Top free personal finance Mac apps get your financial life (securely) in order

By

Dashlane - finance apps
Getting your financial life in order online only pays if you keep passwords and crucial data safe with Dashlane.
Photo: CC 2.0 LendingMemo.com

This personal finance app post is presented by Dashlane.

Is this the year you pledged to get your financial life in order like a properly functioning adult? If so, there’s still time. Or, you can start laying the groundwork for a 2020 New Year’s resolution that will stick.

Whether you need help saving, budgeting, paying bills, tracking expenses, investing or all of the above, there’s a free personal finance Mac app for that. Some of our favorites are below. And you can use any or all of them more securely, keeping sensitive financial data and logins safe, if you try them in concert with Dashlane, the official password manager of Cult of Mac.

Best free Mac personal finance apps

Mint: all-in-one money management

Mint is often cited as an alternative to finance behemoth Quicken, which is brought to you by Intuit (Mint’s owner). The app is popular for its simplicity, its effective visualizations — and the fact that it’s free. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mint is similar to Quicken in many ways. It puts all of your financial information in one place, allowing you to see what your money is doing. You can track bills, create custom budgets with tips based on your spending history, view credit scores and more.

Clarity Money: saving

Clarity Money links your financial accounts, looks at your spending, and recommends ways you can lower your bills and save more dough. It may suggest canceling redundant subscriptions or memberships, negotiating new rates for services, or shopping for lower-cost alternatives. Part of Goldman Sachs’ Marcus banking business, Clarity also functions as both a savings account and a budgeting tool.

Monefy: expense tracking

Monefy is a no-frills personal finance management and expense-tracking tool. The emphasis here is on ease of use, so rather than simply thinking you should keep track of your expenses, you will actually do it. The app features one-click entry of expenses. Synchronizing data between devices is also designed to be simple. You can get going quickly with the clear and intuitive interface, and then customize it to suit your needs.

Prism: bill paying

With Prism, you can see all of your account balances and bills in one place. Prism lets you pay bills directly from the app or schedule a payment. In any case, the app will send you notifications about upcoming due dates as well as payment confirmations. Prism claims to have more billers in its system — 11,000 across the United States — than any other app, making it easier to find the companies you do business with.

Personal Capital: investing

The investment-management service Personal Capital pairs algorithms with actual human advisers to help direct your investment portfolio. While the app is free, the minimum investment of $100,000 with tiered fees may stop you from actually building a portfolio here. However, the well-reviewed suite of free investing tools, including mobile apps, will be at your disposal in any case. An investment checkup tool scrutinizes your investment accounts’ asset allocation and recommends a target allocation. The site also offers a 401(k) fee analyzer and a retirement planner. Popular alternative investing sites with lower entry costs to build a portfolio include FutureAdvisor and Robinhood.

Dashlane: Security and peace of mind

Dashlane is not specifically a personal finance tool, but as a password manager with robust features, it’s crucial to your online financial life nonetheless. That’s because it can safeguard not only your uniquely generated passwords for every site, but also other information you enter. That may include user names, your birth date, Social Security and credit card numbers — all sorts of digital info of interest to identity thieves. Dashlane’s digital wallet auto-fills anything you don’t want someone else to see. The app also will notify you about potential problems to help you avoid leaving digital clues about yourself for others to pick up.

A free version of Dashlane offers many features and might be enough for some users. However, with the premium version of Dashlane (which costs $60 a year), turning on a virtual private network renders your online activity anonymous to websites. The VPN also shields you on public Wi-Fi networks and helps you avoid malware and trackers. Premium users also add Dark Web Monitoring, which alerts you if your information pops up where it doesn’t belong. So if your identity ends up compromised, at least you know right away and can deal with it.

Price: Free, with premium subscription options

Download from Dashlane: Get a free 30-day trial of Dashlane Premium

Newsletters

Daily round-ups or a weekly refresher, straight from Cult of Mac to your inbox.

  • The Weekender

    The week's best Apple news, reviews and how-tos from Cult of Mac, every Saturday morning. Our readers say: "Thank you guys for always posting cool stuff" -- Vaughn Nevins. "Very informative" -- Kenly Xavier.