The Top 5 Personal Finance Apps of 2015

My phone is regularly cluttered with new apps (I’m sure yours is as well). You’ll scroll through your phone and think “Yeah, I may need that app in the next 6 months,” And then it sits there taking up real estate and you may never use it again.

It’s weird.

With so many cool games, making room for personal finance apps could be a laughable concept, but at the same time, could be extremely useful in many cases. If an app can run automatically in the background, or be proactive without a bunch of work from you, becoming more financially independent than your friends wouldn’t have to be such a pain.

I’ve used and tested out many finance apps and found a couple that stood out from the rest…

1) Robinhood App: This is a hot, new startup backed by some major investors. Robinhood is a Zero-commission stock-trading app. It makes buying/selling stocks super affordable (FREE) and with a easy-to-use interface, makes it actually fun to follow stocks. According to Jeff MacDonald (http://buff.ly/1Oxttfe) he says it’s “Something short of an addiction.” And describes regularly checking his stocks during his lunch breaks. This could be great for young millennials starting out in the stock market without getting high-jinxed by high fees.

2) Acorns: This app I’ve been using for awhile and it’s pretty neat. It’s an automatic investing app that essentially takes the spare change to round up to a dollar of each of your purchases and invests in a mutual fund. Zac Nielson calls it “ The easiest way to invest in the stock market today.” (http://buff.ly/1lvPLSQ)

For example, if you purchase gas for $25.50, Acorns will take the $0.50 to round up to a dollar and invest in a mutual fund. What’s great for people like me who DO NOT understand all the mutual funds is they only have 5 to choose from: Conservative up to Ultra-Aggressive. Since I’m young, and this app is for long-term investing, I put it to Ultra-Aggressive. So far, in 6 months, I’ve invested about $500 without even realizing it. I’m down 3% or so, but (as of EOY 2015) the aggressive stocks have been fluctuating a bunch so that’ll change soon.

3) Credit Karma app: This is based on your credit score which can help you save money when applying for loans. Whenever you request information from the major 3 credit bureaus, they will typically charge you $20 (and then bill you each month until you cancel…jerks). Credit Karma is FREE and now provides you with 1 of the major 3 bureaus scores right away. On top of that, you can see all your open credit accounts, whenever a business requests info etc. It’s very helpful when you are trying to budget what you might need for buying a car, house, refinancing student loans etc. You can also see if there are any surprise collection accounts on your report ( a major hinderance to getting major loans).

4) Digit.co app: Digit.co is new on the scene and backed by Google and other big-name investors. It’s main goal is to get you to save more money. To do this, you don’t need thousands to move at once, just move a tiny bit at a time. It adds up over time. Each month, I move $50 to a savings account and I forget about it. I checked recently out of the blue and have over $1,000 saved just from this. Boom baby!

5) Super Secret App: There’s an app I’ve heard in the woodworks that is going to essentially be a personal finance assistant making recommendations on where to purchase, automatic payments, and ongoing tips for saving and making money. I can’t say more, but I’m stoked for this…;-P