Whether you’re in charge of the family finances or you run a small business, you may wonder how to pay off debt effectively. We could all benefit from tools to help us handle our money better. From creating a budget and tracking your spending to handling debt repayments, these are the top tools you can use for monthly payments, credit cards, student loans, and more.
Pay Off Debt and Budget Well with these Apps, and Tools and Software
Let’s start with personal finance solutions that help you create and manage a budget. This is an important financial step to take both for saving and for debt repayment because it will help you to know the amount of money you have on hand.
1. YNAB
YNAB relies on a concept known as the zero-based budgeting system where your income minus your expenditures should equal zero. This approach to budgeting isn’t for everyone and requires you have a plan for every dollar you earn.
This is a feature-rich, easy-to-use tool that lets you connect bank accounts, set aside money in a savings account, create custom spending categories for your budget, and establish money goals. Beyond providing you with a tool, YNAB also offers financial literacy resources like user guides, free workshops, and more.
YNAB costs $84 a year or $11.99 a month after you try it out for a 34-day free trial. Students get an additional 12 months free with proof that they attend a high school, college, or university.
2. Account Patrol
Account Patrol is a budgeting tool designed to organize and manage all of your accounts in one dashboard view. The view includes accounts you may have for checking, savings, credit card debt, student loan repayments, auto loans, personal loans, and investments.
Having this singular view of what you owe and what you are saving can help you reach your monthly financial goals. By linking all your accounts to the Account Patrol app, you always have a real-time update of what you spent, what bills need to be paid and when through a bill reminder feature, and how much you have saved.
An alert system also lets you potentially stop fraud by identifying suspicious transactions. Plus, you can monitor previous transactions to determine where you might be able to save more money by reducing certain expenses.
The budgeting tool offers a 15-day trial period. After that, it is $7 per month.
3. PocketGuard
PocketGuard is a free budgeting app that simplifies the budgeting experience. In clear terms, it shows you what you have to spend after paying bills and meeting a savings goal contribution that you set.
It also provides more in-depth functionality for anyone who wants more detail in their budget. For example, you can use a range of spending categories, including groceries, eating out, and entertainment.
As a result, you’ll be able to see where your extra money goes each month. Having this information can help you determine where to reduce expenses so you can make extra payments to pay off debt or increase funding to your savings and/or retirement.
4. Goodbudget
Goodbudget uses another approach to budgeting called the envelope system. With this budgeting approach, you divide your monthly income across specific spending categories. Before the digital age, this meant putting money in separate envelopes for each spending category. Now, you can use apps like Goodbudget to divide and conquer spending with just a few taps or clicks.
The app allows you to use multiple devices to access the same Goodbudget account, so everyone you designate can be involved in the budgeting process. Although you can’t sync bank accounts with this budgeting app and must manually add account balances, it’s a user-friendly way to track your money.
Goodbudget offers a Free version of its app, which allows one account, two devices, and limited envelopes. The Plus version costs $6 per month or $50 annually but offers unlimited envelopes and accounts, up to five devices, and other features not available with the Free version.
Pay off Debt with these Apps and Tools
Now that you have an idea of what tools can help you budget your money, it’s time to look at those solutions that assist with debt repayments, interest debt, debt consolidation loans, balance transfer and more so you can get back to enjoying good credit.
Many of these debt repayment solutions let you incorporate debt paydown approaches like the snowball method and the avalanche method. Other apps help you keep more money by identifying lower rates, recommending additional payments, and offering new loan options.
1. Undebt.it
Undebt.it is a tool designed to get you out of debt and improve your credit history. The tool reviews factors like your current repayment period to determine the best debt repayment plan for your financial situation.
To help you get out of debt faster, the debt repayment service gives you the tool for free. It uses a debt snowball calculator to give you a user-friendly payment plan to follow. With the snowball method, you focus on paying off the debts with the smallest balances first.
Undebt.it also shows you how to use the debt avalanche method to pay down a credit card or student loan with the highest interest rate first.
2. Debt Payoff Assistant
Debt Payoff Assistant is a free debt-reducing app that is designed for Apple products like the iPhone and iPad. You’ll be able to use it to track multiple debts and consider many payoff strategies (lowest or highest balance first or highest interest first).
Other features with this easy-to-use app include debt payment tracking, extra payment support, built-in calculators (payoff date, loan, and mortgage calculators), and charts and reports. One of the best features is the percent paid progress bars for each debt. It’s a motivational way to keep going toward that financial freedom from debt that you seek.
3. Unbury.me
Unbury.me is a free debt repayment calculator tool available for PCs and Macs. You can compare the debt snowball and debt avalanche repayment methods to see which debt reduction strategy will work for your personal situation.
Since it’s an online calculator, you can input different payment amounts to see how much information you will pay with each monthly payment amount you are considering as well as when you can pay that debt off.
Another beneficial feature is that you can compare multiple types of debt and then develop a payment plan based on either debt repayment method.
4. Debt Payoff Planner
Debt Payoff Planner is made for those of you that use Android devices and want to attack your outstanding debt. The free debt repayment calculator is easy to install and use. All you need to do is enter your debts into the app along with your monthly payment budget. Then, select from one of the two most commonly used debt payoff strategies.
From there, Debt Payoff Planner does the rest by calculating the best payment plan for you based on your debt load and repayment budget. The app also has resource features that provide advice on how to speed the process of paying off all types of debt, including auto loans, student loans, and credit cards. They give you tips on how to make the most of credit card balance transfers and debt consolidation services.
5. Tally
Tally is a debt consolidation app and an automated debt manager. Available for Apple and Android devices, the free app has a unique approach to handling your debt. After downloading Tally, the next step is to scan your store cards and credit cards.
From there, the app provides a line of credit, moves balances from high-interest cards to your line of credit, and helps manage payments. The app can even minimize interest costs and fees by optimizing payment amounts and payment dates. You get a debt advisor and late fee protection as additional features with this debt payoff tool.
6. Quoins
Quoins is an app for Apple and Android devices that automates extra payments towards your debt so you can pay off debt faster and develop a savings frame of mind.
Qoins takes your spare change or extra cash by rounding up transaction amounts. In doing so, you can set aside $.50 to $5.00 every few days. While it may not sound like much, these $5.00 increments can make a difference as they are regularly applied to your debt throughout each month. Every little bit helps you pay that debt down faster.
Now, Qoins offers a new service with the addition of your very own financial coach. For an additional fee (not yet advertised), you can get live, expert financial advice from a financial coach that will customize a debt or savings plan that matches your financial goals.
The app is free the first month you use it and then it charges you a small monthly convenience fee of $1.99.
Tackling Your Debt Mountain
With so many useful and low-cost apps available to create and manage your money as well as pay off debt, there’s no time like right now to create positive financial change in your life.
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