Tracking:
- Mint: this free app will track your credit card and debit card purchases, and help you know how much you’re actually spending SO that you can make adjustments if you want to.
- Expensify or Receipts by Wave: apps that help you track and scan receipts.
Couponing:
- Groupon: if you’re traveling, always check for limited time only half-off deals on tourist entertainment options
- Weekly Inserts (great for groceries and local entertainment!)
- Tada.com: working coupon codes
- ShopSavvy: lets you scan barcode of item at the store and see if you’re getting the best deal based on area stores and online stores
- Blinq: Buying items used (returned to stores) in great condition at low prices
Splitting:
- Google Drive: Create a spreadsheet for shared expenses
- Dutch: now you can split the check with friends at a restaurant while cutting down on some of the awkwardness that comes up when you get too into figuring out who ate what!
Impulse Control:
- Ice Box: A Google Chrome Extension that lets you block an item from online purchase for a specified amount of time. Behavioral psychologists recommend 24 hours to make sure it’s a real need and not the in-the-moment kind.
- DrnkPay: I had an audience-member once tell me he’d drink too much and then buy ugly paintings. A few days later he’d be sober and own something hideous he forgot he ever bought. BUI (Buying Under the Influence.) With DrnkPay have to pass a Bluetooth-connected breathalyzer test to complete a purchase. Blow too drunk, and your credit card is temporarily frozen.
- Stickk: accountability site where you make a goal and build in a financial consequence if you don’t keep it (ie. they’ll donate some money from you to an organization you passionately don’t believe in!)