3 apps to help South Africans use their Christmas bonus better

After a tough working year, it can be easy to let the festive season take control, overindulge in the December cheer, and spend too much of that hard-earned end-of-year bonus.

To prevent a reality check in Januworry, MyBroadband has selected three apps to help users budget their bonus and enjoy financial peace of mind this December.

The first is Vault22 — rebranded from 22seven in November — a free budgeting app developed by Old Mutual and Standard Chartered Ventures to help South Africans achieve what they call financial fitness.

One of the standout features is the ability for users to link their bank accounts directly to the app, eliminating the need to trawl through bank statements and list expenses on a spreadsheet.

The app automatically tracks and categorises expenditures by linking users’ accounts and visually summarising them using charts.

The rebrand also introduced a feature summarising a user’s financial fitness, similar to how bank loyalty programs like Discovery’s Vitality Money tier their customers based on a set of criteria.

This allows users to determine how well they are sticking to their budget and which categories they are overspending in.

Vault22 also allows users to compare their budgeting to others by receiving insights on how well they are performing compared to others in a similar income bracket.

For those who would like to take things up a notch, FinWise is a South African desktop personal finance management platform developed to help make personal finances easier for its users.

The platform includes several features, including budgeting, tracking accounts, managing subscriptions and bills, and monitoring trends in spending, income, investments, and savings.

The platform’s budgeting section is designed to be simple and easy to use while still being comprehensive and powerful.

It includes customisable budget categories, multi-currency budgeting, rollover budgeting, a calendar view for your monthly budget, and budget trends. The subscription costs R79 per month.

For those who prefer a more simplified approach to budgeting, such as the tried and tested envelope budgeting method, Goodbudgeter does precisely that.

Users “make” envelopes for each budgeting category, such as rent, groceries, and date night. Then, they set aside money in each “envelope” to spend based on the category and their bank balance.

This app can be useful for households as it allows users to sync and share household budgets, keeping everyone on the same page.

There is also a feature on the web app that allows users to track their progress when paying off debt while allowing them to set aside the money they need for everything else.

Goodbudgeter has a free and a R180-per-month version. The paid version allows users access to unlimited envelopes and US bank sync instead of only ten envelopes.

However, it does not work on a free trial, so it should suffice for basic budgeting needs, such as December spending.