Saving towards a mortgage deposit is an exciting time. If you’re doing that then it means that you’re obviously thinking of buying a house soon, and that’s a huge step that will be great for both your finances and your general lifestyle. It probably represents quite a big step in your relationship too, so that’s certainly worth celebrating.
But while there’s a lot of good here, there’s also a fair amount of stress. As soon as you have something you’re saving towards, that means you have a goal. And as soon as you have a goal, that means that you have the potential to miss that goal, the potential to fail. Thus every time you end up having to spend extra money you will find that it stings that much more and that you feel that much more stressed. You’ll have to start cutting down on your luxuries and in general things are going to feel less fun once you’ve made the decision.
With saving for a house being such a struggle then, it’s a good idea to find anything you can to make it a little easier and a little less stressful. Thankfully, there’s an app for that…
Or in fact there are several, read on for some of the best ones that will greatly help you to achieve your goal.
Banking Apps
The first apps that will be a huge help when it comes to saving money are banking apps. Most banks now offer an app that you can use to check your balance on your mobile, and even to transfer money at the touch of a button. This is highly useful as it lets you check in on how you’re doing wherever you are. Better yet, it also means you can quickly move money out of your current account and into your savings account if you decide you have enough free cash to do so. This means you’ll be much more able to transfer little bits of cash over and gradually increasing what’s in your pot until you’re close to what you need.
Goal Tracker
Goal Tracker is one of several goal tracking apps that allows you to keep on top of the various goals you’re working towards. This is a highly useful application that lets you keep your eye on the prize at all times and to see just how much more money you have to raise. While Goal Tracker and apps like it won’t necessarily help you to manage your money any more effectively, they’re important from a morale point of view and can really help you stick to your guns and beat your deadline.
Office Mobile
Office Mobile from Microsoft is finally the realization of Microsoft Office on Android and iOS devices. Sure it’s a powered down version and you have to pay for a subscription to use it, but if you have Office on your PC it’s still the best option for editing documents on the move.
And what this means is that you now have Excel right in your pocket where you can easily add to your accounting sheet and make changes. Save your documents to your SkyDrive too and you’ll be able to access the same sheet from your phone or your PC and that way always have an up-to-date copy of the sheet you’re working on.
Google Calendar
Google Calendar is a simple app that pretty much everyone has on their phone, but it’s very powerful if you decide to start getting more use out of it. Particularly it’s useful for setting tasks which can be set as recurring or one offs. Using this on your phone, you’ll then get notifications reminding you to ‘transfer money’ or ‘pay off your credit card’ on certain days which will make it much easier to avoid the mistakes that lead to fees and other setbacks.
If you combine Google Calendar with IFTTT – a great web app for triggering events between your services – then you can also have those notifications appear as e-mails or even texts to make sure you don’t miss them!
Use all these apps together and saving for that mortgage still won’t be easy, but it’s certainly be less of a daunting prospect!
About the Author: Jenny Wadlow, the author of this article, is a freelance blogger, currently writing for, Benson Mortgages, mortgage specialists in Toronto. She is great with graffiti and is an ardent swimmer. You can get in touch with Jenny on @JennyWadlow.
