7 Kinds of Useful Apps to Kickstart a Good Savings Habit

TGIF, everyone!

Today, I bring you a Finance Friday post. You probably noticed it from the title haha.

I’ve only started working this year after my last Uni examinations last year. However, my finance habits stayed pretty much the same.

I did a poll on Instagram and asked people to choose between a beauty-related post or a finance post on apps I use!

Finance and Beauty Instagram Poll — It was a super close fight with beauty winning with 8% more than finance.

Having posted mostly just beauty things, I wasn’t expecting you guys to want to know more about finance too. I was pleasantly surprised to be honest.

Anyway, do note that some of these pointers are no-brainers so I did not elaborate on them but I still find them important.

I personally feel more people need to learn how to take care of their expenses and savings. Not elaborating on that, you can probably understand where I’m coming from!

Before I rattle too much by myself, I should get started.

1. Download the credit card app (working adults only)

“Layna, what?!”

Haha, well if you’re not interested in benefiting from credit cards, you may skip this!

The first thing you’ll need to do if you want to get a credit card, is to read into their benefits, terms and conditions, minimum spend, maximum cap for whatever they are providing benefits for.

The credit card I’m actually referring to, are cash back cards. I don’t want to talk too much on this because you can easily Google that. Basically, they give you cash back for your expenditure. There are also air miles cards where you get air miles in return for spending with the card!

Not my priority though, so I went with cash back.

So, after you fit the eligibility criteria, you can apply for the card. You’d have to be working, of course.

Brief history:

Recently, I decided to get a cash back card, the American Express True Cash Back Card (not sponsored), as it gives you 3% cash back monthly at no minimum spend for the first 6 months (with $5000 cash back cap), after which it’d be 1.5% (no cap),

3% sounds small but it adds up – will show you my statement in a bit.

I’m thinking of switching to another cash back card for my main usage after that 6 months if my expenses reach the minimum spend for that card. If I do get it, I’ll share with you guys ????. Don’t really want to recommend something before I’ve tried it.

Tip: Try to apply for a card during a period where there are promotions going on. When I applied for this card, I was entitled to S$150 cash + ~$80 Capita Vouchers. I’ve collected the S$150 cash already – cold hard cash lol.

In this case, you’d really be getting lots of extra stuff just for applying for it and spending a certain amount.

As of now, I’m mostly using my credit card when I dine (with friends or alone) and shop. If you get to leverage on paying your friends’ bill, you can get extra cash back without even trying to spend more. Just make sure to get back the money you paid on their behalf. Haha, or you’d be losing more than you gain, obviously.

WHICH brings me to the next app after this point. It is super useful for when you’re dining with friends. Or sharing any purchases you bought with them.

AMEX Cashback Statement — I got a $20 cash back from spending roughly $685 last month, so I only had to pay $665 for my bill.

Anyway, here’s my credit card statement. They do not return you cash directly to your bank, instead minuses from the credit card bill you will be paying, which still equates to getting cash back because you’ll be paying less for your bill.

It’s practically saving while spending on what you need.

However, the downside to AMEX is the fact that not every place accepts it. I don’t find it too much a hassle because I’m not aiming to always spend around $600 a month to get more cash back. This is just a good extra benefit from spending on what I need.

I even pay my phone bill with this card 🙂 Do use credit cards responsibly though, and pay before the due date!

2. Splitwise – a great app to split bills!

Ever heard of this Splitwise app? If you have and have used it, good for you!

I only knew about this app when my friend introduced it to us when we were on a trip in Johor Bahru.

How do you split and record expenses for so many people?

Here comes Splitwise! I’ve been using this app with my boyfriend ever since lol. Yes, we go Dutch pretty much unless we like to treat each other.

Since I offer to pay with my AMEX card first, he’d owe me his portion and we keep track using this app.

Splitwise Settle Up — You can settle up with the orange button after you pay the amount that has been calculated.

You both just need to sign up with an email, add into a group and tadah, just add your expenses and split equally or unequally if one of you needs to pay more for their share.

Splitwise Group — Add emails easily, and you can even simplify group debts!

Simplifying group debts mean you won’t have to pay to every person you owe in a group trip/meal. We didn’t simplify this group as it’s just my boyfriend and I.

Splitwise Balances — A more detailed balance for who owes who what in total.

It isn’t too complicated so I won’t be explaining how to use this. Hehe. Not sure if it’s available in every country but I’m using iOS and am situated in Singapore. Hope that helps ????????‍♀️

You don’t have to remind your friend exactly what was it that they owe because it’s recorded inside.

But if you want to remind them to pay, you can literally remind them ????

Splitwise Reminder — Using an example of a template reminder to tell my boyfriend that he owes me $3.30 lol.

Okay, I believe I’ve talked enough about this app. It isn’t exactly for good savings habit, but it keeps everyone in check to make sure you’re not being paid less or not being paid at all because you forgot.

Alright, NEXT!

3. Money Manager / Budget App

I actually talked about this in one of my Finance Friday post!

I literally calculate everything, down to the cents.

Psst. I started recording my daily expenses since December 2016, I’ve basically formed a habit to record down what I spend on.

Whenever I get cash back on my expenses, I add this into my income column – note that I DO NOT minus from my expenses.

Reason being, you still want to know how much you’re spending. That cash back is just a little incentive for using the credit card, giving you a little income, which is never bad.

I talk more about budget apps in the link above so if you’re interested, go click on that! 🙂

4. If your bank has an app, get it

Do you still have your physical savings book? I don’t. I changed it to an e-savings book a few years back and I never found it a hassle.

