SHARE THIS
photo: Ben Atkin
According to Techcrunch, since the iPad’s release in April the number of iPad apps has grown to over 10,000. That is still dwarfed by the iPhone’s library of 200,000 apps — and growing — but is still pretty impressive for just a few months on the market.
Since the iPad is still in its infant stages, the app store is relatively light on apps with a specific personal finance focus: most still focus on the gaming and reading niches. (Apple, however, says that almost all of its 200,000 iPhone apps are compatible with the iPad, including the Mint.com mobile app. You could also revisit Mint’s list of the top personal finance apps, published back in February. Alternatively, take a look at Apple’s list of money management iPhone apps.)
Still, we were recently able to find seven iPad apps that, if not directly related to personal finance management, at the very least help you find savings in everyday life situations and, as a result, manage your money more successfully.
Staying true to the Mint money-saving spirit, all but one of the apps are free to download (the other costs only $1.99), and none require a subscription.

Zillow – Free

Zillow has established itself as a great starting point for anyone interested in buying or selling a home. You can search by city or zip, find all homes for sale in the area of your interest, as well as comparable home sales. Once you’ve found a home you’re interested in, you can check out what that home sold for in the past and its estimated value, or “Zestimate.” Why does it make a great mobile app? Because it enables you to take your home search on the road with you: once you hunt down homes you are interested in, you can see them in person, and then take a peak at photos taken from inside the home.

Epicurious – Free

The iPad app from Epicurious.com includes over 28,000 tested recipes from magazines such as Bon Appétit and Gourmet, popular cookbooks, top chefs, and leading restaurants. And the iPad size makes it a great fit as a digital cookbook. What makes it a great personal finance app? Cooking at home is a much cheaper and healthier alternative to eating out!

Grocery IQ – Free

GroceryIQ is a mobile app that allows you to make grocery lists, sync and share them with others (so both you and your significant other don’t come home with a gallon of sauerkraut on the same night), scan barcodes, and even find and send coupons right to your loyalty card. Having a consistent grocery list for each store you shop at is a fail-safe way to keep your grocery expenses down.

Bloomberg – Free

If you like keeping up with your portfolio and business news throughout the day, Bloomberg offers a great iPad app to help you do so. The app offers customized news, stock quotes, company descriptions, market leaders/laggers, price charts, market trends analysis, and more.

Trapster – Free

Trapster has over 7 million users who provide information on speed traps, video enforced speed zones, and police check points. Now, we’re not saying you should recklessly speed around with your Trapster app spitting warnings at you. But most of us have been caught slightly over the speed limit at times, just because we weren’t familiar enough with a given area to be on our guard. Just don’t get caught paying too much attention to Trapster while you’re driving around (that kind of defeats the purpose of the app).

Kayak – Free

The Kayak iPad app, in itself, doesn’t offer any groundbreaking new functionality above the iPhone app or Kayak website. However, Kayak offers such a great airfare comparison interface and with the vibrant large-screen iPad display, it packs even more punch onto one screen.

Compoundee HD – Compound Interest Calculator – $1.99

Compoundee HD is a basic, easy-to-use financial calculator that is able to calculate 5 different investment variables on compound interest calculations at a daily, weekly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual level. You can find out how much an investment will be worth over a period of time and the calculation over email. This app could be extremely useful for real-estate agents and brokers, bankers, and mortgage brokers.
Which iPad personal finance apps make your “best of” list?

GE Miller discusses personal finance topics for young professionals at 20somethingfinance.com.