Managing your money is imperative in today’s economy, regardless of your personal income. Part of money management is, of course, saving money, and there are fortunately many ways you can put money aside.
Whether you are saving money for a particular purpose, like going on a vacation or buying a splurge item, or saving money for a more strategic purpose, like paying off student loans, preparing for retirement or creating an emergency fund, it’s important that you are aware of and utilize your resources.
Like money-saving apps!
Money-saving apps are a totally convenient way to build up your savings with practically ZERO effort. Like the sound of that? I know I do! I am deeming many of these items as “unintentional saving” tools because in many cases, you won’t even miss the money that is put away into savings, or you are being given money back on stuff you buy on any given day.
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Wouldn’t it be awesome to get cash back on things you are already planning on buying? Did you know that you are probably spending more on bills like cable and cellphones than you have to? Are you still paying for subscriptions you don’t even use? Are you interested in saving by investing but don’t know where to start? There are apps to help with ALL of these situations, and more!
We’ve put together a list of some of our favorite apps to save money. I would suggest trying as many of them as you can to really maximize your saving! If you are looking for more money saving tips, check out our list of 13+ easy ways to save money, even when you’re broke.
1. Ibotta – $10 Signup Bonus
Ibotta pays cash rebates for items that you can buy any day!
Install the app and browse the offers available to see what you can earn cash back on. This includes a ton of regular grocery store items (like bread, bananas, and cheese), as well as restaurant and store purchases. So, you might as well, right? The great thing about this app is that if you were already planning on purchasing something, you can get some money back for it.
Go shopping at any of the participating stores and hold onto your receipt! Redeem your offers by simply taking a photo of your receipt and Ibotta will match the items that you bought to the offers you selected. In exchange, YOU GET CASH!
The best part? Cash is deposited into your Ibotta account within 48 hours! You need to earn just $10 to cash out. Ibotta is available for iPhone or Android, US only.
Ibotta is free to join, try it here and get a $10 signup bonus!
2. Digit
Save money, without thinking about it!
What is financial health? To Digit, it is saving money and paying down debt, and their goal is to make both effortless for all. With Digit, users can automate their savings transfers, putting aside money without even missing it! This app is GREAT for people who have never been able to save and people who think they are unable to save.
On average, users save an additional $2,500 per year!
All you have to do is connect your bank account, and based on the app’s proprietary algorithm, the app is able to automatically build your savings within your Digit account. It saves a little bit every day, and a little more when income spikes or expenses fall! Digit is free for 30 days and $2.99 a month thereafter
3. Swagbucks
Swagbucks is one of my favorite ways to save money by doing the most simple things!
How often do you shop online? Swagbucks has a huge, and I mean HUGE, registry of online stores for which you can get a certain percent cash back on online purchases if you shop through Swagbucks. Amazon, Groupon, Best Buy, Macy’s. H&R Block, Hotels.com, you name it!
You can also earn money for simply searching the web, taking surveys, watching videos and playing games!
4. Trim
Smart apps like Trim Financial Manager are FREE, so why wouldn’t you see where you could save money? Trim is like having a mini personal finance assistant. He helps you automate your savings to clean up your unnecessary expenditures. In the last month alone, users have saved over $1,000,000!
Ironically enough, I did exactly that ^^
I realized I had an Audible subscription that I haven’t used in over 6 months so I kicked that subscription to the curb with a simple request to Trim.
With Trim, I cancelled almost $40/month of subscriptions I no longer use – some of which I completely forgot about or was too lazy to cancel on my own! That’s $480 in savings a year! All I had to do was tell Trim to cancel them for me.
- How does it work? Trim will analyze your accounts to determine how much you are spending and where you can save more money. He will find recurring subscriptions and take care of cancelling those that you no longer use, negotiate lower prices on your bills (such as cable, internet and mobile) by up to 30%, help you build your savings and much more.
- Is it safe? Trim is bank-level secure with 256-bit SSL encryption, 2-factor authentication, and read-only access. So, yes.
- What does it cost? NADA!
Try Trim here for FREE!
