I’ve tried a few finance apps on Apple Watch Series 8. And while these apps boast of different features, such as easy budgeting and expense tracking, the bottom line is they help you manage and save your money.
Some of the best apps you can use for personal finance on your Apple Watch and iPhone are Apple Pay, Pennies, PocketGuard, MoneyWiz, and Coinbase. These apps let you budget, make payments, track expenses, find the best product deals, save money for the future, and plan small investments.
Using finance apps on your Apple Watch and iPhone is about taking full control of your personal finance and making every dollar count.
1. Apple Pay
Apple Pay on Apple Watch enhances the ease and convenience of cashless payments directly on your wrist. Apple Pay works seamlessly with the wallet app on your iPhone, allowing you easily add your credit or debit card and use them to make payments via your Apple Watch.
Now you can pay for goods and services at any merchant that supports Apple Pay payment gateway.
To use Apple Pay on your Apple Watch, you simply double press the side button and hold the watch near an NFC contactless payment reader. The merchant will automatically deduct the amount owed directly from your card.
Apple takes security seriously when it comes to transactions. Accordingly, the Apple Watch uses skin contact detection to confirm that the person doing the transaction is actually wearing the watch. Additionally, Apple Pay requires a passcode, Face ID, or Touch ID to authenticate a transaction.
2. Pennies
Pennies can help you build better spending habits, so you can easily monitor and account for every dollar you spend on your iPhone and Apple Watch.
The app uses color-coded rings to keep you on track with your spending. Blue or green means you’re spending optimally. And red is a warning that you are spending a lot too fast and need to slow down.
Once you have Pennies set up, you can use it to:
- Create one-time budget and expenses or build the same for weekly, biweekly, or monthly periods.
- Personalize your budget and expenses with specific amounts, preferred currency, labels, and starting dates.
- Keep a daily spending limit and monitor how you spend your money throughout a given budgeting cycle.
In Pennies, you swipe horizontally or vertically to access different budgets. You can use Siri to add personalized notes to your budgets or choose from already predefined categories.
Backdating is a feature I would like to see in Pennies in the future, as it’s not possible to add transactions for dates before yesterday or today.
3. PocketGuard
Get PocketGuard if you need a financial management app that gives you a quick way to view your budgets, transactions, and account balances on your Apple Watch.
PocketGuard shows you your spending by category, shows you how much money you have left to spend, and sends you a notification when you’re about to hit your spending limits.
In My Pocket feature is one of the selling points of the PocketGuard app. With it, you’ll know how much money you have left to spend after your bills and subscriptions.
PocketGuard goes beyond categorizing your transactions based on the things you buy. It even lets you create custom categories for your expenses and saving goals.
4. MoneyWiz
MoneyWiz focuses wholly on personal finance, making it easy for you to manage your money and improve your saving habits.
Once you have MoneyWiz installed on your Apple Watch, you can use it to:
- Manage your income, create a reasonable budget, and track your expenses.
- Get custom and in-depth financial reports that help you make decisions to spend wisely and save money.
Because MoneyWiz is customizable, you’re at liberty to fine-tune it to your personal financial needs. And because it syncs financial data in real-time, the alerts you get across your Apple devices is always up to date.
