budgeting
Budgeting apps and savings-pot features are powerful tools for taking control of your money. They allow you to see exactly where your income is going, spot wasteful spending, and plan ahead for bills or goals. Splitting your savings into different 'pots' makes money management more organised and less stressful. It also helps you stay disciplined - you can clearly see what’s set aside for essentials and what’s available for treats. Over time, these tools make saving feel automatic and achievable, turning big goals into smaller, manageable steps.
My favourite budgeting tools are Plum, Emma, Monzo, Moneybox, Snoop, and Starling.
Plum
Plum is a great app to use for saving a little extra each month. It provides insight into your spending and saving habits, and allows for automated savings based on your spending patterns. This includes automatic pay day saving, round ups on your everyday spending, saving a set amount per week, and saving extra on sunny days. These are included in the free version of Plum, but they also have a premium plan starting at £2.99 per month. With this plan, you can also access the 52 week challenge to save £1,378 in a year, saving extra on rainy days, the 1p challenge to save an extra £667 per year, and the naughty rule where you put aside money when you shop somewhere you shouldn't!
Plum offers saving pockets, a cash ISA, lifetime ISA, and Plum Interest accounts. You can also invest through the platform and monitor your holdings.
They also offer perks on leisure, food and coffee, including monthly cinema tickets, and discounts on eating out!
Sign up for Plum to enjoy these great benefits!
Emma
With Emma you can create savings pots with a range of interest rates. Emma offers autosaving, cashback, current account switch offers, pension combining, as well as savings on broadband and energy. It works in partnership with other providers such as PensionBee and Money SuperMarket for these deals. You can pay others by bank transfer or by scanning a QR code, allow access to your contacts to request money, and transfer money between your accounts. Emma also allows investing and provides information about various lines of credit such as loans, car finance, mortgages, and debt consolidation, mainly from external providers.
Emma offers a 7-day free trial, and then bills either annually or monthly, depending on which tier you select. Join here and enjoy an extended 30 day free trial which is available across all of their plans.
Monzo
Monzo is a great app for easily transferring money, saving in pots, and earning cashback. Monzo allows you to track your monthly and yearly spending, showing insights on your spending patterns by breaking it down into categories and how much you have left to spend. They allow you to create a running split, where you can split, track, pay and chase anyone, even if they don't have Monzo. Monzo offer 14 funds that you can invest into. These are designed around your risk tolerance (careful, balanced, adventurous) and sectors (automation and robotics, metaverse, clean energy, British companies, etc.). You can also consolidate your pension into one for easier monitoring.
Sign up for Monzo here for a free £10 sign up reward towards your savings goals!
Moneybox
Moneybox is a great app, offering a range of different accounts, including a simple saver, cash ISA, lifetime ISA, stocks and shares ISA, 95 day notice saver, 32 day notice saver, general investment account, personal pension, junior ISA, and a business saver.
I use Moneybox for my lifetime ISA, where they offer both a stocks and shares lifetime ISA if your house-ownership goal is 5+ years away, and a cash lifetime ISA if you're looking to buy a home in the next 5 years. They offer a very competitive interest rate on both accounts, as well as the government 25% bonus.
Moneybox offer spending insights, with the option to round up your purchases for extra automatic savings each month!
Moneybox is completely free to use - create a Moneybox account here!
Snoop
Out of these options, Snoop is probably the best for spending insights and tracking, breaking your spending down into categories and showing how this compares to previous months. You can ask Snoop to create a budget for you, or input your own, which it then compares your spending to for easy visuals of where you are over or under spending. They also have a bill timeline which shows the total and payment date of each of your upcoming bills. They also offer incentives and cashback to switch various bills, such as your broadband, car insurance, home insurance, mobile, and many more. They also allow you to see your credit score my collaborating with Equifax.
Snoop is completely free to use, but you can upgrade to Snoop Plus for more personalised insights.
Join Snoop here for help with your monthly budgeting!
Starling
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Zopa
Avenir Light is a clean and stylish font favored by designers. It's easy on the eyes and a great go-to font for titles, paragraphs & more.
Coplenty
Avenir Light is a clean and stylish font favored by designers. It's easy on the eyes and a great go-to font for titles, paragraphs & more.