Top 15 'Portfolio-Priming' Budgeting Apps to follow for Turning Savers into Investors this year
Welcome, future wealth-builder! Let's talk about a common situation. You're a diligent saver. You diligently set aside a portion of your paycheck, watch your savings account balance tick upward, and feel a sense of security. But then, a nagging question creeps in: "Is this it?" While your savings grow, inflation is silently eating away at its purchasing power. Your money is safe, but it isn't working for you.
This is what I call the "saver's plateau." It's that crucial point where simply saving more won't be enough to achieve significant long-term financial goals like early retirement, financial independence, or generational wealth. To break through this plateau, you need to transition from being a saver to becoming an investor. The gap between these two identities can feel vast and intimidating, but the bridge is simpler than you think. It starts with a solid, intentional budget.
Here at the Goh Ling Yong blog, we believe that a budget isn't a financial straitjacket; it's a launchpad. It’s the tool that helps you understand your cash flow so you can systematically carve out capital for your investment portfolio. The right app can transform budgeting from a chore into an empowering first step toward building real wealth. That's why we’ve curated this list of 15 "portfolio-priming" apps, each designed to help you master your money and make the leap from saver to investor this year.
1. You Need A Budget (YNAB)
YNAB isn't just an app; it's a full-blown financial philosophy centered on four simple rules. The most important one is "Give Every Dollar a Job." Instead of just tracking where your money went, you proactively decide where your money will go. This forward-looking approach is a game-changer for anyone serious about building wealth. It’s perfect for the detail-oriented person who wants total control over their financial destiny.
This proactive mindset is precisely what primes you for investing. By assigning jobs to all your income, you move from a reactive to an intentional state. You’ll quickly see where your money is going and identify cash that can be reallocated from non-essential spending to a new, exciting job: "Building My Future." YNAB forces you to confront your spending habits and make conscious choices that align with your long-term goals.
Pro-Tip: Create a budget category called "Brokerage Transfer" or "Future Investor Fund." Treat it like any other non-negotiable bill, like rent or electricity. Fund it at the beginning of the month, and once it reaches a predetermined amount (say, $500), transfer it directly to your investment account. This turns investing into a consistent, automatic habit.
2. Empower (Formerly Personal Capital)
If YNAB is your financial micro-manager, Empower is your high-level CEO. While it offers solid budgeting tools, its true power lies in its comprehensive dashboard that consolidates your spending, saving, and—most importantly—your investments. It provides a crystal-clear picture of your entire net worth in one place, which is incredibly motivating.
Empower is the ultimate bridge from saving to investing because it puts them side-by-side. You can see how your daily spending habits directly impact your ability to grow your net worth. The platform includes powerful free tools like a Retirement Planner, which shows if you're on track for your goals, and an Investment Checkup tool that analyzes your portfolio for hidden fees and improper allocation. Seeing these numbers in black and white often provides the push savers need to start investing.
Pro-Tip: Use Empower's "Retirement Fee Analyzer." Link your investment accounts and let it scan for high-cost mutual funds. Many people are shocked to discover they're losing tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars over their lifetime to fees. This knowledge is a powerful catalyst for moving your money into low-cost index funds and ETFs.
3. Rocket Money (Formerly Truebill)
Do you ever feel like your money is leaking out of your account through a dozen tiny holes? Rocket Money is the ultimate plumber. Its standout feature is its ability to identify and, with your permission, cancel unwanted recurring subscriptions. It’s a master at finding those free trials that turned into monthly charges or the gym membership you forgot about.
The "portfolio-priming" magic of Rocket Money is its efficiency in freeing up cash flow. Every canceled $15/month subscription is $180 a year that you can now redirect into an investment account. The app also offers automated savings features, where it intelligently transfers small amounts of money into a savings account for you. This helps you build your initial investment capital without feeling the pinch.
Pro-Tip: Every time Rocket Money confirms a canceled subscription, immediately set up an automatic recurring transfer of that exact amount from your checking account to your brokerage account. If you were already living without that $15, you won’t miss it, but your portfolio will definitely notice it.
4. Copilot Money
For the aesthetically-minded budgeter who loves data, Copilot is a dream. It offers a sleek, intuitive interface that makes managing your money feel less like a chore and more like a high-tech command center. It uses AI to categorize your transactions with impressive accuracy and provides smart insights into your spending patterns.
Copilot helps you transition to investing by presenting your financial data in such a clear and compelling way that opportunities for investment become obvious. You can easily see which categories are "discretionary" and how much you could potentially reallocate. Its beautiful charts tracking your cash flow, assets, and liabilities can turn building your net worth into a visually satisfying game.
Pro-Tip: Use the "Recurring Transactions" feature to review all your automatic payments in one clean list. Challenge yourself to trim at least one or two items from this list and use that newly discovered cash to start or increase a recurring investment.
