How Apps Totally Changed Money Management for Millennials

When I was a kid, my parents would gather around the dining room table each month to pay the bills. They would pull out their checkbook and write check after check, stuff them in envelopes, seal them shut with a quick lick, stick a stamp on them and run them down to the mailbox. This was just to pay the bills!

Times have definitely changed. As a millennial, I don’t have to do any of that. I handle almost all my personal finances on my iPhone with awesome free apps that can handle just about anything.

I’ve completely automated my money. With a few swipes I know exactly how much money I have to spend, how my stock investments are doing, and I can even get a complete picture of all my financial accounts in real time. All this on just an iPhone.

We millennials have a huge advantage because we have grown up with technology and have actively used it since we were kids. This makes it so much easier for us to quickly grasp new financial apps and embrace new technology much faster than previous generations.

With a modern smartphone, you can completely manage your money with apps. Every aspect of your money can be managed. Banking, budgeting, saving, and even stock investing! Here are just some of the apps available that you can use to manage your personal finances and automate your money.

Banking

I made the switch to an online bank not long ago and have not looked back. It’s amazing to be able to bank from my phone and has truly changed how I experience the banking relationship.

Online banks like Simple have brought banking into the modern age. You can manage all your banking from an app! It has all the features you need like, automated bill payment, check scanning, and a fully featured app to manage all of it.

Best of all, they don’t have all the sleazy sales and fee’s the big banks have. Yes, you heard that right, Simple has no fees! That feature alone made getting away from the big banks worth it. Not having to worry about non-sufficient fund fees, overdraft fees, and whatever fee they come up with next has made managing money so much less stressful.

Knowing Your Financial Picture

Knowing where all your money is can be difficult to keep track of. Personal finance app Mint has changed all that. It’s the first of its kind and still one of the best. Mint allows you to add all your financial accounts into one app, giving you a complete view of all your money right from your phone!

You can add most all your financial accounts like your bank, 401k, student loans, credit cards, car loan, mortgage, and pretty much any other financial account you have. Having the ability to see all your balances and transactions in real time from one app gives you an amazing understanding of where all your money is and where it is going.

Budgeting

Budgeting is drastically different for millennials than previous generations. There are so many great budgeting options that will take most of the hard work out of it for you.

With options like Mint, Level Money, and YNAB (You Need a Budget), your budget can nearly be totally automated. By automatically pulling in all transactions from your bank account, all you have to do is categorize it if it wasn’t automatically done by the app.

Just by pulling up your budgeting app you will know exactly how much you can safely spend without affecting your upcoming bills. It’s an amazing new way to budget and vastly superior to the old envelope and cash systems of our previous generations.

Saving

Simple savings accounts are even changing and becoming more intelligent. There are many new savings apps, but one the most standout apps I’ve used is Digit. Starting as a text message service, Digit evolved into a full blown app that intelligently grabs small amounts of money from your checking account and puts it into a savings account based on your spending.

They promise to never take money that you need and would cause you to overdraft. They even guarantee they won’t cause any overdraft fees. It’s a great way to get started saving if you have no savings or emergency fund and best of all, it’s totally free.

Investing

Investing money has changed so much for the better. Millennials have an amazing opportunity to begin investing with little cost to entry. Getting into stocks used to be a very complicated process but apps have changed all that. If you want direct access to stock investing, Robinhood has eliminated all the barriers to getting started.

After a couple minute sign up you’ll be buying and selling stocks with a couple swipes on your smartphone. The most amazing part of Robinhood is that there are no trading fees! After paying ridiculous trading fees for years, switching to Robinhood made the stress of buying and selling stocks go away for good.

The Future of Money Management Apps

These apps allow millennials unprecedented control of their money all with a few swipes from their phone and are only just the beginning. As artificial intelligence and voice control begin to become more commonplace a whole new breed of personal finance apps are beginning to emerge that will likely incorporate all your personal finance tasks into single apps. It’s an exciting generation to be a part of and we’ve only just begun!