PocketGuard・Budget Planner App

In my humble opinion this is the best free Budgeting App on the Appstore, as I have tried basically all of the other popular free budgeting apps available. I specifically appreciate the bank account sync feature which not only syncs with my bank but also syncs my Checking, Savings, and Credit Accounts (it is a day behind in terms of sync updating but that is not an issue for me). I also appreciate the separate management of bills/utilities/subscriptions, income, transfers between accounts, and other transactions. The transaction sorting and tagging are very easy to use and actually help with tracking transaction and money flow. The Insights page which provides a pie chart of spending based on your chosen budget categories as well as a line chart that tracks spending over the course of the month are extremely useful when comparing spending month-to-month and across categories. The one thing I would suggest as others have mentioned in their reviews is being able to edit budgets/transactions from previous and future months. But with that being said I do very much like having the dashboard, budget, and insight views being geared toward only showing one month’s information, being the month you are currently in. I highly recommend this app.

Works way more simple than rocket money, ynab, etc. does and I have TWO jobs which means, have you guessed it? TWO sources of regular income. the biggest reason I got rid of the other budgeting apps I tried out was because you couldn’t have more than one scheduled repeatable income source, which means my projected weekly budgets were not correct and I had to mentally remember to add the income from my other job to every budget because inevitably all the budgets would end up projecting negative amounts in them because half of my income was missing. it’s nice that this app lets me have both of my jobs. However there are two issues I have with this app: 1. this app doesn't have a calendar function. I really like when the budgeting apps have a calendar built into the app so you can open it and visually see what your bills are going to be for that week with your projected income to see if you'll have enough money. A basic check list of my upcoming bills is about as useful as me writing out a list of my upcoming bills on paper which obviously didn’t help me much or I wouldn’t have bothered downloading an app. 2. There’s not an option for a light theme. I cannot stand dark themes, I personally find them annoying and difficult to read because I keep my screen brightness down fairly low to avoid eye strain and conserve battery making it irritating to try and navigate around a dim black phone screen.

Let me tell you- all of the previous reviews are old. I’ve been on this app for the since 2019 & will honestly be here until I die. Hoping it lasts that long. 🙏🏽 I’ve been searching for a way to understand my spendings between categories, month over month & watching my budget. This is everything & more. I love the personalization that I can add my own catergories, mark a specific merchant as something once and never have to touch it again & even exclude things like transactions between my accounts. This is the app if you’re anal about how you spend your money & it even helps if I want to budget for let’s say shopping. I love it. Please note I am a premium user & to me it’s worth it. But I’m sure the free version is equally as good. The other apps mint, your bank, random ones only work if you have a goal. But for me, I want to know where, what & compare my spendings month over month so I can see how I’m doing. Or if I need to stop spending! Anyway highly recommend. And two last things- 1) they’re IT or support literally responds within 48 hours. You’re never left hanging and no question is stupid. 2) the app is constantly evolving. It’s not the same as it was two years ago, it’s better! If there’s a bug, report it! If you have a suggestion, suggest it! I love all the latest updates & it really helps me think of how I’m spending my money which was my ultimate goal. Thank you!!