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Jul 2011  |  By Meghan Streit  |  Comments

5 iPhone Apps for Easy Money Management

You can probably think of a dozen things you’d rather be doing than managing your money.

Reading a book on the beach, catching up with friends over margaritas or taking your kids on an adventure all sound like far better ways to spend an afternoon. But, at some point we’ve all got to log some hours tending to our personal finances.

The good news?

These iPhone apps make staying on top of your financial life a lot more convenient and a bit less tedious.

Mint.com: If you do one thing to streamline your money management, sign up for a Mint.com account. The free website aggregates all of your accounts in one place so you can track spending, compare expenses to your budget and monitor your savings and investments. Once you sign up for a Mint.com account, download the iPhone app to access all of your financial information on the go. Free on iTunes.

iAllowance: Consider this handy app “Piggy Bank 2.0.” If you want to teach your children the value of a dollar, it helps to speak their high-tech language. Use iAllowance to track kids’ chores, allowance payments and spending by category. iAllowance lets you track each child’s activity separately, and you can stay in charge with parental controls. $3.99 on iTunes.

Save Benjis+: Have you ever been in a dressing room, admiring yourself in a fabulous new dress, when you look at the price tag and wonder if you can find the same dress for less. Save Benjis + scans the barcode with your iPhone’s camera, and then it gives you the prices from hundreds of Internet retailers. If you find a lower-priced version, you can purchase the item with the click of a button. $1.99 on iTunes.

Suze Orman's Money Tools: Wouldn’t it be nice to have a financial advisor in your pocket? Now you can with Suze Orman’s Money Tools. The free app includes a “Buy Now vs. Save Now” calculator that shows the true cost of a purchase, a compound interest forecaster to help you manage investments, a tool to help you eliminate debt and an expense tracker. Overly enthusiastic rants not included. Free on iTunes.

Square: If you run your own business or collect donations for charity, Square lets you get paid faster. Download the Square app, and you can accept credit card payments with your iPhone using the credit card reader attachment you’ll receive in the mail. Free on iTunes.