When it comes to personal finance, many of us are lost. If you’re lucky, your parents taught you how to balance a checkbook and manage your bank ledger. Most of us enter the adult world with only the vaguest knowledge pertaining to income and expense, budgeting, and saving, much less complex financial matters like investing, securing loans, setting up retirement accounts, and creating living trusts to pass on wealth. And while you can certainly hire an accountant to manage your money for you, the truth is that most people can’t afford this luxury. With a little help, you won’t need professional help anyway. The main thing that you should be doing is tracking your money. It’s truly shocking how many people fail to do this and then wonder why they have so much credit card debt hanging over their heads and messing up their credit report. But with the moneyStrands application for Apple devices you can easily follow your money to see where it’s going and how you can manage it better.

In addition to the fact that this app recognizes 44 different currencies and it’s available in 77 countries, it’s got some pretty incredible features that are sure to appeal to users on a global scale. For starters, it’s free to download, setting it ahead of competitors like Nexus Money and SplashMoney that require payment to utilize similar features. But what do you get with your download? First of all, you can sync up with your many financial accounts, including banking, credit cards, loans, and so on. You might be a bit worried about security, but in addition to the regular passcode for your smartphone, moneyStrands prompts you to create a password specifically for the application so you get an extra layer of security.

Once you have linked up with your accounts, it’s easy to see where money is coming and going. In addition to providing an overview of your account activity, though, this app also sorts your purchases into categories like groceries, transportation, entertainment, and more so that you can get an idea of where your money is really going. Did you realize that you’re spending upwards of $100 a month at Starbucks? Now that you know you can start making coffee at home and put that extra cash into your rainy day fund. Of course, there’s a lot more to this app than simply displaying activity from your financial accounts.

You can also create a budget and see how your spending habits jibe with your goals for creating a hefty savings. The app allows for custom alerts so that you are notified when balances in accounts are low or when you are getting close to hitting your budget limits for the month. And you can view totals in chart format for a visual representation of spending (quickly determine in which areas your spending is concentrated) or see a bar graph of your budget, including how much you’ve used and how much is left for the month. Some of us will go to college for accounting or pursue MBA finance online degrees, but most will never take a class in finance. If you’re looking for a little help when it comes to financial issues, moneyStrands is one free tool that you shouldn’t pass up.

Editor’s Note

Thanks to Evan Fischer for this guest post. He is a freelance writer and part-time student at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, California.

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