Mobile Money – Personal Finance On Your Phone

October 22, 2008

Mobile Apps Handango

Have you ever wanted to quickly check your account balance? Do you often find yourself wondering if you have enough money to buy something in your clothes budget? Would you like to quickly look at your most recent bank transactions?

Your cell phone is now the place to do all of these! With the help of many new personal finance mobile application, you can virtually carry your financial statements and budget in your pocket. There are numerous mobile applications from third party companies that you can download if you have a nice, new iPhone or similar type of smart phone. We’ll look at some of the better ones as well as what the popular online personal finance applications offer by way of mobile applications.

Best Third Party Mobile Applications

For the iPhone: Balance by Connor Wakamo, Free – This is a one account bank register manager that allows you to keep track of all of the transactions you make through out your day on your checking account. I picked this one, because based on the reviews I read, it’s the most simple to use and it serves the purpose of acting as your checkbook register when you use your debit card.

If you are like me, it’s easy to get in trouble with a debit card. It’s so easy to swipe it and forget to write down the amount you spent. If you’re doing a lot of shopping during one day, it’s easy to overdraft and not even realize it. This application will help you keep track of everything, and it is very easy to export the date as a .csv file, email it to yourself, and import it to your home computer finance software.

For the Blackberry: Bankarama, cost $18.95 – This one costs some money, but it has great reviews for use with your Blackberry Pearl, Curve, or 8300. You can set it up for multiple accounts, and it easily allows you to track debit card transactions on your checking account. You’ll have an up-to-date balance for your checking account wherever you go.

For the Palm: inExpense, $14.95 – If you have a smart phone that runs the Palm OS, then inExpense is the personal finance application for you. It’s $15 bucks, but money well spent. This one has the most features compared to the two above, but it’s a little more complicated to use. It does have one-hand navigation, so you don’t need to use a stylus. It will generate reports, sync with your desktop computer, you can back up the information, and protect your personal information with a password feature.

Wesabe Mobile, With Wesabe mobile, members can:

  • View a single list of all their bank and credit card balances anytime they want.
  • See any transactions that have posted to their accounts. Just as the iPhone’s email application lets users view as many emails as they’d like, i.wesabe.com allows members to see as many transactions as they want.
  • Enter cash purchases they’ve made while shopping.

Mint.com & Cell Phones

Mint is working on this, and I suspect that they will be rolling out a sweet application for the iPhone very soon. There has been a ton of feedback of iPhone users wanting to see one, but it’s not there yet. For now, you’ll have to go to your web browser and access the web application.

Mobile Money

So, personal finance has gone mobile, but have you gone with it? I sometimes think that we’d be far better off without so many computer applications in our life. There is an application for everything, and it gets overwhelming when you think about it. However, these personal finance applications are very useful just for the fact that they make it very easy to record and store your debit and cash transactions. Try them out and let us know what you think.

You can learn more about mobile shopping and mobile banking as part of the Mobile Money Guide.

Save up to 25% on mobile apps at Handango, click here and use coupon code SAVE20NOW at checkout.

Erik

Will this article help you save or earn more money? Get others like it simply by entering your email address below. Your email is used only for delivering daily money tips and you can opt out of delivery at any time. Click here to see all your free subscription options.

  

Erik
Erik Folgate is a husband and father living in Orlando who's been writing about money online for 6 years. Digging himself out of $20k of debt after college and his former experience in the insurance industry give him some useful insights into personal finance issues.

All posts by

Comments

5 Responses to Mobile Money – Personal Finance On Your Phone

  • lakshmi

    I want the finance of 50,000 for my personal use . To get the finance to me want is the format.

  • debt relief

    I don’t see the need to check my bank accounts on the go. I ‘ve lost two cell phones in two years. I do not hink I want to lose one with access to my bank information on there.

  • marci

    There’s just no need for all this checking my account balances and adding things to my check register when I use cash. That’s why I use cash. For me,
    it’s just simpler and stressfree, and I like the simple life!

    I guess, for someone on the go a lot, or who needed to keep track of business expenses, it might be ok – but so is a notepad and pencil. And they cost next to nothing! Frugal.

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  • Get Your Finances in Order Today — Before Things Get Worse | Money Smart Life
  • Mobile Deals, Coupons, & Alerts- Saving Money with Your Cell Phone | Money Smart Life