I can do almost everything with the app, check my balance, transfer funds, apply for a card, allow cards to be used overseas, and even invest.

If you have not started on ibanking (Internet Banking), you’re missing out on so much time saved. Instead of queuing to update your savings book, you could be doing that while on your bed or right before you purchase something online.

We know time is money, so get familiarised with technology and get started.

5. If you invest, get a portfolio tracker!

I’m using Yahoo Finance too, it’s free! However, it isn’t the only one I use.

I use StocksCafe too (Singapore only – I think). If you’ve heard of that, good for you. It calculates the projected upcoming dividends and your market value after any fees.

It used to be pretty complicated to use but after the revamp of the app, it seems more user-friendly now. Hooray! It’s a free app too and it pretty much functions like a paid app.

I do hope they stay free though.

Similarly, Yahoo Finance do give you a lot of information as well. But you don’t get to put in your fees or dividends. So the calculation of your profit isn’t exactly accurate, you’d have to take into account your fees and dividends.

For me, I don’t rely entirely on these apps.

There are some others that I use to but somehow I’m unable to find them on the Apple Store anymore.

I won’t be able to recommend that.

However, one other free app(lication) is…

6. Excel! (Google sheets or Apple spreadsheets too)

Yup. Were you expecting this?

Haha, this is a very good app to track your expenses, income, savings and investments!

Albeit manually but that’s fine with me, just make sure there isn’t any human error for your calculations.

I recently started using the Budget template from Google sheets and it’s great for calculating your total income and expenses for the month. You can even use the same template for the following month to bring forward your previous month’s savings.

Over the months, you’ll start to see how much more you saved than the previous month.

I like calculating my investments using excel too.

If you’re interested in the table I use for my ETF portfolio tracker… Here ya go! – I actually got it from somewhere and tweaked it a little to suit my needs and what I thought mattered to me. (click to open it in a new tab)

You can see from March 2018 that I started putting in $200 instead of $100. Dates highlighted are months in which I got my dividends.

I figured it wouldn’t be very confidential since nobody knows me ????

Anyway, sharing is caring!

So technically, if you’re clueless, the total investment cost includes the amount you invested minus the amount refunded back to you – refunded because there’s not enough money to buy another lot and you get your change back.

The portfolio value is the one that you should compare with your market value from your portfolio tracker. However, to know if you made profits, you use the investment cost – the market value of your assets.

If your cost is > market value of assets, you’re not profiting enough yet.

If your market value of assets are > cost, you’re on a roll. Unless you’re doing ETF for more than 5 years, it is not recommended to sell just yet.

ETF is after all for long-term investing. If you wanna reap the most out of it, stay for at least 5 years, 10 years if you can.

ETF Dividends — As of now, I’ve accumulated $98 in dividends, which honestly isn’t a lot. BUT for passive investing, I’m really not doing much to get this amount.

I mean, the bank deducts my monthly contribution of $200 without me doing anything. I’m practically doing nothing.

If you’re interested, I started investing in ETF since April 2017. It’s been almost 3 years and I intended to do this for 5 years or more. We’ll see as I’ve been contemplating on the next and final point.

7. Robo-advisor apps for ETF investments

If you’re not sure about ETF and robo-advisors, I explained a little in my previous Finance Friday post too.

There are robo-advisors around now with an apps / websites. Namely, StashAway, AutoWealth and Smartly.

Please do your due diligence! (i.e. Google about them)

Take into account the overall fees per year, the minimum amount you can start and possible dividends from it.

However, banks are starting out robo-advisors too, like OCBC.

For the 3 I stated previously, only StashAway has an app currently. The other two isn’t applicable to this point, but you get my point right? Haha.

They have their own websites too where you can log in. I’d say that’s similar to having an app since you can easily check it from your phone.

I do want to start diversifying into USA’s ETFs too which is why I’m thinking of going to AutoWealth.

You do need $3000 to start though. For StashAway, you can start with any amount. I am thinking of doing AutoWealth mainly because of its fees.

Had a tough time thinking of StashAway and AutoWealth.

StashAway costs 0.8% per annum (for first $25,000) while AutoWealth is 0.5% per annum (charged every quarterly on your assets + annual USD18 platform fee.

Do note that it is only from investing at least $8,500 do you see a slight difference in how you pay lesser fees per annum with AutoWealth.

Calculation based on fees paid annually:

StashAway: S$8,500 x 0.008 = S$68

AutoWealth: (S$8,500 x 0.005) + USD18 = S$42.50 + S$24 (USD 18 as of 1 April 2019) = S$66.50

If you invest perhaps S$400 per month, you’ll take less than 2 years to reach S$8,500. The logical side of me would see the long run in which I’ll be holding these ETF for at least 5 years and I can see myself benefiting from the 0.5% + USD18 annual fee of AutoWealth.

This decision has yet to be made in my head at the moment due to some personal issues. I might or might not plunge in anytime soon.

Remember though, save before you spend. Do not spend before you save.

Okay! These are all that I have for you today. I hope they were helpful. To be honest, it was pretty fun to do this post because I was continuously typing and it got so long lol.

Thanks for reading till here! If you would like to learn more or want to ask me anything, I’ll try my best to answer them!

Check out other posts in my Finance Friday category.

You can email me directly at [email protected] if you would like to talk about finance or other things!

Have a great weekend and I hope you start to have a good savings habit. It’s always good to start from young.

With ????,