8 Best Apps To Save Money in December 2024

Staying on budget, cutting expenses, and saving for the future can be a challenge — but your phone can make achieving these goals easier.

Couponing, budgeting apps, and even investing apps can deliver instant savings, insights into your spending habits, bill reminders, and more right to your phone. Some even enable you to earn cash back just by buying groceries or filling your gas tank. We researched dozens of the top apps out there, and a few of the apps and platforms we most recommend include Ibotta, Rakuten, Acorns, Oportun, and GoodRx.

Here are our top 9 picks for mobile apps that can help you save, or even earn, serious cash.

Best apps for saving money

• Ibotta
• Rakuten
• RetailMeNot
• Groupon
• GasBuddy
• Acorns
• Digit
• GoodRx

8 mobile apps to help you save money

1. Ibotta

Ibotta is a cash back app that puts a new spin on the concept of clipping coupons. To save with Ibotta, open the app and select the cash back offers you want to redeem. After making your purchases, scan your receipts to redeem any offers you’re eligible for. You’ll get a credit for the cash back you’ve earned in Ibotta and can cash out once you hit $20. You can also make purchases through the app itself to earn even more cash back through online retailers like eBay and Amazon.

Ibotta's offers are often for popular grocery and personal hygiene products, so this app is best for saving money at supermarkets. But be careful: A good offer might encourage you to spend more than you normally would. When I downloaded the Ibotta app, some of my offers were for $0.50 or $1.00 off name-brand products that cost several dollars more than their generic counterparts.

Sign up for Ibotta or read our Ibotta review to learn more.

2. Rakuten

Rakuten, formerly Ebates, is another coupon and cash back app worth signing up for if you’re all about saving when you shop. You’ll select the store you want to shop at to activate cashback offers through the app, which takes you to that retailer’s website. Rakuten then receives the information about your purchase and issues you a credit. Once per quarter, you'll get either a check or PayPal deposit with the money you’ve earned. But if you're a credit card points fiend like me, you can earn American Express Membership Rewards points instead of cash.

It's easy to start shopping and saving straight from the Rakuten app, making it ideal for online shoppers. However, the app also features in-store offers, and not just at chains. When I joined, I was surprised by how many of my favorite local restaurants, bars, and coffee shops had offers on Rakuten. Just make sure to link a credit card to Rakuten and use this when you pay, or you won’t get credited for offers you’ve activated.

Sign up for Rakuten or read our Rakuten review to learn more.

3. RetailMeNot

RetailMeNot is a savings app and coupon website that provides in-store coupons, online promo codes, discounts, and cashback offers from over 20,000 retail partners and brands worldwide. You can search for coupons by store, brand, category, or location through the app and present the bar or discount code to redeem the offer.

I've used the RetailMeNot website for years to find coupons and promo codes, but it also features its own cashback offers. When I downloaded the app to check these out, I found the rates were often higher than rates on other cash back apps. That said, there wasn't as much variety in retailers as I’ve seen on similar apps. I could see using this app for specific purchases, especially big-ticket items, but not necessarily for everyday savings.

Visit RetailMeNot to learn more.

4. Groupon

The Groupon app provides limited-time discounts and deals on products, tickets, gift cards, meals, travel, and experiences available locally and online. You'll browse the website or search for a merchant to find an offer you’re interested in. Once you pay, you'll either get a digital voucher code that can be used to redeem an offer (such as booking an experience), or your order will be shipped to you.

I've used Groupon for over a decade to save money on new restaurants and local experiences. As someone who prefers to give people experiences rather than material items, I particularly love using Groupon to find unique gifts worth more than I spent. Make sure to read the offer fine print, though — it's not unheard of for merchants to shut down while still appearing on Groupon, and many promotions have expiration dates.

Visit Groupon to learn more.

