Worried about money management while abroad? Traveling is one of my hobbies, and I love visiting new places. What I don’t love is coming back from a trip and seeing my bank account lower than I expected. Since I started using some of these apps, I’ve been much better with my money management.
Your Phone Is Your Best Travel Money Management Tool
Traveling is a passion of mine. I’ve visited several islands in the Caribbean and even had a 13-hour layover in Panama once. Yet, no matter where I traveled, I was always constantly worried about the state of my spending. Sure, I know how much I have to spend while on a trip, but sometimes, you want to splurge and buy stuff as souvenirs so you don’t forget the visit.
My phone is one of the best travel accessories on my trips. I found that my smartphone is a lot better at helping me manage my spending than I first thought. Budget tracking apps are good, but there are apps designed specifically for when you’re on a trip or traveling with a group of friends. These are the six apps I’ve found that have helped my money management while on a trip.
1 Expensify
I used Expensify for one or two of my international travel destinations when submitting reimbursement invoices. This app is available on both Android and iOS and offers a unique way of keeping records. Before using Expensify, I’d have to log every penny I spent on a trip. That usually meant a wallet full of receipts and statements from stuff I paid for.
With Expensify, I could snapshot my bills and payment information, and the app would log it automatically. While it works really well for business expenses, it’s also beneficial from an individual’s personal finance perspective. You can use it to ensure you don’t overspend on your next trip abroad.
You could make a simple budget in Excel for this, but the app is cleaner and a lot more well-designed.
2 PocketGuard
If you’re anything like me, you have a set budget for your international travel expenses. Anything from food to souvenir shopping usually falls into a grand basket of “things I can spend money on.” However, if you’re budgeting, you have a set amount of money you don’t want to go over. PocketGuard is designed for this type of budgeting and spending.
This app, available on both Android and iOS, has the useful “In My Pocket” feature, which allows you to limit your spending money by telling you how much you have left out of a reserve. As a free app, there are a few things that beat it when you want to set aside some money for your trip and don’t want to go over that set amount.
The app also has a paid version that allows you to link your personal bank accounts, making it a full personal finance app that you could use to track your spending and income.
3 Trip Expense Manager
Occasionally, I plan group trips with friends to see new things or hike a trail we’ve heard about. The upside of planning a group trip is having a ready-made group of people who want to do things together. The downside is splitting bills and expenses since there’s usually some level of complicated math involved, primarily if not all trip members are engaged in a particular purchase.
Trip Expense Manager was designed just for this scenario. This Android-only app was initially built to split costs equally among several people. It started as a private thing, then the creator pushed it out to the world, and it’s been a great help to those who don’t want to spend time doing math before splitting a check. It also gives a valuable way to track who paid you back if you spotted them.
This is a 100% free app, although it does come with ads to support the original developer.
4 TravelSpend
Another app that helps with money management in a group is TravelSpend. It’s available for both Android and iOS and has a few upgrades over Trip Expense Manager. You can share and sync expense reports between your friends and family members so everyone knows what they owe. If you’re traveling alone, it also gives you a quick, offline way to track your spending while on a trip. If you meet a bunch of people and want to split a bill, the app also helps you with that.
The app seems to have been designed with travelers in mind. You can enter your trip expenses in any currency, and TravelSpend will automatically convert them. The real-time tracking of your expense fund is useful, but since it can only update its exchange rates once you get to a wireless connection, the exchange conversion thing might be a bit of a gimmick.
The app is free, but there are in-app purchases that support the developer.
5 TrabeePocket
When it comes to simple methods of doing things, TrabeePocket is a great companion to have as a travel app. Available on both iOS and Android, this app keeps things easy for your travel planning, expenses, and more. Everything starts from the “Preparing” section, which allows you to define flight sand tours booked in advance.
This app goes beyond mere expense tracking. It helps you stick to your monthly budget and even allows you to record income earned during your travels. A standout feature is the ability to attach photos to specific expenses. This clever addition aids memory, preserves travel recommendations, and proves invaluable for business travelers needing to compile expense reports with supporting documentation. The biggest downside of this app is that it doesn’t use a Google login, and you’ll have to remember a password for an entirely different app.
6 Splitwise
I’ve used Splitwise for a bit but replaced it with TravelSpend. It’s still a handy, free tool for managing your travel expenses, particularly when traveling in a group. Splitwise is available on both iOS and Android and works for more than just splitting travel bills.
If you have a regular group that you do stuff with, Splitwise makes it easy to manage who owes who and how much. It also offers linking your PayPal to the app in certain locales to make it easier to pay back your friends. The app also has an offline mode that you can use while traveling to help with splitting bills, but it lacks many of the frills that other apps on the list have.
As a free app, it’s excellent at what it does – splitting bills between multiple people and reminding them about paying you back.
Great Options For Keeping Your Travel Expenses in Check
Buying the ticket is only the start of your travel expenses. If you want to make sure you don’t completely drain your bank account, you should pick one of these to accompany you on your travels. As someone who’s visited several countries in different parts of the world, I can safely say that each is useful in ensuring I don’t come home to an empty bank account, even if I splurge a little on vacation.
