Many mobile phones are capable of helping you save money through the use of third party applications. Both iPhones and Android-capable phones make it possible to track your income and bills, while also allowing you to set financial goals. If you want to control spending, save money, track bills, and start a savings fund, there's an app for that.

Try these phone apps to help you achieve your financial goals:

1. Finance apps. Quicken and BillMinder are two examples of finance apps worth taking advantage of.

• The Quicken app allows you to monitor and track your financial accounts no matter where you are, including financial goals, account activity, and even where to go to find an ATM.
• BillMinder is another popular app and focuses on bill tracking. BillMinder offers a simple and intuitive interface allowing you to keep track of your bills, due dates and payment status. You can export your data through email for easy access and set up push notifications to send reminders of due dates before they occur.

2. Shopping apps. Grocery Gadget Shopping List and Coupon Sherpa are two examples of shopping apps that can help to save you money.

• Grocery Gadget is a $4.99 app that allows you to upload and share your shopping list and offers additional capabilities including price comparisons among your favorite local grocers and coupons on the products that you're actually looking for.
• Coupon Sherpa is a free app that offers in-store coupons and exclusive user-only deals. You can search either by store name or category, look for local and nearby merchants and can even share coupons with your friends by way of e-mail.

3. Food and drink apps. All Recipes and Mixology make cooking and drinking easy and inexpensive. All Recipes is a free app that offers mobile access to thousands of different recipes offering user reviews, directions and photos. The "spinner" feature helps you choose a recipe based on main ingredient, prep time and other details.

• Mixology saves you the exorbitant costs of a drink on the town by helping you entertain your friends at home. The Mixology app, which is free, features nearly 8000 drink recipes and a "liquor cabinet" feature that allows you to manage your own alcohol inventory.

4. Travel apps. Gas buddy is an indispensable app that can, for $2.99, show you where the cheapest gas stations are across the nation. Because prices can vary by as much as 20% within a single city, this can translate into very large savings at the pump.

5. Communication apps. Cutting down on communication costs is possible through apps like Skype and TextFree Unlimited. The Skype app is free and the TextFree Unlimited app is priced at $5.99.

• Skype allows you to communicate with other Skype users for free and to communicate with other cell phones and land lines for very low fees. Skype is gaining popularity as an inexpensive source for international phone calls.
• TextFree Unlimited allows people to send and receive text messages for free as long as the application is running. This app is ideal for light text message users, though not necessarily for someone who texts a lot.

If you have an iPhone or Android-based phone, taking advantage of apps like these is a wise choice. Many of these applications are free or inexpensive to use, but they can simplify your life in a variety of ways.

When you have a phone that works with apps like these, you can improve your productivity tenfold with money saving and tracking applications. These software applications can be a real lifesaver when you want to get a handle on your finances and more out of your cell phone.

By: Lorene Collier Purcy