This article is brought to you by GradGuard. We protect college students and their families from the financial risks of college life, like providing a refund for tuition or replacing a stolen backpack when your school may not. When the unexpected happens, GradGuard’s tuition insurance and renters insurance can help you get back on track.

In today’s world, creating a budget for your apartment expenses can be difficult without the assistance of an app. Between allocating funds for rent, managing utility bills and subscriptions, and putting money aside for savings, effectively setting and maintaining a budget with an app, rather than on your own, can make your life a lot easier and prevent you from mismanaging your finances.

Whether you are a beginner budgeter, someone looking to take control of your money, or someone who wants to start a rainy day fund, these are the best apps for managing your apartment budget.

Image via Pexels

1. EveryDollar: With financial insights and paycheck planning, EveryDollar easily helps you to create a budget and track your spending. Based on the zero-based budgeting method, EveryDollar separates your budget into three different categories, “planned,” “spent,” and “remaining,” to help you understand your finances and budget effectively. The “planned” category allows you to add your income, and then add expenses like rent or housing, food, utilities, insurance, etc., once you add this information, EveryDollar establishes a spending schedule that shows you exactly what will be deducted from your income on its due date, along with your available balance afterward. After each payment is deducted, EveryDollar also tells you the risk of overspending, which helps prevent potential missed bills or overdrafts.

2. Buddy: Unlike some budgeting apps, Buddy does have a cost of $9.99/month or $49.99/year, but the app’s offered perks make the price well-worth it. The app allows you to input different expenses in several categories, such as housing or food, to keep track of spending along with your monthly income. It gives you a breakdown of your spending and helps you create savings goals for things like rainy day funds, a vacation, and more. One great function of the app is that it allows you and your roommates or partner to share a budget and split bills effectively. Plus, Buddy can cancel your subscriptions and negotiate your bills for you, so you can save money and cut unnecessary spending without the added hassle.

3. PocketGuard: PocketGuard budgets your finances, tracks your cash flow, provides detailed analytics of your spending, helps control your subscriptions, and establishes a debt payoff plan. By uploading your bank account, the app identifies all of your bills and subscriptions and includes them in your set budget so you don’t miss payments. You can also categorize spending by bills and spending, clothes, business services, and more.

4. Honeydue: If you share an apartment with your partner, Honeydue is the perfect app to help budget your finances together. The app has a user-friendly interface that allows you and your partner to input income expenses individually and jointly, such as credit cards, savings and investment accounts, and more. In the budget tab, you and your partner can add savings categories and see how much you spend on date nights, shopping, transportation, and more.

5. NerdWallet: For a more analytical look at finances, NerdWallet not only helps you keep track of your spending, but it also gives you a complete picture of your credit score, net worth, and cash flow. Using the 50/30/20 budgeting method, NerdWallet splits up your budget by 50% needs (like rent, utilities, transportation, etc.), 30% wants like shopping and home improvement expenses, and 20% savings and debt. The biggest perk? It’s totally free!

6. Monarch: With Monarch, you can establish a budget, add your financial accounts, and keep track of your spending and investment portfolios. The comprehensive app allows you to input numbers in several different categories, including bills, food, entertainment, subscriptions, and more. A calendar keeps track of recurring payments and upcoming charges, and with the comprehensive, customized cash flow dashboard, you can also see where your money is going over time, so you can identify areas where you can cut back.

7. YNAB (You Need a Budget): The YNAB app has a 4.8 out of 5 rating on the iOS app store, with over 49,000 reviews that sing its praises. Like EveryDollar, YNAB uses the zero-based budgeting method, which means that every dollar you earn is assigned to a specific category, such as rent, food, savings, and more. With this approach to financial tracking and spending, you prevent overspending and move toward making progress and achieving your financial goals.

Creating a budget to manage your apartment expenses can become overwhelming before you even start to go through your bank account, read through bills, and deep dive into your subscriptions. Adding everything together in a notebook or on a dry-erase board can be helpful, but a budgeting app can take all of the hard work, hassle, and stress out of tracking down your expenses and doing the work for you. Different apps cater to different financial needs and goals, so look around and find the best one that works for you!

It’s no secret that college costs a lot of money. Make sure your investment in higher education is protected with GradGuard. Our affordable tuition insurance and renters insurance plans are specifically designed for college students. Customizable plans make it easy to protect your tuition, room and board, laptop, bike, and so much more.