An honest look at the struggles of managing money across 10+ financial apps.
4 min read
From ordering breakfast to booking a haircut, there seems to be an app for everything. Our screens have become cluttered with icons, and our brains are now experiencing a uniquely modern form of exhaustion known as "app fatigue." Whether it's banking, budgeting, investing, or saving, the world of finance adds thousands of apps to the ever-growing pile each year.
Banking app fatigue? Join the club
If, like me, you've ever tried navigating your finances across multiple apps, you know it can start to feel like a full-time job. Much like juggling dating apps, toggling between multiple finance apps can leave us feeling drained. From budgeting to savings, investment, and bill-splitting trackers, it feels too easy to become overwhelmed when trying to keep up-to-date with your finances.A few years ago, when I was just starting to get my head around budgeting, I decided to give You Need a Budget (YNAB) a try. It tracks your income and expenses and has a clean, spreadsheet-like interface, which is unsurprising given that it was created by an accountant. What initially drew me in was YNAB’s core principle: giving every dollar (or in my case, euro) a job. The idea is that every cent in your account should be assigned a purpose. It’s a great concept in theory, but in practice, it requires daily check-ins to stay on top of things, and that’s where it started to lose me. While I like to know where my money is coming and going every month, tracking every little transaction made me hyper-aware of my spending in a way that wasn’t always helpful. I started thinking, then overthinking even the smallest expenses and feeling guilty.
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The art of (badly) tracking my income and expenses
So, what do I use instead to keep track of my finances? Spreadsheets. What they lack in visual appeal, they make up for in giving me a sense of financial control — sort of. While I religiously track all my freelance income down to the last cent, when it comes to my expenses, things start to get a little hazy. Each tax season I find myself on a frantic hunt, sifting through bank statements, receipts, and various shopping platforms to piece together my deductible expenses. Every year, I promise myself I’ll stay on top of things, and every year, well... I don’t.
Managing investments across multiple platforms
Keeping tabs on investments also hasn’t been as seamless as I'd like it to be. I find myself switching between two apps: my investment app and my bank. While I love the UX of my trading account, my bank wins hands down when it comes to customer service. In hindsight, I regret spreading my investments across two platforms (three if you include my savings account). It means extra app-hopping just to get a snapshot of my finances.
The nightmare of splitting the bill
Splitting expenses with my partner is easy as we use Splitwise, which is a straightforward bill-splitting tool. But with friends? That’s where things get tricky. Not everyone uses Splitwise, so after a meal or drinks, we often resort to PayPal, the one app that most of us seem to have. When there’s no time to settle up immediately, I fall back on making a list of who owes what in my notes app which is far from ideal. Eventually, I turn those notes into reminders on a task manager, which in turn reminds me to chase down payments from my friends, who then pay me via a messy menagerie of various apps and bank transfers. Cue app fatigue overload.
Time is money
It takes an average of 9.5 minutes for our brains to fully adapt when switching between tasks. Just thinking about checking my daily account, tracking my expenses, and keeping up with my investments all in one day is enough to give me a headache. The truth is, I simply don’t have the mental bandwidth to juggle it all. Some weeks, I focus on my investments while my expense tracking gets neglected. Eventually, financial anxiety creeps in, and I scramble to catch up, only to realize I’ve lost track of my investments, budget, and daily spending. It’s a constant cycle of app-fatigue and playing financial catch-up, but as I’ve never known anything else, it’s a cycle I’ve just accepted as normal, well, at least for now.
One app for all your financial needs
Say goodbye to financial app fatigue. N26 houses all your banking needs under one roof, allowing you to spend, save, and invest directly from a single intuitive app. With features like Spaces for saving, instant notifications for budget tracking, integrated investment options, and bill-splitting functionality, you can gain full control over your financial journey while reducing the noise of everyday life.
