Introduction
Best College Student Budget App. Good apps can change your life. Don’t miss apps that can help you save and invest a lot. Which will benefit you. There’s five finance apps that I’m a big fan of, and in this article, I’m going to walk you through all five of them.
1. Mint:
The first of our top apps is Mint, which you can use to take advantage of it.This is the best apps for budgeting. What makes it so great is how clean the design is.
It’s so aesthetically pleasing that it’s no surprise a lot of people have fallen in love with this free app. Budgeting is so important in college. Best College Student Budget App.
As a student, once you have a better idea of where your money is going, you’ll have a higher appreciation for the dollar, and there’s a psychological shift, even if it happens without you realizing it, where you start having tighter control of where your money goes, and you start saving more money.
Mint offers a lot of other free features, which I’m not going to discuss because I think the most of their value is in the budgeting part of the app, but what’s really nice is that you can link all your loans, investments, and savings into the app, so it’s kind of a one-stop shop for you to go.
2. Robinhood
The next great financial app for college students is Robinhood.
If you haven’t heard of Robinhood, you’re probably living under a rock because Robinhood is everywhere, and they have changed the very nature of retail investing. Best College Student Budget App.
They were the first to offer trades with no commissions, and since they did that, that’s basically become the norm in the brokerage world, but they were the first, and they effectively democratized what it means to invest in the stock market.
It used to be really hard for college students to get in and invest their money quickly, but Robinhood has made that very intuitive, especially with their design.
If you go to their app, you’ll see just how easy it is to understand what’s going on and what news is relevant to each stock and the overall industry.
They also offer cash management, which I’ve never experimented with, and frankly, I think that’s not where the value of the app lies, but overall, it’s a great app to be introduced in the stock market to start building intuition, and if you want to get a little bit more advanced, they also offer trading options on their app, which some people have gotten into. It can be really fun and very educational. Best College Student Budget App.
3. Boro
The third app on this list is Boro. We’re actually sponsored by Boro, but only because I went to them and asked them to sponsor us. I’d be talking about this app even if we weren’t, but I really believe in what they do.
They’re the only app on this list that’s designed specifically for college students, and they offer incredible budgeting features on the app for you to tie your bank accounts to and see where you’re spending your money. Best College Student Budget App.
It’s on par or even better than Mint, designed specifically for college students, and they also offer loans.
So they offer cash loans in the case of emergencies, and also Boro Drive offers loans in case you want to buy a car on campus.
What’s really powerful about these loans is they have the opportunity to increase your credit score, which is really important in buying a house after you graduate.
They also offer credit analysis, showing you what your credit is, and strategies for improving it, but my favorite part of the app comes in their analysis of your spending habits. Best College Student Budget App.
They effectively offer personas at the end of every week that compare you to your spending habits and who that means you are, whether it’s a party animal or something else.
What I really like is that they compare your spending habits to college students nationwide.
4. Webull
The fourth app we’re going to talk about is Webull, and Webull is effectively Robinhood on steroids.
So whereas Robinhood is retail investing for beginners, Webull is retail investing, but for the more advanced investors. Best College Student Budget App.
It’s a lot more data heavy, and a lot of your decisions are going to be backed in much more financial research and reports.
So whereas you get one free stock when you invest in Robinhood, I don’t have a link in the description, but you do get three free stocks when you download Webull, which is a great value for anyone getting it, even if you just want to try it out and then cash out.
5. Acorns
The fifth app I’m going to talk about is Acorns, and you’ve probably seen a ton of Ashton Kutcher ads on Instagram or Snapchat about this, but it really is a great app.
They truly encourage healthy investment strategy, and they don’t let you invest in any individual app on their service. Best College Student Budget App.
They only let you invest in ETFs and indexes, which I think is great. We should really be staying diversified as 20-year-olds, and that’s how our strategy should be focused.
But what they do is round up your latest purchase on a debit or credit card to the nearest dollar, and they tuck that away for you, which is effectively an acorn, an analogy they do not hesitate to use often.
What’s really nice about this is that it’s so automated, you can set it up and really stop worrying about it. But one downside is that it’s the only app on this list, which actually charges you money to use.
There’s a one, three, and five-dollar monthly plan. The five-dollar plan is really focused on investing for your children.
The one-dollar plan only offers recurring investment and roundup investing to the nearest dollar in ETFs or indexes, whereas the three-dollar plan is where the most value comes in. Best College Student Budget App.
Conclusion
Five different finance apps that every college student can get value out of.
I encourage you to try them yourself. Find out what you like most about them and what you like least about them.