5 Best Free Budgeting Apps to Take Control of Your Finances

Take a ten-minute scroll on TikTok or Instagram and you’ll be hard-pressed not to run into a post or video discussing the rising cost of living. From the increasing cost of housing and rent to the overwhelming amount of student loan debt, most people are struggling to find some breathing room in their finances. Despite your financial struggle, crafting a budgeting plan is the best jumping-off point to take control of your finances. Luckily, there are plenty of free budgeting apps out there to help.

“Taking the first step toward creating a budget may seem intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be,” consumer financial advocate Courtney Alev tells PS. “Know that you may not build the ‘perfect’ budget on your first try. You will likely adjust your budget over time, which is completely fine.”

Creating a way to manually track your budget on your own can seem like a good idea – I know I certainly thought so once upon a time – but it’s likely not as effective as using one of the best budgeting apps. But paying for a financial expert or budgeting tool seems counterintuitive when trying to save money, so what’s the solution? The best free budgeting apps are a welcome resource for anyone looking to create a budget and stick with it.

“With personal finance apps,” says consumer analyst Julie Ramhold, “you usually just pick and choose which features you want to use and you may have to play around with how you want to track items, but for the most part the best apps will have the legwork done and you just have to input the basic info.”

To help you take control of your finances without spending any more money, I’ve researched the best free budgeting apps out there to save you time.