Learning to maintain or regain your financial health can be tricky if you don’t know where to start. Since the invention of smart devices, apps have made life easier. Today, thousands of financial apps are available and they can help you do everything from sending payments to budgeting and investing in cryptocurrency. S&P Global found that eight in 10 Americans use at least one financial app, while a third use three or more.
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Personal finance expert and YouTuber Humphrey Yang is one of those financial app enthusiasts. He uses several of them to maximize his productivity. In a recent video, he broke down which apps he uses the most to boost his income.
Budgeting Apps
Pew Research reported that only 54% of American adults know at least a fair amount about their finances. Keep track of your money coming in and out to guarantee your financial health. For this, you’ll need a budgeting or expense-tracking app.
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Budgeting apps simplify money management, improve financial discipline and are essential for building wealth. These apps allow you to set goals and track your spending to ensure you meet them. Some apps require you to enter your expenditures manually but others link directly to your bank accounts and credit cards, helping you track your budget in real time.
Yang breaks down this idea into an easy analogy. Think of earning an income as your offense. Even if you get a high salary, it can only take you so far if you spend it all. This means you need a strong defense. Implementing a budget is the perfect defense, helping you hit your savings and investing goals, pay off your debts and live within your means.
While certain apps, like YNAB (You Need A Budget), require a paid subscription, others, such as Spending Tracker, don’t. Using just about any budgeting app will get you to pay more attention to your finances and should lead to improvements.
Brokerage Apps
Wealthy people don’t just save money and let it collect dust; investing is the best way to increase your wealth over time passively. Many brokerage apps are available, such as Robinhood, Charles Schwab and Fidelity, and what’s best for you will depend on your preferences. For Yang, it’s not about getting the right app, timing the market or getting lucky. Instead, it’s about consistently putting a percentage of your monthly pay into a brokerage account, or dollar-cost averaging.
Dollar-cost averaging puts a fixed amount of money into your investment profile each month, regardless of whether the market is up or down. If the market is down, you’ll get more shares for your money; if the market is up, you’ll buy fewer. This will all average out over time. Because the markets have historically trended up over the long term, you should gain money over time.
Productivity Apps
While not directly related to finance tracking and money management, productivity apps can also help you earn more money. Task management and scheduling apps can help you organize your time and keep you on schedule so you have time for side hustles and don’t miss any payments. These apps are growing in popularity, with a projected compound annual growth rate of 16.1% between 2024 and 2032.
As a creator and freelancer, Yang emphasizes the importance of these apps for his line of work. He details how Notion has helped him organize his YouTube and social media workflows. Also, keeping a weekly planner with an app like Google Calendar helps him prioritize his tasks and stay on track to attain his daily goals.
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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Humphrey Yang: 3 Apps I Use Daily To Make More Money
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