Life in the 21st century moves quickly.
It’s tough for couples to maintain a balance between hectic work schedules, online engagements, and attempting to carve out some personal time with each other.
Add all that to the need to organize personal finances, and it’s no wonder that millennial couples often need help managing their money.
There are several free financial tools that millennial couples can use to help get a better handle on their money.
We’ve broken them down into categories and chosen the five best for your review.
Some of these apps have competitors who also offer free products, but we find these to be the best in class.
There’s no need to pay for premium products when you can get great solutions for free.
Debt Management: Credello Snowball Calculator
For getting out of debt, the best tool is the Credello’s snowball calculator. Budgeting apps and money management tools are designed to help you avoid debt, but that’s not how our economy works. According to Experian, the average millennial carries non-mortgage debt of $27,251. Multiply that by two for couples. Use the calculator to find a way out.
Credit Tracking: Credit.com
Maintaining a good credit score is important.
The best free app for tracking your credit is Credit.com. It produces a free credit report card that grades the same variables that FICO uses to calculate your credit score.
Payment history and debt usage are the two most important variables, but credit.com also tracks credit age, account mix, and credit inquiries.
Money Management: Mint
Considered by many to be the app that revolutionized personal finance, Mint can aggregate all your bank accounts, credit cards, and debt accounts in one place.
It tracks cashflow and spending and provides recommendations to help you with both. Mint is an Intuit product, the same company that powers QuickBooks, TurboTax, and Credit Karma.
Bill Paying: Prism
Credit scores go down and debt quickly spins out of control if you don’t pay your bills on time. Prism is an app that can organize all your monthly bill payments.
It also puts accounts and expenses into a monthly calendar so you can better keep track of them. With this app, you’ll never be late on a bill payment again, unless you choose to ignore the alerts.
Family Organizer: Cozi
This one may seem out of place on this list, but one of the primary causes of financial unmanageability is disorganization.
Cozi is an app that can help you schedule meetings, plan meals, and coordinate with your spouse.
These simple actions aren’t just time savers. There are several scenarios where better organization can also save you money.
Utilize Technology to Manage Your Money
Millennials grew up with technology, so there’s no excuse for not using the apps, tools, and sites that are available now to help you manage money. Credello’s Snowball Calculator, Credit.com, Mint, Prism, and Cozi are tools that can help you with this.
Add these to your tech stack and you’ll be able to better control your spending, bill paying, and credit score.