ETFs of your choice, giving you a way to use the stock market to grow your wealth.

One of the most exciting features of Qapital is that the company automates a 52-week savings challenge.

The challenge is simple. Start by saving one dollar the first week and add a dollar to your savings goal every week. On the 52nd week, when you save $52, youll end the challenge with $1,378 a decent start to any emergency or rainy day fund.

Additional features include:

• Checking Account. Earn a 0.1% interest rate on your FDIC-insured Qapital checking account balances.
• Multiple Ways to Save. Set several savings triggers. For example, you can set a grocery budget. When you spend less than your budget allows, the remainder is automatically set aside for savings.
• Payday Allocation. You can also automatically divide your paycheck. Decide how much of your check will go to spending, savings, and investment accounts, and it will happen automatically every time youre paid.
• 1099 Tax Savings. Transfer your estimated 1099 taxes to the Qapital savings account to make sure you have the money to cover what you owe the IRS at the end of the year.

Qapital costs between $3 and $6 per month.

Why Savings Are Important

Do you ever want to retire? Then you know why savings is important.

But retirement savings aside, you still need an emergency fund. Life will always throw curveballs at you, from job losses to medical emergencies to car repairs and home repairs. These are the exception, not the rule this month its the furnace that goes out, next month its your carburetor. Thats life, and if you dont budget accordingly, youll find yourself flitting from one hair on fire freakout to the next.

You also probably have specific savings goals, such as saving a down payment for a house, saving for a car, saving for a bucket-list vacation, and so forth. Dont lump all your savings together, or youll end up raiding the account for whatever need feels the most urgent in the moment, rather than your higher-priority long-term goals.

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The Rest Of The Pack In Investment Apps

Rounding out the remaining platforms that garnered a statistically meaningful response but didn’t earn top overall customer ratings are Acorns, Stash and Robinhood.

Acorns was fourth in overall CEI, behind the three Best In Fintech winners. It didn’t achieve either a first- or second-place ranking in any of the six categories among savings apps and investment apps. The Irvine, Calif.-based company ranked third in both rewards and transaction speed and was in fourth place in ease of use and security/privacy.

Acorns says its goal is to motivate consumers to become investors in a diversified portfolio designed by seasoned investment professionals.

Investments span across exchange traded funds, stocks, bonds and real estate. Acorns emphasizes zero hidden fees, no minimum balance fees, no overdraft fees and access to 55,000 free automated tellers.

One review on Bing.com, however, noted that it has “extremely high fees for simply using the app for round-up micro-investing when account balances are under $5,000.”

Best Budgeting Apps For Teens And Young Adults

Budgeting is one of the most useful financial skills you can develop. Because young adults may not have substantial funds, they often consider budgeting unnecessary.

However, building budgeting skills early on makes it easier to handle money once you make more and gives you insight into where your money goes.

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