Spending or saving? Meet the apps for managing your personal finances.

Are you a bit careless with your finances? Does it happen that a week before payday you find yourself wondering what happened to the thousands you had set aside for your own needs? Do you want to learn to use your spare money wisely and manage it in a way that you enjoy? Then there's nothing simpler than taking out your smartphone, opening Google Play or the App Store and downloading one of the apps that aim to teach you how to manage your money.

We can't promise miracles, such as saving several thousand a month with the help of smart apps and no longer living from payday to payday, but sometimes it helps to record your habits over the long term and draw conclusions from them. And the underlying arithmetic is simple: if you make your morning coffee at home and take it with you in a thermos, instead of buying it in your favourite café on the way to work, you will not only be saving the environment, but also keeping more than CZK 1,000 a month in your account. If you pay that into a savings account every month, you will have almost CZK 50,000 extra after 4 years. Now that's worth thinking about, don't you think?

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Which apps will keep an eye on your spending?

Spendee

Spendee is a Czech app that has won a number of awards both at home and abroad, and it is installed on the devices of hundreds of thousands of users in more than 170 countries around the world. You can track your money coming in and going out using clear charts. Regular payments can be set up as recurring, so you don't have to record them manually each time.

If you pay extra and upgrade your Spendee account to the premium version, the app can be linked to your bank accounts (anything you pay for by card is automatically uploaded to Spendee and sorted into the appropriate category). You also get the option to share your wallets with other users, which you can use, for example, to track movements on shared family accounts.

The Spendee app is available in Czech and free to download from Google Play and App Store. Users have rated it 4.1 **** on Google Play and 4.7 ***** on the App Store.

Debito

Another Czech app that will help you record your income and expenses is Debito. As well as recording the money coming in and going out of your finances, Debito also lets you upload loyalty cards, documents and ID cards. If you want to know when your passport expires without having to search for it in a drawer, you can record the expiry date in the app. Do you have life insurance? You can add that to Debito too, and as well as a scan of the contract, you will always have to hand the amount and frequency of the premium payments.

The app is very intuitive to use. After logging in – either with a Google account or by registering – you get to the home page. Here, you just tap the plus button to go to the finance management window and enter the income or expense using a wide range of items. Gone shopping for groceries? Then tap “+”, choose “Other expenses” -> “Food” -> and, if you like, you can also enter the shop where you did your shopping. Then type in the amount, check the currency (CZK, EUR or USD) and the date, and save. If you want to take your record-keeping to the next level, you can attach a document (e.g. an invoice) or a photo (e.g. of a receipt or purchase) to the entry. Entries can be edited as you wish afterwards, and clear statistics let you see, for example, how and on what you spend most often.

Debito is available in Czech on Google Play and the App Store. Users rate it 3.6 **** on Google Play and 3.7 **** on the App Store.

Wallet

The Wallet app from the company BudgetBakers is the first foreign app we'll introduce to you. It is one of the most popular personal finance apps of all time, and hundreds of thousands of users around the world use its services. You can manage your account both in the app and in your web browser, where you'll find more extensive statistics, which you can export to .xls or .csv files.

The strengths of this app are its clarity and intuitive controls. Everything you need to find is organised into individual sections, so you can easily see your current balance (without having to look at your account or your wallet), an overview of recent expenses, statistics and more. You can record planned payments and share your financial flows with other users. Are you interested in how much you spend each month on groceries, fast food or visits to cafés? Take a look at Statistics. There you'll see what “necessities” you are actually spending your money on. You can tag every expense, which sorts your real spending even more precisely. For purchases, you can record the warranty on the goods or the form of payment. Do you make a certain payment regularly? Create a template and use it every time you enter that payment.

The Wallet app is more popular with Android users – it has earned a rating of 4.7 ***** on Google Play , and on the App Store its rating is 0.2 stars lower.

1Money

The last app we'll present is an expense tracker and a tool for managing money and budgets from the developers at PixelRush – 1Money. The app is available only for Android users. If you're an Apple user, we're sorry to disappoint you: you won't find 1Money on the App Store.

The developers have focused on simplicity and clarity, so 1Money boasts a very user-friendly interface. On the entry page, choose whether you want to enter expenses or income. If you leave the home page on expenses, you select the category of what you spent your money on, enter the amount and save the record. You can add a note or the source of the expense – card or cash. On the Transactions tab you can check individual expenses for the chosen period, and on the Overview tab you can follow a graph of how your income and expenses have developed, along with totals of spending for each category.

Although it is not a Czech app, 1Money supports Czech and you enter amounts in Czech crowns (CZK). If you're looking for an app that will simply track income and expenses and compare them over time, 1Money is ideal for you. Users rate the Android app 4.7 *****.

How effective is it?

The catch with these apps is that you have to record your financial movements regularly. If you forget to enter a payment in the table, the balance in your account (or wallet) will no longer match, and your regular analyses of spending will be approximate rather than accurate. So it takes willpower, not only to think about what you are actually spending your money on, but also the self-discipline to record every single expense.

Reliable, fast and affordable internet, not just for managing your personal finances, is what UVT provides.

Updated 13 March 2024