Given significantly higher prices today on, er, well, everything, chances are your wallet could use a break.

Thankfully, a handful of apps and websites can help you with spending and saving – and you need not be tech-savvy to take advantage of them.

Whether it’s sniffing out the best deals on everyday items (as well as airlines and hotels) or helping you manage your money with budgeting advice, there are dozens of great tools you can download for free, whether you grab them from the App Store (for iPhone or iPad) or Google Play (for Android smartphones and tablets). Plus many can synchronize with a web version for Windows PCs, Macs and Chromebooks, too – especially ideal for those who prefer a larger screen.

And so, the following are a few money-saving considerations.

Shopping

Four awesome ways to save online and at retail:

Save Locally

A website and app (iOS, Android), Toronto-based Flipp aggregates all those paper flyers delivered to our doors and highlights nearby deals. Type in a keyword, like “chicken breast,” and it will show the best prices at your local supermarkets. You can browse by store, flip through ads or clip a deal on your built-in shopping list. A “Watch List” feature tracks items and sends alerts when they go on sale, such as if you have your eye on a pair of, say, Apple AirPods but don’t want to pay full price for them. Another benefit: Flipp also lets you store all your loyalty and rewards cards, digitally, which you can show the cashier.

Delicious Discounts

Quite simply, Flashfood is an app and website that helps you save on about-to-expire grocery items. The company partners with grocery stores – mostly from the Loblaw family (including No Frills and Real Canadian Superstore – to take their food approaching its best-by date and will list it via Flashfood for up to 50 percent off on meat, produce, dairy, and bakery items. Therefore, it’s a win-win: you get great deals on groceries and the store reduces food waste. Flashfood is currently available at more than 2,000 stores across Canada and the U.S.

Keep Money in Your Pocket

You’ve probably seen the commercials for Rakuten, an app and website that pays you $5 to join and then gives you cash back every time you buy something online at more than 750 supporting stores in Canada. The percentage you get back varies, but it could be as high as 30 per cent, says the company. When you want to shop, tap on a store logo – such as Canadian Tire, Sephora, Indigo, Walmart, Well.ca and Old Navy – to search for products, or type in a keyword in the search bar at the top. Once you buy, you’ll start earning cash that will be sent to you via cheque or deposited into a PayPal account.

Browse ’n’ Buy

Another great pick that’s free to use, PayPal Honey is an extension for your favourite web browser (Google Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox or Opera) that keeps an eye on what you’re shopping for and will let you know if there are coupon codes available to apply to your cart or if it finds a better deal elsewhere. For example, if you’re about to buy a Nespresso coffee machine at, say, Walmart.ca, PayPal Honey may ask if you want to apply a code for 10 per cent off at checkout. Honey Gold Rewards is similar to Rakuten, where you can earn points for shopping on participating sites, which you can redeem for store gift cards.

Discounts

A few “must-have” apps to keep on your phone:

Pruvo

As a regular traveler for business, this is one of my favourite apps that no one seems to know about. Get a better price on your hotel – after you’ve booked it. This is what the Pruvo app and website can do. