
Raising a family is very expensive. Recent research has found that it costs between £79,000 and £109,000 to raise a child, and it gets more expensive with every passing year. This can make it difficult for families to manage their money, especially if they are a low income family – but thankfully there are lots of tools out there that can make life a little easier.
That’s right; family budgeting doesn’t have to be a huge hassle. There are lots of useful apps out there that can help you, and there are even a few that are specifically designed for families. So you can ditch the homemade excel spreadsheets and post-it notes; it’s time to automate the process and make your life a little bit easier.
Sure, many budgeting apps are designed for single people or couples – but there are also a few specific apps that are designed for families on a budget.
Here are three family budgeting apps that will change your life.
1. The Best App For Budgeting: Mint
Mint have a wonderful budgeting app that comes with lots of different features. This includes a budgeting feature, an expense tracking feature and a bill alert feature, so you never have to worry about missing a bill again. This is ideal for families who receive lots of different bills throughout the month, as you can automate the payments through the app. So you can spend less time worrying about when the bills are due (which gives you a little extra time to spend with your kids). A win-win situation!
And best of all, the Mint family budgeting app is completely free – which is perfect for a family with a tight budget.
2. The Best App To Reduce Spending: PocketGuard
If you think that your family spend too much each month and you want to cut down on overall spending, you may want to check out PocketGuard. This free family budgeting app is specifically designed to stop users from spending too much, and it does this by tracking your spending throughout the month. This allows the app to streamline your budget and reduce spending, so you can start to save money every month.
And that isn’t all; PocketGuard will also search the internet for better deals on monthly service costs, which is a very useful feature!
3. The Best App For Married Couples: GoodBudget
If you and your partner spilt the bills, you could benefit from downloading GoodBudget. GoodBudget is an app that makes it easier for couples to pay bills together, as it combines certain bills and automates payments for both users. The app can also be used across devices, so you can both log in at any time to see monthly transactions. So you don’t have to have weekly conversations about paying specific bills; instead you can automate the process so neither of you have to think too much about it.
GoodBudget is also free for 10 different bill systems, which is great. If you need more than this you will need to pay to upgrade, but 10 bill systems should be enough for most families.