A late-night Amazon purchase here. An instant movie rental on iTunes there. Not to mention that 1-night-only online sale that was just too good to resist. No matter your hobby or savings achilles heel, with technology everywhere you turn it’s never been easier to slowly but surely chip away at your bank balance and stack up debts.
But if you’re struggling to get yourself out of debt, pay off your loans, or better manage your money, you shouldn’t lock your phones away just yet. If technology is partly to blame for getting you into this mess, then you’d better believe you can use it to get you out of it, too.
Breaking those habits and getting that spending under control isn’t always easy. From here on out you won’t be pulling out your phone to purchase a new song or Uber Eats a meal, instead you’ll be filling it up with great Apps that’ll help you pay off those loans, pay down your debts, and arm yourself with the tools you need to not only get out of debt, but to stay debt free.
To help you, today we’re taking a look at the top 5 apps that everyone should have on their phone to make the journey that much easier.
1. Debt Tracker
There’s no point wasting time, so let’s kick off the list with one of the best around. With rave reviews across the board – and across the iTunes and Google Play store – Debt Tracker is also the most logical place to start fighting your debts on the digital battlefield.
As any guide will tell you, you need to understand your debts before you can overcome them, which is exactly what Debt Tracker helps you do. The App models itself on the now well-known ‘Debt Snowball Method’, offering a number of killer strategies that help you pay off your debts, and quick!
If that wasn’t good enough, Debt Tracker recognises that all debts are different, so you can set up a strategy that’s tailored to your debts, and your debts alone. Meanwhile, its robust alerts system keeps you on the straight and narrow, reminding you when you need to make your debt payments, and its easy interface and savings calculator transforms those often dull numbers into much more enticing visual graphs and bars that show how far you’ve come, and how far you’ve got left to go on your journey to paying off your debts.
2.Pay Off Debt App
- Available on iTunes – $7.49
Given the thumbs-up by the likes of Yahoo Finance and Consumerist, Pay Off Debt App is – as the inventive name suggests – designed to help you pay off your debts. It’s actually designed by finance writer Jackie Beck as part of the greater “The Debt Free Club”, which sets out to help others follow in their debt-busting footsteps. And who wouldn’t want to! Ms Beck and her husband have paid down some $147,000 worth of personal debts. So you know they’re talking from experience.
The App’s ability to prioritise your debts in the order you want to pay them off is a highlight here, as is the motivational progress bar. The App also carries across a few of Debt Tracker’s best features, including payment reminders, payment overviews, current balances and “Time ‘til you’re debt free!” counters for all of your balances. Could you ask for more? (a button that pays off your debts would be nice, of course. Maybe they’ll add that in a future patch?…)
3. iQuick Debt Payoff
- Available on Android – $1.26
iQuick isn’t just set on helping you pay off your debts, it’s also determined to save you as much money as it can along the way by minimizing the total interest you pay on outstanding credit card debt, unsecured or secured personal loans, and other debts by giving you a payment schedule that tells you what to pay and when.
The app’s Amortization schedule plus loan snapshot also makes it easy to keep a track of your total debt balance, the interest rates you’re paying – as well as what this means for your back pocket – and manage your monthly repayments. It doesn’t get much easier than that.
4.Debt Payoff Assistant
It would be pretty ironic of us to write a list of apps that help you get out of debt without at least one free option, right? It kind of defeats the purpose if you have to pay extra to get out of debt, right? Debt Payoff Assistant is a great free option that starts your journey to debt-free-dom with its asking price of ‘Free’.
Debt Payoff Assistant puts the popular debt snowball method into action, and money back in your back pocket. Once you’ve entered your debt info like loan balances, interest rates, and monthly repayment amounts, Debt Payoff Assistant will present you with your current progress, how far you’ve got to go, and order your debts so you know which one to pay off first. Easy!
With all of that, the best bit about this App might actually be the ability to track an unlimited number of debts. And without an ‘Upgrade to Pro!’ option or extra payment in sight. How’s that for savings?
5. You Need A Budget
It’s time to round out the list, so while this one may not have ‘Debt’ in the title, it’s still an important App to have on your phone. You see, getting out – and staying out – of debt doesn’t just involve paying off your debts, and it’s this kind of thinking that can see you racking up more debt as quickly as you pay it off. Instead? Successfully overcoming debt is reliant on spring cleaning your debts and getting smarter about money. More specifically, your money and how you spend it.
You Need A Budget helps you do just this. How? By doing exactly what it says on the tin: setting you up with a budget. While we know we need one, it’s often the time and effort required to set one up that keeps us from doing so. Receipts. Groceries. Loans. Bills. The list goes on. You Need A Budget simplifies this process and makes it criminally easy to get a budget in place.
And if that’s not easy enough, the App comes with built-in classes, guides, and tutorials to help you along the way.
It’s About Time Technology Helped You Fix Your Finances
The above list is just a few of our favourite Apps for getting your finances under control, but there are hundreds more out there. All of which are specifically tailored to a specific financial need.
Are you paying off a debt? Considering a loan? Trying to budget for a holiday or save for retirement? There isn’t a reason to go it alone, so pull out your phone, download an App, and you’ll have the help you need to achieve your financial goals.
Article courtesy of NZCU Baywide
NZCU Baywide home loans, personal loans and debt consolidation