5. Ebates
With Ebates, you can get up to 40% cash back at over 2,500 stores. How does that work? Well, stores pay Ebates a commission for sending you their way, so Ebates shares that commission with you as Cash Back.
Ebates has existed for years and is super popular with shoppers for obvious reasons. If you are already planning to shop online, and Ebates lists the store that you were going to shop at, why not get a percent of your spend back?
Sign up for Ebates here and get $10 just for making a purchase!
6. Swell Investing
Investment apps are an awesome way to not only save (and ultimately build) money, but to learn how to invest if you are a beginner. If you are interested in investing but don’t have a very large slush fund, a great way to start is with micro-investing. Rather than investing a few hundred or thousand on a stock, why not start with something small?
Swell Investing is one of our favorite micro-investing apps. Investors can join Swell for a minimum of $50 which is AWESOME because with most investment platforms, you need to deposit much more!
Swell is an impact investing platform that helps you invest in high-growth companies solving global challenges. Swell’s portfolios are of publicly-traded companies, innovating in high growth industries like renewable energy, green tech, disease eradication, clean water, zero waste and healthy living. You can build your own mix of companies, monitor your investments’ progress, and watch your money grow!
Related:
17 Easy Ways To Live A More Frugal Life
10+ Fast Ways To Save Money: Even When You’re Broke
7. Paribus
Paribus is an app that can find out if stores owe YOU money! How does it work? You shop online for retail or vacations as you normally would, Paribus will monitor prices online by tracking your confirmation emails and watching for price changes so you don’t have to, and then? You get money back! The app will detect potential savings and help you get a bit of a refund if you spent more than you should have!
Paribus tracks purchases from more than 25 major retailers including Amazon, Target, Walmart, and Nordstrom. They also monitor hotel room rates booked through Expedia, Booking.com, Hotels.com, Priceline, Marriott and Hilton.
8. Acorns
Invest your spare change! Acorns is another popular micro-investing and money saving app. This is because it allows you to invest your spare change! The purpose is to show users that anyone can grow their wealth, because what you are investing is barely noticeable! There are over 4,000,000 using the platform already.
With Acorns, your spare change or extra cash gets invested automatically as you go about your day with Round-Ups and Recurring Investments. All you have to do is sit back and let your money grow over time in diversified portfolios.
9. Receipt Hog
Save money by sharing your receipts! Yup! Submitting your shopping receipts to Receipt Hog will earn you “coins” which can be redeemed for cash via PayPal or an Amazon gift card (which we all know is basically as good as cash!). All you have to do is take pictures of all your receipts and upload them to the app. It’s that simple!
You only need to earn 1000 coins to get $5, which is not very difficult to do, given the fact that you can submit receipts from anywhere! You don’t have to do any additional shopping and spending; just hang on to the receipts you already get and snap a photo when you can!
Receipt Hog is available to iPhone and Android users.
10. Receipt Pal
Receipt Pal – The Friend That Pays You Back! ReceiptPal is just like Receipt Hog in that it rewards you for snapping photos of your receipts. You can submit both paper or e-receipts and get points that can be used toward gift cards! You can also participate in weekly sweepstakes for a chance to win cash bonuses.
11. Betterment
Meet your next favorite robo-adviser! Betterment is and automated investment service that has no account minimum. It offers up to one year of free management before charging just 0.25% of assets under management annually, which is much less than a traditional adviser.
Once the app learns a bit about you and your investing goals, they will build a personalized portfolio with a risk level and investment mix that suits each goal. If you’d like to adjust that mix, you can! Some goals include: safety net, retirement, general investing, and smart saver.
4 comments
I love Trim! It’s such an easy way to save money on your recurring bills! I haven’t used Acorn yet, but I use Robinhood for my investments. One of the selling points for me was you didn’t have to pay anything to get started buying stock which is fantastic.
We love Trim too! We loved how easy it was to find bills that we were wasting money on! We have heard awesome things about Robinhood too and plan to check it out and add it to this list. Thanks for the tip!
I just started using Coinout. Small but still counts on getting money back on any itemized receipt. I also love using Fetch Rewards.
Will have to check these out! Thanks for the tip!