Budget builder tool

Not a loan company. Net Monthly Pay Your Net Monthly Pay Your net pay or take-home pay is the amount on your paychecks—your wages minus federal taxes, Social Security, Medicare, wage garnishments, health insurance, other benefits, etc.

Click below to see your surplus or shortage and for our recommendations. We can't give you any results until you enter some income or expenses! Our Feedback A monthly surplus of?

Our Feedback Awesome work! You have a monthly surplus of , which is of your income! Our Feedback Not shabby! Most of them sync with your financial accounts, so they can track and categorize expenses for you. Use the free budget worksheet below to see how your spending compares to this kind of budget.

Try our budget calculator. Need help with other money matters? Check out more financial calculators from NerdWallet. Bring all your money into one view, and get tailored insights to make the most of it. Learn more.

The app is big on simplifying. You can connect your bank accounts, credit cards, loans and investments and track bills. With that intel, the app shows how much you have left to spend after setting aside funds for necessities, bills and goals. PocketGuard also tracks your net worth and gives you the option to not link your accounts and instead track your finances manually. The paid version, PocketGuard Plus, offers a debt payoff plan, the option to export your transactions and other features.

Why you may want to think twice: This app does a lot of work for you. Also, a heads up for Android users: PocketGuard also has one of the lowest Google Play scores in our list of best budget apps. Cost: Basic PocketGuard is free. Why we recommend it: Honeydue is designed so you and your partner can view both your financial pictures in one app.

Both partners can sync bank accounts, credit cards, loans and investments. Although you can choose how much you share with your significant other. Together, you can set up monthly limits on each of these categories, and Honeydue will alert you when you or your partner is nearing them.

Honeydue also sends reminders for upcoming bills and lets you chat and send emojis. Why you may want to think twice: Like a few other apps on our list, Honeydue leans more toward reflecting and learning about past transactions, rather than planning ahead for expenses.

The Pro account allows you to also export your budget, along with other extras. NerdWallet has a free app that lets you track your cash, see your net worth and debt, and track your credit score.

We chose not to include ourselves in the list above in order to present an unbiased view. We also offer non-app options you can try:. Use a free budget worksheet to record your expenses.

Explore online budget templates for a quick check of your finances. Read a budgeting book. To come up with the lists above, we first reviewed 18 money apps. We appreciated apps that allowed users to do the following:. Sync several types of financial accounts and opt out of syncing. Plan ahead for financial decisions versus simply tracking past transactions.

See their expenses categorized and create custom categories. Track bills and receive alerts for upcoming due dates. Share financial information with partners. Access the app via both the mobile app and desktop.

We also gave unofficial bonus points for nice-to-have features, such as showing credit score and net worth, as well as tracking investments. We noted apps that were free or relatively inexpensive. The experiences of real users matter, too. We only included apps that received at least 4. Those ratings were pulled on Dec. The best budget apps.