5. GasBuddy

The GasBuddy app takes the guesswork out of getting the best deal for filling your gas tank. You can use it to find the cheapest gas in your area, as reported by users in real time. Choose your grade of gas and search for the best prices. Enter a city or ZIP code to find your area on the map and select the gas station name to learn more about current prices for different types of gas. You can also enable location services and pull up a list of prices in your immediate location or search by station brand.

The Pay with GasBuddy+™ card is a prepaid gas card connected to your bank account that lets you save up to 30 cents per gallon more when you use GasBuddy. But for safety, potential earnings, and ease of use, we recommend a gas credit card instead.

Visit GasBuddy to learn more.

6. Acorns

Acorns is a micro-investing app that enables you to round up every purchase to the nearest dollar and invest the extra change into a retirement account. This is sometimes called spare change investing, and we recommend it to anyone who’s too intimidated by the idea of investing to start. The platform offers plans priced from $3 to $12 per month, with the most premium plan — Acorns Gold — including all available features and Acorns Bronze being the most limited.

To enable round-up transfers, link a bank account, debit card, or credit card to your Acorns account. Then, when you use the linked card or account to make a purchase, Acorns rounds up your transaction price to the nearest dollar and invests the extra change for you based on the preferences you’ve set up (transferring funds when you have at least $5 accrued).

Pro tip for saving with Acorns

You can shop cashback offers from brands like Airbnb, Lyft, and Barnes & Noble to earn additional investment dollars.

Paid Non-Client Promotion

FinanceBuzz doesn’t invest its money with this provider, but they are our referral partner. We get paid by them only if you click to them from our website and take a qualifying action (for example, opening an account.)

Sign up for Acorns or read our Acorns review to learn more.

7. Oportun

Oportun helps you set and meet savings goals by analyzing your spending and automatically setting money aside for you. This is a great budgeting app for anyone who needs to spend less and save more, especially if the thing you struggle with is knowing how much money you can comfortably squirrel away. Unlike most other budgeting apps, Oportun’s Set & Save feature uses an algorithm to monitor your spending, checking account balance, and upcoming bills, then determines an appropriate amount to transfer from your checking account and sends this to your savings funds. You can set a minimum balance for your checking account.

But now we get to the downside: The app is free for the first 30 days, but it has a $5 monthly subscription fee after that. Another con is that you’ll need to transfer money from your savings goals to another account since it won’t earn interest in the Oportun app. Open a high-yield savings account, if you don’t have one already, to maximize your interest earnings.

Sign up for Oportun or read our Oportun review to learn more.

8. GoodRx

GoodRx enables you to compare prices at more than 70,000 pharmacies to find savings on your prescriptions. It’s one of many money-savings prescription apps and probably the first one you heard of, but it remains our favorite for everyday use.

To use the app, search for each of your medications to see prices and discounts at pharmacies in your area. When you choose an offer, you get a digital coupon that you can present to a pharmacist to redeem. Pharmacies that participate with GoodRx are legally required to accept your coupon.

Even if you have prescription coverage through your insurance, GoodRx could give you prices lower than your copays.

Visit GoodRx to learn more.

Bottom line

There’s a lot you can do with these mobile apps to work on reaching your financial goals, whether they’re building a safety net, reducing expenses, or even buying a house. Simple steps can lead to big savings in the long term, and apps like these make doing so easy.

Want more ways to figure out how to save money with some of the best savings accounts and how to manage your money? Check out these simple hacks to grow your bank account.

Learn More

4.6

FinanceBuzz writers and editors score products and companies on a number of objective features as well as our expert editorial assessment. Our partners do not influence our ratings.

Automatic Round-Ups can help you save faster

Up to 3% IRA match with Acorns Gold plan

Earn bonus investments by shopping with specific retailers

High annual percentage yields (APYs) with checking and savings accounts

Paid Non-Client Promotion

FinanceBuzz doesn’t invest its money with this provider, but they are our referral partner. We get paid by them only if you click to them from our website and take a qualifying action (for example, opening an account.)