Best Apps To Help Save College Students Money

 

By Jane Hurst

As a college student, one of the most difficult challenges you are going to face is handling your finances. While you know that you need to pay for tuition, books, food, lodging, etc., you still want to go out and have a good time and enjoy yourself while you’re still young enough to do it. In order to be able to have it all, you need to understand budgeting, and know how to stick to a budget. Here are some apps that help you to do just that.

  1. TextbookMe – Find the lowest possible prices on all of the textbooks you need by comparing prices through online retailers. Use the ISBN’s, authors, or titles to find the books you want, and order them online for the best deals.
  2. Cloudswave – While this is geared towards business owners, Cloudswave is great for anyone who wants to create a budget they can stick to. You can even buy other apps through Cloudswave at low prices. There are chat and messaging features, as well as budgeting, expenses management, and much more.
  3. LearnVest – This is a great app that makes creating and sticking to a budget easy. This app links to your bank account, and files all of your spending into specific folders, such as Groceries, Eating Out, Entertainment, etc. You can also create your own folders. Set budgets for each folder, and you will know what you need to spend, and how much you can spend.
  4. AirfaresFlights – This site compares discount airfares on over 100 airlines including as Air France, Emirates, Air Canada, Air India and Air China.
  5. Mint – This is a popular app for budgeting that connects to your bank account. You will receive automatic updates when you make purchases, and you can create all kinds of budgets, even breaking them down into very specific categories. You can even use this app to stay out of credit card debt. You likely have your first credit card, and Mint will make sure that you don’t charge more than you can afford to pay with the Cash vs. Credit feature. This lets you see all of your credit balances, as well as how much available cash you have.
  6. Slice – All of your online purchases will be recorded and stored here, from shipping info to actual receipts for purchases. You will receive notifications when items ship, so you will be there when they arrive if you don’t live on campus. You can upload your complete purchase history to a budgeting app as well.
  7. CheckPlease Lite – This is an easy-to-use app that is ideal for college students, especially those who like to split the bill when they are out in groups. CheckPlease Lite will split up the bills evenly, and even calculate the tip. You can have the bill split in as many as 100 ways, so there is no reason for anyone to not chip in their fair share.
  8. PocketBudget – There is nothing to be confused about when you use this app. You will see your main budget displayed in a pie chart, and all of your transactions are listed on another page. This is strictly a budgeting app, and there are no bells and whistles, just straightforward budgeting.
  9. CICO – Extremely useful online estimator tool that will help you find the best car insurance. Insurance rates change quite regularly, and insurers are always coming up with new offers. Check them on CICO!
  10. Check – This app used to be called Pageonce, and it is a payment and bill tracker. By using Check, you can keep an eye on all of your bills, which can be difficult when you are on your own for the first time. Pay bills from the app, and you will never have to worry about being charged late fees. You can even use this app to track any investments that you may have.
  11. Mobile Banking Apps – Your own bank will offer a mobile banking app you can use so you can do all of your banking, even if you don’t have time to personally visit the bank.
  12. PayPal Mobile – Don’t wait for people to pay you money they owe any longer. As long as you all have PayPal accounts, you can send money to each other. You can also use this app to pay online at stores, restaurants, banksJane Hurst has been working in education for over 5 years as a teacher. She loves sharing her knowledge with students, is fascinated about edtech and loves reading, a lot.

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