Budgeting apps
By Aaron Broverman • Bankrate.com

For most people, doing taxes is like going to the dentist -- awkward and painful. Even if you pay someone else to fill in the boxes and do the filing, you still have to calculate your expenses and figure out how much you spent, and on what, for the entire year. If you're like me, that means grabbing a wad of receipts from an accordion file, smoothing them out, figuring out which category they go in and adding them up one by one -- all the day before your appointment with your accountant.

It no longer has to be that way. You can now track your expenses in real time, as the money leaves your hands. All you need is an iPhone or iPod Touch.

There are countless applications in the iTunes App Store dedicated to solving humanity's budgeting woes. Some simply improve on the features carried by their competitors, while others innovate in truly intuitive ways. Some keep it simple, while others stretch the limits of mobile technology. So, which are worth your time and which are better left on the cyber-store shelves? Read on to find out.

TextHog
Darren Marshall and Phil Tadros are the young entrepreneurs behind Doejo, a Chicago-based web development firm. Their expenses are always at the top of their minds, as are their phones. "I'm always on my phone. I'm always touching it. It's a natural habit," says Marshall.

Enter Tadros's love of photo-blogging: "He does it all the time," says Marshall. "At the time he was buying an ice cream cone or a cup of coffee, and he turned on the phone to photoblog the barista or the shopkeeper, I think it just clicked in his head: 'Why can't I just text message my expenses in the same way I'm e-mailing the pictures that I'm taking?'"

TextHog brings that idea to life for everyone. You type your expenses into the application, and they are sent to an external website where you can see your total expenses in a category-based pie chart of your choosing. "You can view it by the day, the month or the year, and then if you want something to auto-associate in a different category, you simply create your own," explains Tadros. For example, you could set it up so that when you type "coffee," the item will automatically be placed in your "Food and Drink" category.

One drawback for Canadian users is that expenses are pre-matched with categories for an IRS tax return. Still, they are fairly similar to what the Canada Revenue Agency requires, and if your expenses don't quite fit those, you can always create your own categories. All your expenses can be downloaded into an Excel spreadsheet or accounting software such as Quicken or QuickBooks.

However, some people may forget to input their expenses when they are fresh in their minds, and that's where the photo component kicks in. All you need to do is take a picture of your receipt with your phone, and it can be easily added to your total.

"Other applications like Mint simply aggregate your bank transactions and credit card information. TextHog is perfect for someone who wants to keep track, analyze and have their analytics at the ready, or a sales rep with an expense account who needs to keep track of their mileage," says Tadros.