Still using Excel or some other rather rudimentary means to keep track of the household budget? Ditch them now! It’s so easy to keep track of your finances and achieve your savings goals with these smartphone apps, websites and online financial tools:

Use your bank’s financial tools

Capitec: The Capitec budgeting tool helps you set a budget based on your income and needs. By using the tool, you are able to explore categories in more detail and make decisions about your financial priorities.

MyPocket: Provided by Nedbank, it allows savers to compartmentalise money into separate ‘pockets’ for each expense and goal. A Nedbank spokesperson says: “MyPocket is Nedbank’s hassle-free money management feature that can be linked to any Nedbank transactional account at no charge. No matter your age, income or budget, you can start 2020 by saving for daily expenses, emergencies or goals from as little as R1.”

FNB: The FNB app provides a money tool that allows you to track your spend so you spend less than you earn. The feature keeps tabs on your cash flow and provides spending tips to manage your cash flow better. It also provides information on your credit status.

Absa: Customers can easily invest in various savings and investment options through the bank’s app and its website tools. Christine Wu, managing executive, customer value management at Absa says: “Some examples are fixed deposit, unit trusts and savings accounts. We also have financial calculators for mortgages. Access to credit management is also facilitated via our app and online systems.”

Standard Bank: Customers can get guidance on which savings options are best for them by inputting how much they want to save, the term they want to save for and how much they want to make in deposits. You can also see how much you’d save if you add lump sums or increase your monthly instalments on your home loan. This is available through the app and website.

Finance calculator: The Nedbank website has great financial tools to calculate home loans and car payments. You can play around with affordability, extra payments and the impact a deposit has on your finance costs. You do not have to be a client – simply go the website, click on ‘Tools and Guidance’ and then ‘Calculators’.

GoalSave: If you have a TymeBank EveryDay account you can create up to 10 different GoalSaves and give them each a name, e.g. “school”, “holiday”, “rainy day”. If you’re willing to wait ten days for your payout the bank will give you a bonus on top of the money and interest you’ve already earned.

Swipe and save

If you struggle to save, there are a few tools and apps that have popped up recently that make it easier to save in smaller increments.

Old Mutual Money Account: If you open this transactional account, you’re asked to select an amount of between 5-15% of every card purchase to transfer into a money market unit trust in your name. For example, if you spend around R5 000 a month and you set the savings percentage at 10%, it will invest R500 from your account.

Bank your change: This FNB feature allows you to allocate money to your linked savings account every time you spend. It’s effectively a virtual piggy bank for your loose change. You can select to round up to the nearest R1, R5, R10, R20 or R50.

Multiply: Multiply, the rewards programme offered by Momentum, turns discounts into real savings. While you qualify for discounts at various partners such as PicknPay, Makro, CNA and various online stores, you can opt to rather receive cash back. For example, depending on your status, you may qualify for a 20% discount at CNA. You purchase a R500 voucher but rather than taking the discount of R100, you still pay R500 but R100 is transferred to a high-interest account. You can use this to build up your emergency funds. This means the discount really is “saving” money.

Stash: This app, available for iOS and Android, allows for a very easy savings experience as you can simply tap the app and transfer anything from R10 to thousands of rands into your investment, whenever you feel like it. For example, you may decide to skip the take-away coffee and reward your discipline by tapping R25 into your Stash account. It invests the money in South Africa’s top 40 companies, through a tax-free savings account. There are no fees to invest and you don’t pay any investment tax. Although it is backed by Liberty, you don’t have to be a Liberty client to take part and you’ll get R10 to your Stash account as a sign-up gift.

Assess your financial health and set financial goals

22Seven: Backed by Old Mutual, this budgeting app enables you to see all your accounts, transactions, savings and investments in one place. You can link it to all bank, credit and retail cards, investments, loans and rewards to create a detailed budget. You can also transfer savings to a low-cost, index-tracking fund.

Franc: Founded by Dr Thomas Brennan, the former head of digital innovation at Discovery Health, and Sebastian Patel, this app was built to make investing simple and affordable with access to money market funds and the stock exchange. Franc offers two investment options: the Allan Gray money market fund, which has returned an average of 7.87% interest over the past year, and the Satrix 40 ETF. There’s no minimum investment and Franc charges a 1% fee, which includes the underlying fund management costs.

InvestRight: This tool by Old Mutual is free and easy to use and can help you to determine how much you need to save and invest for specific financial goals like retirement or saving for education. All you need to do is answer five simple questions.

Smart Invest Platform: Provided by Sanlam, this free DIY online investing portal helps you to reach your financial goals. The only cost is the asset management fee you’ll incur by investing in the unit trust of your choice. Ya’eesh Cader, head of digital and e-commerce at Sanlam Investments, says: “Smart Invest is a single platform that helps answer all your investing-related questions, helps you choose the investment right for your specific financial goal, then allows you to track and monitor your investment performance online in real time 24/7, all completely online – there’s no paperwork.”

MyTreasury.co.za: Leaving your money in a transactional account may be one of the reasons why your savings aren’t doing very well. MyTreasury is an independent personal finance comparison website, which allows you to compare savings options online. It’s free and has information on over 600 different rates at 10 financial institutions.

OUTvest: Initiated by OUTsurance, OUTvest offers goal-based advice and passive investment options through their website and app. It has a do-it-yourself digital front end, low fees and goal-based calculators, which help you work out how much to save to achieve your goals. Grant Lock, head of OUTvest, says: “Anyone can build and manage their tailored investment plan in minutes online or using the app. We are low cost and use the latest techniques.”

Check your retirement funding

Have you ensured you’re well provided for financially in your golden years? If not, these websites can help.

Marriot Income Specialists: They have investment planning tools to help you calculate how much you need to save for retirement as well as what you need to ensure a financially secure retirement.

10X Investments: This website has a retirement savings calculator and a retirement income calculator.

Review your insurance needs

Insurance is often a neglected area and it can be difficult to calculate what you need. Many underinsure their lives, income and contents.

Risk Revealer: This website, powered by Liberty, helps you to determine your lifestyle and accidental risk level in a fun way using animation and some basic questions. It will then provide you with recommended products, such as lifestyle protection policies.

Assess your credit health

The Credit Bureau Association (CBA) says only 188 000 South Africans access their credit report every year – out of a total of 25 million credit-active consumers! Here are some simple tools to make use of to ensure you keep track of you score.

TymeCoach: Offered by TymeBank, this allow you to check your credit score for free and gives tips on how to improve it. It will also give you credit score alerts which will notify you if there are any changes.

MyFincheck: Developed by Fincheck, this offers you a free credit report with the option of a subscription to receive a monthly credit report update.

TransUnion: It’s easy to download your credit report from transunion.co.za. Check if your details are correct and if you want to dispute anything, call them on 0861 482 482.

Experian: Always check your credit score at more than one bureau. You receive one free credit report check annually from each bureau.

This article first appeared in City Press.