Are money apps worth using? I put three through their paces to see if they could help boost my finances.
Can money apps help you with your finances or are they a waste of money or smartphone space?
I was curious about them, so I decided to trial three different ones and see what they could do for me and my money.
1. Sprive – pay off your mortgage early
Sprive is an app that’s designed to help you pay off your mortgage early. How on earth could an app do that, you might wonder?
It connects to your bank and mortgage accounts, and works out how you might squirrel away some cash from it to chip away at your mortgage balance each month.
If you press the button allowing this, it puts it in a pot, and you can decide whether or not to use the money in that way.
Over time, the company behind the app claims it can help you repay your mortgage years early – saving thousands of pounds in interest payments.
So far, it says its users have made £7.84 million in overpayments to their mortgage lenders.
It also works a bit like the cashback apps, but instead of putting extra cash in your bank account from buying items from participating retailers, once again, it uses it to pay off a little bit of your mortgage.
The way in which it does this is slightly fiddly, however. Essentially, you do your online supermarket shop, for example, and then buy a voucher from Sprive to pay for it.
Many retailers, including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, M&S and Amazon, are signed up to the app, providing numerous opportunities for shoppers to pay a bit extra towards their mortgage each month.
A bit fiddly to use but effective
The first time I did this, I was worried that it would all go wrong and I would end up with two £110 bills for our weekly grocery shop.
But once you get to the online checkout, you input the code Sprive gives you, and this pays for the shopping, which is simple enough.
However, I thought I had uninstalled the app, but then found it had unilaterally earmarked £54 to go towards our mortgage one month.
Luckily, I realised in time and was able to stop the cash from going out. The downside of using spare cash to pay off your mortgage is that, like paying into your pension, once it goes towards that, you can’t get it back.
It’s a great idea if your immediate aim is to pay off your mortgage and you are in a position to do so. However, if you are short of cash or need the money for other things, it might not be the best money app for you.
2. Snoop – insights into your finances
Snoop is a handy app that also connects to your bank accounts, but in an effort to help you budget and analyse your spending patterns. It claims it can save you, on average, around £1,500 a year through its analysis and the deals it offers.
A page on the app lists the latest offers for things such as broadband, energy, insurance and bank account switching offers, as well as vouchers you can earn for signing up.
It also shows you what you are spending each month on different items, such as groceries, entertainment and transport and can help you set a budget.
Again, I was a bit dubious about connecting it to our accounts, but it is itself owned by Vanquis Bank.
The insights the free version offered were certainly illuminating, if scary.
Apparently, we had spent over £5,000 at Sainsbury’s over the past year – terrifying! And we’ve paid over £4,000 to Tesco since 2023.
It also told us we’d spent more at Amazon (£1,300) in the past year than we had on oil for our oil-fired boiler, and, indeed, 99% of its users, which was a bit worrying. This may be partly because we often get things delivered, as we live in the sticks.
The standard app is free, but you can pay £4.99 a month (£39.99 a year) for Snoop Plus, which gives you additional insights and offers.
Considering the basic app is free, it is pretty impressive.
3. Emma – budgeting and investing
The Emma app has been around for some time now. I downloaded it and went through the motions of connecting it to two of our bank accounts to discover that you then had to pay for it. There were a number of options, however.
Emma Plus, the cheapest version, offers cashback at 500 brands, the ability to connect to up to four bank account logins, credit health building with Experian, 2.37% AER paid monthly and, again, a lower currency fee for investing.
Emma Pro costs £6.99 a month, but again renews annually, including everything in Emma Plus (£3.49 a month – normally £4.99), 3.23 AER paid monthly, a credit health building service with Experian, TransUnion and Equifax, tracking of your financial health, budgeting and lower currency fees for investing.
Finally, you could pay £10.42 (normally £14.99) monthly for Emma Ultimate, which includes everything in Emma Plus, along with 3.49% AER paid monthly on any cash held, business accounts and the ability to create pots to organise your cash with ‘life or business partners’.
Apparently, Emma can protect your online identity by scanning the dark web for leaked information.
You can also invest via the app and trade up to 2,000 international stocks. It has a tutorial that takes you through the app and the different functionality.
I wasn’t convinced that I was happy to part with £83 immediately when I had not yet been shown any of the benefits.
The other two apps I trialled had free versions. Emma did, however, offer a 7-day free trial, which I opted for, selecting Emma Plus.
All weekend, it has been busy popping up and telling me the balance of my personal account and our joint account, which was a bit depressing but certainly useful.
I hadn’t realised, for example, that a credit card payment had gone out until it let me know.
It’s a handy app and perhaps worth paying for if you have savings you can earn interest on through it and/or you wish to invest. I found the free budgeting tools and insights on the free Snoop app just as useful, though.
Are they worth it?
Anything that gives you insights into your finances is worth checking out, especially if it has a free version.
And these apps can be more immediate than looking at a spreadsheet or multiple online bank statements and trying to work out what is going on with your money.
Make sure, too, if it is connecting to your bank accounts or mortgage accounts, that it is a well-known, bona fide app and that you trust it. Read up on the reviews online and make sure you download the official version.
There is also the chance that someone else could access your phone and your data, so you need to ensure you have decent security enabled, such as biometrics.
But, of course, the same risk exists with banking apps too.