Manage your money better with these tools

Do you have a smartphone or a personal computer? Do you have access to the internet? Then, your money management worries end right here.

The exponential growth of technology has enabled greater access to interesting and effective applications that make our lives much easier. Money management involves 5 different aspects--savings, expenses, planning, financial goal-setting and earnings management. With a multitude of apps available in the market, here are 5 tools you shouldn’t miss for a financially stress-free lifestyle:

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Personal savings

You might be an expert when it comes to handling business finances, but managing your personal finances is a totally different ballgame. BudgetSimple is a simple and easy-to-use personal finance tool that lets you plan budgets and create extraordinary savings. This tool specifically analyses your spending tenets, suggests possible areas where you can save money and eliminates the need for paychecks. This is a free web application that can be linked to your personal bank account. BudgetSimple is user-friendly and also offers project reports and graphs reviewing your savings.

Expense management

Mint Bills (formerly Check) is a perfect financial expenses partner that lets you spend and manage money at ease. This secured platform performs five extraordinary things—it can be linked to your bank accounts, alerts you during bill payments, notifies when your balance is insufficient, records expenses and alters complex financial situations. As Mint Bills does all this for free, all you need to do is check the app frequently.

Financial planning

Financial planning for business owners calls for handling various inflows and outflows simultaneously and, thus, demands a thorough knowledge of accounting. QuickBooks is a business-friendly financial software, also available as an app, suitable for businesses of any size. From payroll management to income statements, balance sheets and account collaboration, QuickBooks can help you with just about everything your business might need. Its features include reminders to perform payroll on time, secured backups in the internal server and one-click reports of your complete financial savings, expenses and future goals. The service is free for the first 30 days, after which you could choose from the various pricing plans on offer.

Financial goal-setting

Do you have questions on financial goal-setting? Here’s a tool that provides answers to all your queries on through a set of simple questions. This is what sets Mvelopes, a free money management app, apart from similar service providers. Mvelopes places emphasis on security and lets you track every type of transaction--debit or credit. How much is in your bank account, how much should you spend, what are your short- and long-term goals? The app helps you answer all such questions and more effectively.

Earnings management

GoodBudget is an interesting application with a very reliable interface that creates budgets based on your income origins. This app insists on the creation of envelopes. An envelope lets you allocate individual amounts for different activities, for instance, one for eating out, another for groceries, one for rent and so on. The incoming cash flows differ, at times, for individuals as pay schedules may vary. GoodBudget permits you to track expenses and identifies incorrect envelope allocations, if any, to help manage your money better. The app has both free and paid versions, with its PLUS plan starting at $5 per month.

Financial planning is the first step to getting to your financial goals. Money is not going to flow in until you manage the existing money.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)