Virtual piggy banks are popular for your money solution. January came, and with it, many office affairs around annual salary reviews. Or what is the same: that every son of a neighbor intends to start 2021 by charging what he thinks he is worth (if he is lucky that the pandemic has not destroyed his sector). Everyone will know, if I were the only key picker in this house capable of bringing together two subordinates without anacolutos, I would also ask my boss to take a portrait. It’s the market, my friend.
The point is that with or without a raise in salary it is also the time to plan the year and do numbers with our finances , and in this moment of uncertainty, more than ever. In this spiral of good savings intentions there are some technological solutions that throw us a cable to fulfill them. Especially for those who live with a hole in their pocket and need outside help.
Here we list solutions both offered by the banks themselves — in addition to the fact that almost all already offer some level of self-grouped expense management — and by third parties.
ING’s ‘My Piggy Banks’
Released more than four years ago, ‘Mis Huchas’ are virtual pigs for ING customers. They allow segmenting the savings account into several piggy banks to allocate a savings cap and optionally a deadline in which to reach the desired amount for a specific purpose, such as buying a computer, changing the car or buying the PlayStation 5.
It is your ideal option if … you are from ING and you want a tool within your own bank, without having to distribute your money in different places, but only visually separate it.
Not your ideal choice if … you need to keep the money saved out of reach of your checking account to make sure you won’t use it in a moment of weakness. Nor if what you are looking for is not so much segmentation of savings as formulas that help you understand how you spend your money to reduce spending.
BBVA’s ‘My day to day’
Something limited, especially with regard to future movements, but equally useful for BBVA clients is this tool, which groups expenses into categories and subcategories, and allows limits to be set depending on the destination of the money . For example, to put a ceiling of 300 euros of spending on Christmas gifts, or 400 euros during the week in which we will be on vacation traveling.
It is your ideal option if … you are from BBVA and what you need most is to set limits on your expenses in certain periods.
It is not your ideal option if … you already manage to contain the expense and what you need is to anticipate future expenses of a certain magnitude.
CaixaBank ‘My finances’
The CaixaBank app and website offer a sort of “Fintonic” -being a pioneer has enabled it to reach a certain level of metonymy- with a detailed analysis of financial expenditure and a platform to manage upcoming receipts and, well, have our entire economy, past and future, within reach of our sight. Cornerstone of the attitude of those who save.
It is your ideal option if … you are from CaixaBank and you need to take a basic first step for your purpose of saving more.
is not your ideal option if … you are not from CaixaBank, of course. Or if you have very controlled your finances and what you need is to plan future expenses separately.
Banco Santander ‘Money Plan’
It is not just a tool, but Money Plan has its own application that also works in the Fintonic style, with added information from other banks if we also have accounts outside Santander. It allows establishing savings criteria (similar to ING’s piggy banks) and managing budgets also taking into account the balances of the rest of the banks in which we have an account.
It is your ideal option if … you are from Banco Santander and want to budget for certain savings items without many complications. Or if, being from Santander, you need to understand where the money is going.
It is not your ideal option if … you are neither from Banco Santander nor your main objective is to see your breakdown of expenses, but to isolate the money that you think you should save.
Coinc’s goals
Already integrated into Bankinter , Coinc is a financial platform focused on making saving simple. You transfer the money to your Coinc account and you see how each of your goals evolves: a new car, paying for a wedding, changing the television … Much like the ING piggy banks.
It’s your ideal option if … you are trigger-happy and tend to pull savings for sudden whims. With the money in services like this, it is necessary to mature the purchase decision a little more.
It is not your ideal option if … despite your willingness to save, you need total liquidity with your money or you don’t want to use third-party tools, but only you and your bank.
Fintonic
Fintonic , a Spanish fintech , aims to make you see how you have spent your money and automatically propose certain improvements. For example, changing financial products that cost you money in the form of avoidable commissions, notifying you of upcoming expenses, such as annual car insurance; or proposing cheaper alternatives to products that you have contracted thanks to your buyer of third-party services, including insurance or loans. It’s just as fair to say it has 256-bit encryption and bank-level security certification as it is to say it accesses your bank information thanks to screen scraping.
They are the ideal option if … you need to clearly see the breakdown of your expenses, even gathering those of different entities, or have automatic reminders of your next payments.
It is not your ideal option if … you already have a strong savings culture and what you need is to segment your savings for your different objectives.
YNAB
YNAB – the acronym for You Need a Budget , ‘You Need a Budget’ – is not an app or a website. Or at least, it is not just an app or a website. It is a method that relies on the app and the web that its founders have created, but that can really be applied with any accounting tool, digital or not, even by making numbers on paper. In any case, it starts from the premise that all our money, down to the last cent, must have a function to which it is intended; and all our future expenses must be anticipated, our anticipation capacity being the only limit.
For example, not only do you prorate the cost of paying for car insurance monthly within a year (to save that specific amount), but we can even estimate a useful life of five years for our computer or eight years for our television, and go saving each month for when it’s time to renew.
It is your ideal option if … your biggest problem is in unforeseen expenses or in expenses that, although foreseeable, are not monthly, but semi-annual, annual, or those that are due to “important” purchases, which do not fit within the usual monthly expense.
It is not your ideal option if … your culture of saving is extraordinarily strong and you are not really spending a single euro in a superfluous way, but you are reducing or eliminating any expense up to unusual limits. Or if you don’t know English, since it is the only language on the platform.
Moneywiz
MoneyWiz is a website and an app in which you can write down absolutely all your expenses and import the information of your bank movements – by hand, without constant synchronization in the background, for better or for worse. It is used for those who simply need to have even the smallest expense recorded and based on all that information they make their decisions.
It is your ideal option if … you handle a lot of cash, which leaves less information than bank card movements; or you already save and you just need to keep the spending level at bay.
It is not your ideal option if … you already know exactly what you are spending the money on, but not where to start reducing it.
Goin
Goin is a virtual piggy bank in which we deposit our money based on various parameters that we can adjust, in some cases also in an automated way. For example, we can allocate 10% of our salary automatically to this savings account, or round up the purchase expense so that the amount that remains until reaching a round number is also automatically entered as savings. The money is stored in a BBVA omnibus account owned by Goin. The idea is to save through a kind of life hacks.
It is your ideal option if … you are unable to save actively and you need automations and background processes to save part of your money.
It is not your ideal option if … you have a great culture of saving and what you need is to understand your expenses to optimize them.
Spendee
How about a platform that groups your finances and allows you to connect it with your banks to create budgets and meet savings goals? That is what Spendee proposes , which has a fairly simple and clear interface, and connects with many Spanish banking entities, although not all. Take a look at their compatible list before deciding anything.
It is your ideal option if … your bank does not have a good tool for grouping expenses or setting budgets and savings items.
It is not your ideal option if … you know how you spend your money and what you need is a method of saving in the background.
Bobby
Bobby : a simple and visual way to keep track of our subscriptions ( ugh ) to know where we are subscribed, since when, what day will the fee be charged, etc. Very good design. For iOS and Android.
It is your ideal option if … your problem is that you cannot resist this era of subscriptions for anything, and you only realize the magnitude of the problem when you see that on the 12th you have run to zero.
Not your ideal option if … you have problems beyond managing subscriptions.