Read More: Mint Manages Your Budget, Investments, and Credit Score

Money Managing: Mint

Although the Play store offers many personal finance apps, Mint is one of the most detail-oriented. Designed by Intuit Inc. — the makers of TurboTax and QuickBooks — this all-in-one app connects to your checking, savings, and credit card accounts. Using this banking data, Mint lets you design a budget and monitor your expenses and money habits. It will even remind you to pay your bills on time! Other perks include advice on how to improve your spending and a free, detailed credit score.

Tracking Expenses: Wally

What’s the best thing about using Wally to track expenses? You can upload data by taking photos of your receipts! Instead of waiting until the day’s end to tabulate your expenses, you’ll be adding to your list throughout the day. Wally also allows you to set personal finance goals, like your spending targets and ideal budget while taking your income into consideration.

Improving Credit: Credit Karma

Trying to qualify for a loan or rent your dream condo? Credit Karma can help fix up your credit rating. Through TransUnion and Equifax, this app monitors your credit scores for you, while suggesting constructive ways to improve them. Credit Karma also provides resources on credit cards, loans, and mortgages that your current credit rating could qualify for.

Paying Others: Venmo

Run by PayPal, Venmo is an app that lets you pay back personal loans, using your debit account or credit card. That $20 you owe your buddy from way back when? Send it to them over Venmo. The transaction will show up in a “news feed,” where you and friends can comment on it, just like on a social media app. Venmo is perfect for splitting the tab at a restaurant, chipping in for friends’ fundraisers, or even buying from a company. Some restaurants and retail stores even accept payments with Venmo.

Getting Started
Once you sign up, it is time to add your financial information. Create a budget and add your bank and credit accounts and bills. Your information is updated in real time, so you can always count on Mint providing accurate numbers.

If you have invested in a 401K account, stocks, bonds and/or mutual funds, be sure to add this information to Mint. The app will then keep tabs on how your investments are doing and point out hidden fees that may be nibbling away at your profits.

Read More: A Brief Guide to Using Mobile Banking Apps

Digging In
Mint offers tips on how to invest money, reduce expenses, and improve your credit score. What’s more, this advice is personalized, as the app has all your financial information and thus can offer customized help to suit your needs and financial goals. Be sure to regularly check the advice sections as your financial situation changes over the years to ensure that your money is being spent and saved wisely.

You may also want to monitor trends in your expenses over time. Doing so will help you see if you need to invest more in a certain part of your budget or cut back expenses in a particular category.

Regularly Check Your Credit Score
Checking your score too often using conventional methods can actually temporarily lower your score. Mint solves this problem by enabling you to see your up-to-date credit score on its app. Furthermore, the app provides a free credit report summary so you can easily see what factors are raising or lowering your credit.

Naturally, those who use a smartphone to regularly monitor and control personal finances will want to make sure this smartphone remains secure at all times. PSafe Total offers the comprehensive protection you need to ensure that your smartphone is not hacked or infected with malware. The program is available from PSafe at no cost and not only keeps your phone safe, but also helps to boost your device memory, accelerate internet access, and clean up large, hidden files.