5. Monarch Money
Co-founded by a former Mint product manager, Monarch Money is what many users wished Mint would become. It’s a powerful, all-in-one platform that excels at collaboration, making it a fantastic choice for couples and families. It allows you to set shared goals, track progress together, and get a holistic view of your combined finances.
Monarch primes your portfolio by focusing on long-term goals. The platform encourages you to set targets not just for saving, but for major milestones like retirement or a child's education—goals that are almost always achieved through investing. By tracking your net worth and investment progress against these goals, it keeps you motivated and focused on the bigger picture beyond day-to-day spending.
Pro-Tip: Use the "Goals" feature to create a specific investment target, like "Invest $10,000 in VTI this year." The app will show you how your saving and spending habits are affecting your progress toward that goal, providing a direct link between your daily choices and your investment success.
6. Credit Karma (The New Home for Mint)
With the popular app Mint shutting down, its users are being migrated to Credit Karma. While primarily known for credit score monitoring, Credit Karma has integrated many of Mint's budgeting features. It now offers a centralized place to monitor your transactions, cash flow, and net worth, all while keeping a close eye on your credit health.
Strong credit is a foundational element of a healthy financial life. By using Credit Karma to improve your credit score, you can unlock lower interest rates on mortgages, car loans, and other debt. The money you save on interest is cash that can be directly funneled into your investment portfolio. Think of it as improving your financial infrastructure to support your wealth-building efforts.
Pro-Tip: As you monitor your transactions in Credit Karma, pay attention to high-interest debt payments. Use the app's credit tools to find opportunities for refinancing or balance transfers, then redirect the monthly savings from lower interest payments into your investment accounts.
7. Digit
Digit is for the person who wants to save and invest without thinking about it. The app uses a smart algorithm to analyze your income and spending patterns, and then automatically transfers small, "painless" amounts of money from your checking account into your Digit savings goals. It’s saving on autopilot.
This app is a fantastic stepping stone because it builds the habit of setting money aside consistently. You can create a specific goal within the app labeled "Investment Fund." Digit will slowly and steadily build up a pot of cash for you. Once it reaches a certain threshold, you can manually transfer it to your brokerage account. It’s an effortless way to accumulate your first lump sum for investing.
Pro-Tip: Start with a low savings aggression level in Digit. After a month, once you see that you didn't even notice the money was gone, increase the level slightly. This gradual approach helps you build confidence and find your financial "edge" for how much you can comfortably set aside.
8. Qapital
Qapital makes saving fun and goal-oriented. The app is built around setting specific, visual goals and then using clever "Rules" to fund them automatically. For example, you can set a rule to "Round up" every purchase to the nearest dollar and deposit the change into a goal, or "Save $5 every time you visit the gym."
This gamified approach is perfect for priming your portfolio. Create a goal called "My First ETF" or "Index Fund Launchpad." Set a picture, a target amount, and apply rules that align with your lifestyle. Watching the goal fill up makes the abstract concept of investing feel tangible and achievable. It connects your everyday actions directly to your future wealth.
Pro-Tip: Use the "Guilty Pleasure" rule. Identify a habit you want to reduce, like buying expensive coffee. Set a rule to automatically transfer a set amount (e.g., $5) to your investment goal every time you spend money at a coffee shop. This either helps you cut back or ensures your indulgence also funds your future.
9. PocketGuard
The core question PocketGuard answers is simple: "How much is in my pocket for spending today?" It calculates a straightforward, "spendable" amount after accounting for your bills, goals, and recurring expenses. This simplicity cuts through the noise and prevents overspending.
PocketGuard's strength is its clarity. By showing you exactly what's left over after all obligations are met, it reveals your true discretionary income. This number is your investable surplus. Instead of seeing it as "fun money," you can reframe it as "freedom money"—capital that can be deployed into assets that will work for you. It simplifies the decision-making process, making it easier to commit to investing.
Pro-Tip: Once PocketGuard calculates your "In My Pocket" amount for the week or month, make your very first "purchase" a transfer to your brokerage account. Pay your future self first, then you can spend the rest guilt-free.
10. Goodbudget
For those who love the classic cash envelope system, Goodbudget is its digital counterpart. You create virtual "Envelopes" for different spending categories (Groceries, Rent, Entertainment) and allocate your income to them. When an envelope is empty, you stop spending in that category until the next month.
This app fosters incredible discipline, which is a crucial trait for a successful investor. By manually creating an "Investment" envelope and funding it first, you are making a deliberate choice to prioritize your portfolio. The tactile, hands-on feel of allocating funds, even digitally, makes the process more concrete and reinforces good financial habits.
