Your Smartphone Could Lead to Some Smart Money Savings!

Most of Britain has money woes at the moment. Everyone should be using every trick in the book to keep the finances in the black and not sliding into the red, so planning ahead and setting up financial defences should be a prerequisite.

IPhones, Blackberries and Androids dominate the Smartphone market; in turn this has meant mobile internet is quickly evolving (some critics say evolving into something useful, finally)

The increase in the Smartphone market means an increase in a large proportion of people able to access the internet when 'on the go'. Combine this fact with the expansion of online banking and modified webpage's and apps for banking are already beginning to become available for Smartphone's.

The app market is saturated with useful apps related to money and finance; it doesn't take long for an idea or market to open before there are hundreds or thousands of apps available to assist. We've found and listed some of the most useful below that will work on every Smartphone, not exclusive to any platform.

Mobile banking

It took a while, but RBS and NatWest are the first to have an app that allows secure balance enquiry checks from their Iphone. First Direct however are the first bank to develop an app that has a secure payment system, after customers began a campaign to get the bank to develop it. It goes without saying this is just the beginning as all the banks figure out ways to outdo each other in the app department.

Money managers

There are countless numbers of money managers available on the market. From full range managers to ones that are specific on expenses, personal finance etc. They can be used by anyone but are a particular godsend for self employed people, or those who travel a lot and are not in the office much. The one drawback is discipline, for it to work you have to have strong willpower and concentration to keep with it and make sure all the numbers stack up correctly.

0870

No doubt inspired by the successful saynoto0870.com, there is now an Iphone app which is a directory of alternatives to the ever costly 0870 numbers. Finding the real area code and other number for said company, over time it the savings on your phone bill are large, with the fantastic bonus of not being charged to listen to that awful hold music!

Suruk

Suruk is a Nokia only app at the present time, it allows you to input your local minicabs typical rates, so when it comes to paying the metre you know whether you are being overcharged or not. The one very slight downside is it was created for the Indian Market originally, show will show up only in Rupees, but as you have to input the cabs rates anyway, it's still the correct amount shown, only difference being it will show with the Rupee sign instead of £.

Meter Readings

With Meter Readings you can sync your electric, water and gas readings into one iPhone app and monitor how much your household is using at any point. It is unquestionably complex and will take a few tries to set up right, but once it is you can see what energy saving tips work in real time to bring your bills down. Most importantly of all, you will know when your energy company is taking the proverbial and overcharging (I'm looking at you NPower).

Barcode readers

Continuing the trend of apps named exactly for what they do is this one, point your phones camera lens at any barcode in any major store and wait as it tries to finds the same product cheaper at a rival store. Look up savings on the go in the dictionary and you would see this app listed, it is available on all Smartphones such as iPhones, Blackberry's and Androids.

There are thousands of money saving apps available, the above are just the ones we thought were best (or could find!), searching the app stores you might find the one that is perfect for your needs and means hundreds of pounds in savings for you!


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Tim writes for Just Commercial Mortgages, the UK's top site for the latest commercail mortgage rates and commercial property finance news.