Best Budgeting Tools for Freelancers

Being a freelancer is all about flexibility and working on your own schedule. Still, without proper budgeting, you may end up working and never seeing the fruits of your labor. Freelancing has so many benefits, but it can also overwhelm you. Since you are busy working and beating deadlines, whether you’re a book cover designer or book editor, you may not have the time to track your budget. Therefore, you need help budgeting your finances, which is where technology comes in. In addition, budgeting helps you prepare for the rainy season when little work will be done. 

Below are some of the best budgeting tools and apps that every freelancer should consider having. 

Simplify by Quicken

This is a fantastic budgeting tool that allows you to customize and keep track of your budget. It makes budgeting simple and allows you to set goals and walks you through ways of and achieving them. Your budget and spending habits are also tracked through this app, making it easier for you to know where you have gone astray in your budgeting. 

In addition, this app allows you to view all of your financial information, such as loans, credit cards, banking, and all your investments, in one place. You can also see your upcoming bills and income transfers and how all these are affecting your balance. All you have to do is download this app from Google Play Store or Apple Store, and you are good to go. 

YNAB (You Need A Budget)

YNAB is another great budgeting app for freelancers. It allows you to sync all your bank accounts, import your financial data from a file, and manually enter your transactions. With this app, you are guaranteed to get at least one month ahead of your expenses so that you have something to fall back on in case things go as unplanned. 

The app’s feature includes simple ways to keep track of your goals, bank syncing, real-time access to all your budget data across different devices, transaction matching, and customer support.

Mint

If you are looking for a free budgeting app, then Mint is your best option. This app offers personalized insights, tracks your spending, customs your budget, and monitors your subscriptions. You can see all your monthly bills, grow your savings, set your goals, and manage your debts all underdone in this app. 

Personal Capital

Personal Capital is much more than a budgeting app. It is also an investment tool that helps track your wealth and how you spend your money. With this app, you also get access to and personal attention from registered financial advisors. This is everything that you need to start working on your finances. 

Pocket Guard

If you are looking for an app that will keep you from overspending, this is it. This budgeting app not only links all your financial accounts but also enables you to track your spending and curb your tendency to overspend your money. In addition, it is easy to set up and connect to all your bank accounts. 

Wally

This budgeting app has unique budgeting features and is supported in different countries. This is an easy-to-use budgeting app that helps you keep track of your income and expenses in one place. It also gives you a rough idea of your remaining budget so that you do not end up overspending. One of the significant advantages of this app is that it has in-built support for virtually all foreign currencies. This makes it easier for other users to access it even if they do not reside in the United States. 

Mvelopes

This is a digital version of the cash envelope system. With envelope type of budgeting, you put cash in envelopes for different spending. This allows you to spend within your original budget. When each envelope is empty, you just know that your spending for that month is finished. This app makes it easier to follow cash-style budgets in a digital budgeting world. 

Quickbooks Self-Employed

Quickbooks allows you to make a separation between your personal expenses and business expenses. It has impressive features that make tracking your business expenses very easy and manageable, including ways to incorporate them into quarterly taxes of the year. This lifts the hassle of manually filing for taxes off your shoulders. 

Trim

This budgeting app automatically helps you keep it once you have connected it to your different financial accounts. It also monitors your spending habits and gives you saving suggestions that you can choose to accept or ignore. This works best for freelancers, especially since they do not have the extra time to budget manually. 

Rose Rosie is a writer for the personal finance website, Joy Wallet, which provides readers with useful information, resources, and tools to help maximize their financial fitness.