💸The BEST budget app to track expenses for college students

Estimated read time: 2 minutes & 38 seconds

Good morning!

Welcome to the FIRST edition of Live Fast, and thank you for joining our community! We can’t wait to help you maximize your college experience by keeping you in the loop every week with the latest personal finance and travel tips, tricks, and opportunities.

Starting off strong this week:

• 💸Mint: the best budget and expense tracker app for college students.

College is probably the first time you’ve experienced real independence. The part that’s not so fun? When life gets expensive–quickly–and those funds eventually run out. That’s why creating a budget and tracking your expenses is crucial. If you haven’t already, it’s time to get started. Budgeting has huge benefits in terms of reaching your financial goals such as paying off student loans, saving up for a trip, and more.

This spreadsheet was my solution over the summer:

At first glance, the dashboard is functional, gets the job done, and the color-coded expense categories are satisfying. But here’s the BIG issue:

It’s time-consuming. Realistically, as college students we don’t always have the time to sit down and track every single expense, or, in my case, fill out a synced Google form for every purchase I make. Even the most disciplined people have trouble maintaining their routines when they do have time. So, what’s the alternative?

Meet my favorite app this summer: Mint 

What’s Mint?

The Mint app is a budget tracking and planning app developed by Intuit Inc. It’s designed to help users track their expenses, create budgets, and achieve their financial goals.

The best part? 

It’s Free.

Mint operates on a tiered subscription model, but even without any premium features the free tier delivers a suite of powerful tools for college students.

Key Features:

1. Expense Tracking🧾: Mint automatically tracks ALL of your transactions by linking to your bank accounts, credit cards, and other financial accounts. This provides effortless cash flow visualization to see where money goes along with customizable rules that categorize future transactions.

   

2. Budgeting📊: Set up custom budgets based on different categories catered to your college spending habits such as food & dining, groceries, entertainment, and more. The app can also send users alerts on activity and before overspending.

   

3. Investment Tracking📈: Students interested in investing can use built-in portfolio and investment tracking tools to monitor their investment accounts, compare their portfolios with market benchmarks, and see their asset allocation.

   

4. Credit Score Monitoring💳: The app offers a free credit score AND report summary allowing users to know their credit score, what it means, and how to improve it.

5. Marketplace🛒: Shopping around for the right savings account or credit card for you? The in-app marketplace features personalized offers from Mint partners that match you with products that fit your exact financial needs.

6. Financial Goals💸: With Mint, students can set and track their progress on financial goals including paying off student loans, saving up for a trip, building an emergency fund, and more.

What we love about Mint:

Whether it’s cash accounts, investments, credit cards, and more, you can see the complete picture of your finances and manage them from one app without constantly updating your transaction history. The game changer for college students is the ability to add Venmo and other mobile payment accounts. If you’re like us, then you probably have a high number of transactions from sending or receiving money after splitting the bill on a meal or a night out with friends. It’s also quick and simple to create a custom budget that works with your lifestyle with automatic transaction categorization. Mint provides full transparency when tracking your cash flow, allowing users to see exactly where their money goes while sticking to their budgets and financial goals.

As college students AND users of Mint, we can’t emphasize enough how the app aligns with our on-the-go lifestyle. All of the features are incredibly user-friendly and provide digestible insights that help students make smart financial decisions while seamlessly managing their finances.

So, what’re you waiting for? Take control of your wallet, and leverage the versatile tools offered on Mint by downloading the app NOW!

That’s all for this week folks.

Thanks for joining us, and let’s stay playful, 🌴

Dustin Tran

Founder & Content Lead, Live Fast