Mobile Apps for Personal Finance: An Introduction
Welcome to the world of personal finance mobile apps. In this seven-part series, we will take a look at the ways in which mobile apps can transform your life. Of course, new apps are developed every day, so you’ll need to first learn the basics and then keep yourself up-to-date as useful new apps become available.
The Basics of Mobile Apps
Who uses personal finance apps on their phone? After all, if you don’t have a smartphone then you have no mobile access to these apps. Many are available on the Internet, so you can still access them from your laptop or home PC. You can also get personal finance programs to install on your computer, but that may undermine the point of convenience on a mobile device.
If you have a mobile device – a smartphone, tablet or other similar device like Apple’s iPod Touch – then you are probably already aware that you can obtain additional software applications for your device. You may also have noticed that individual apps may or may not be available on your device. There are several operating systems (OS) that will define which apps you can use: Windows Phone 7, BlackBerry, Android, and iOS from Apple are some of the most common OS.
An app can be exclusive to one OS, or be available for several.
Simple Tips to Get You Started
Organization may be a great place to start. After all, you’re less likely to use your apps if you struggle to find them! Don’t underestimate the inconvenience of having a disorganised screen on your mobile device.
Consider placing similar apps in a folder together for easy access. For instance, you might want to put your personal banking and credit card apps in one folder. You could then put miscellaneous “research” apps, such as apps to compare health insurance or calculate loans and investments, in another folder. Your budgeting app could perhaps be placed on your home screen to encourage daily use.
Another important consideration is security. The security of your personal information is important so you may need to consider this and look at apps that secure access with passwords. Ensure that your security is protected even if you lose your mobile device.
Ensure that the data is backed up on a regular basis, too. It would be unfortunate for you to lose it all due to a technical error. Many apps will regularly back up your data to online servers. Others will recommend that you do this yourself on your computer. Make sure you understand how your apps work in this respect; it would not be fun to to try and recover lost data that you’d exclusively kept on your smartphone for many years.
Welcome to the world of personal finance apps. They may help you to save money, budget, pay bills on time, and stay on top of many other tasks concerning your money.
Image by Miki Yoshihito
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