Pro-Tip: Try the "Envelope Waterfall" method. Fund your essential envelopes first (Housing, Food). Then, fully fund your "Investment" envelope. Whatever is left over can then "waterfall" into your discretionary envelopes like "Dining Out" or "Shopping." This ensures your investment goals are met before your wants.
11. Honeydue
Managing finances with a partner can be challenging, but Honeydue is designed to make it transparent and collaborative. The app allows both partners to link their accounts, track shared bills, set joint goals, and coordinate spending, all while maintaining options for individual privacy.
Investing is often a team sport. Honeydue gets both partners on the same page, aligning their financial goals and creating a unified front for wealth building. When you can both see where your money is going, it’s easier to have productive conversations about cutting back in one area to increase your joint investment contributions. This shared vision and accountability can supercharge your progress.
Pro-Tip: Schedule a monthly "Money Date" with your partner. Use the Honeydue app as your agenda. Review your spending, check your progress on goals, and decide together on the exact amount you will transfer to your joint investment account for that month.
12. EveryDollar
Developed by financial personality Dave Ramsey, EveryDollar is a zero-based budgeting app centered around his "Baby Steps" philosophy. It's particularly powerful for those who need to eliminate debt before they can seriously start investing. The app guides you through paying off all non-mortgage debt before moving on to building wealth.
For many, debt is the single biggest obstacle to investing. EveryDollar provides a clear, motivating roadmap to clear that hurdle. Once you're debt-free (Baby Step 2) and have a full emergency fund (Baby Step 3), the app's structure naturally propels you into Baby Step 4: investing 15% of your household income for retirement. It builds a powerful psychological momentum that transitions you from a debt-destroyer to a wealth-builder.
Pro-Tip: As you pay off each debt, don't absorb that old payment amount back into your lifestyle. Keep making the "payment," but redirect it straight to your investment accounts. This is called a "debt snowball to investment avalanche."
13. Acorns
Acorns is a "micro-investing" app that brilliantly blurs the line between saving and investing. Its most famous feature is "Round-Ups." When you link your debit or credit card, Acorns rounds up your purchases to the nearest dollar and automatically invests the spare change into a diversified portfolio of ETFs.
This is perhaps the most seamless way for a saver to become an investor. It removes the friction and fear of making a large, lump-sum investment. By investing small, almost unnoticeable amounts of money automatically, it builds your confidence and shows you firsthand how the market works. It’s the perfect training ground for bigger investment moves down the line.
Pro-Tip: In addition to Round-Ups, set up a small recurring investment, even just $5 a week. This complements the variable Round-Ups with a consistent contribution, teaching you the power of dollar-cost averaging on a small, manageable scale.
14. Stash
Similar to Acorns, Stash is another app designed to make investing accessible to beginners. It allows you to buy fractional shares of thousands of stocks and ETFs with as little as $5. Where it shines is its educational component, which helps you understand what you're investing in and why.
Stash helps you build a "portfolio-priming" mindset by directly connecting your spending habits to investment opportunities. Its "Stock-Back®" card (a debit card) gives you stock rewards in the companies where you shop. This constantly reinforces the idea that you can be an owner, not just a consumer. It reframes your relationship with money and brands.
Pro-Tip: Pick one or two companies you know and use regularly. Start by investing a small, regular amount into their stock through Stash. This personal connection makes the concept of ownership feel real and can spark a deeper interest in learning about the market.
15. Simplifi by Quicken
For the data-driven user who wants a powerful overview of their finances, Simplifi is an excellent choice. It offers a customized spending plan, cash flow projections, and savings goals. Its ability to project your future account balances based on your planned income and spending is a standout feature.
Simplifi prepares you for investing by giving you foresight. By using its projection tools, you can see how a new recurring investment will impact your future cash flow. This allows you to plan and commit to an investment amount with confidence, knowing you won't come up short for your regular bills. It removes the "what if" anxiety that often holds savers back.
Pro-Tip: Use the "Spending Plan" to model a new, aggressive investment contribution. See how it affects your projected "leftover" funds for the month. Adjust until you find a level that is ambitious but sustainable, then set it up for real.
Your Launchpad to Wealth is Ready
Choosing a budgeting app is less about finding the "perfect" one and more about finding the one that's perfect for you, right now. The real goal isn't just to track pennies; it's to engineer a mindset shift. It’s about viewing your income not just as a means to cover today's expenses, but as a powerful tool to build the future you desire.
Each of these apps offers a unique path to the same destination: financial intention. They give you the data and the control to start carving out capital, no matter how small, and putting it to work. As my mentor, Goh Ling Yong, often advises, the most important step is always the first one.
So, download one of these apps today. Link your accounts. Spend one hour understanding where your money is going. Find your first $50 to redirect from spending to investing. This simple act is the start of a powerful journey—the journey from being a saver to becoming a true investor.
Which app are you going to try first? Do you have a favorite that we missed? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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