Great financial apps for students

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In the last few weeks, you’ve pulled out your debit card a thousand times to pay for your purchases.

The new shoes, the delicious cocktails in the bar and, of course, folders, writing pads and specialist literature for the new semester: everything cost money.

Now you’re holding your smartphone in your hand, nervously tapping your banking app with your thumb.

At any moment, you’ll find out how your account is doing. You are preoccupied with a question that has kept you awake for several nights: What does the account balance look like?

You’re shocked when the app shows you the hard truth: you’re in the red again.

Are you fed up with it?

Do you want to stop living from hand to mouth and finally get your finances under control?

You will – with these 5 top financial apps!

#1 Haushaltsbuch: Free app for your budget overview

The first and most important step in dealing with finances is to get an overview.

Where does your money go? And how do you make sure that as little of it as possible disappears somewhere? Haushaltsbuch offers you a cool and easy way to do this by allowing you to enter your income and expenditure in seconds and structure them with labels.

The switch between different time periods allows you to monitor the development of your finances in the short, medium and long term. You can also create tags such as cinema so that you can immediately assign each expense or income.

Extra tip: Create photos of receipts for expenses that you can deduct in your tax return. You can attach these receipts directly to the respective expense in the app.

Using Haushaltsbuch is very intuitive and is attractively presented with bar charts and pie charts. Dry financial planning is now a thing of the past!

#2 Karma: voucher app for top deals

Do you know what the best way to save money is? By not spending it in the first place. And you don’t even have to make a big sacrifice if you use coupons and discounts. This app will help you.

Karma is a free browser extension that requires Google’s Chrome browser, which is also free. The app informs you about discounts and coupons for products that you add to your shopping list, for example, or browses online stores in real time to find the best prices for your desired items.

Another smart feature: every purchase you make via Karma earns you Cash Rewards, which you can use to continue shopping. Your wallet will thank you and you can still afford great clothes etc. We think that’s pretty lit.

#3: WISO Steuer: Your helper for your tax return

Wondering why you need a tax tool? After all, as a student you are not obliged to complete a tax return. But we strongly advise you to do it anyway, because: The law gives you the opportunity to get a refund for the costs of your studies as soon as you start your professional life. You can find out exactly how this works in our article on tax returns.

WISO Steuer made the difficult process simple: preparing a tax return with an easy-to-understand walkthrough. Screenshot: WISO STEUER

This means you can get back hundreds or even thousands of euros, depending on the extent of your expenses, that you invested in textbooks, laptop purchases etc. during your studies.

Have you now got the urge to prepare your tax return?

Then be sure to check out WISO Steuer, it’s child’s play: with this app you can do your tax return intuitively, because let’s be honest … the tax forms from the tax office aren’t exactly cool, in some places they’re even really difficult to understand.

Practical and hugely time-saving: transferring your data from existing tax returns or files. Screenshot: WISO STEUER

WISO Steuer translates the forms to a certain extent by asking you specific, easy-to-understand questions. You answer them and WISO fills out the tax return for you in the right places. Although the tool costs money, it is worth every penny because it will save you time and spare your nerves.

#4: Monkee: Save money

Did you have a piggy bank in your home that filled up over time?

Bring back that nostalgic feeling and bring your piggy bank into the digital age with Monkee.

Monkee_App-2 — *Savings plans for every occasion: Monkee helps you achieve your savings goals with structure and discipline. Photo: Monkee*

Enter in the app how much money you want to have saved by when – i.e. the amount you want to save. Monkee will then create a savings plan for you.

You can also create several savings plans, for example for a short trip or to buy a new smartphone. Practical, simple and straightforward – just the way we like it.

We’ve found that saving money this way finally works and, above all, effortlessly.

And it’s really satisfying when you can watch your account gradually fill up.

Monkee_App-5 — *Money back when you store: Monkee FutureBoost credits money to your account when you shop with the right partners via the app.*

Another cool feature: the FutureBoost from Monkee. You can use the app to make purchases with well-known partners and receive a savings amount credited to your Monkee account.

All in all, a well-rounded solution and a great, motivating savings app.

#5 Too Good to Go: Eat delicious food for free

Save money and do something for sustainability: How does that sound? Too good to be true, right? Too Good to Go makes it possible: do something good for your wallet and pick up food that restaurants and cafés would otherwise throw away.

In most restaurants, bakeries etc., there is something left over at the end of the day that would just end up in the bin – unless you pick up the food.

Sometimes there are a few rolls and pieces of cake, but often complete meals. Some restaurants also give away great surprise bags, so you’ll discover new culinary delights – and all at super low prices, often in the single-digit euro range.

If you hop on your bike to pick up your food, you’ll also be doing a bit of exercise and doing something for your health.

Too Good To Go shows you all the restaurants in your area that are part of the sustainable network.

What are you waiting for?

#6 Finanzguru: The all-in-one giant

The developers describe their financial guru as a “digital financial assistant”. And that describes the app pretty accurately, because you can use it to manage your accounts.

The way it works is that you link your accounts to the app, and it’s easy to link multiple accounts such as current and savings accounts. You can also enter contracts such as insurance policies.

Want more features? Finanzguru calculates your disposable income in real time based on your account transactions, predicts future bookings based on existing contracts, analyzes your spending habits, makes suggestions for improvement and gives recommendations for hedging risks.

It is also reassuring to know that Finanzguru’s servers are located in Germany. With data as sensitive as your own finances, that’s a good thing.

The service is so successful that it made it onto the TV show Die Höhle der Löwen (The Lion’s Den), where it won a big deal. We also think the app is great and are therefore happy to recommend it to you.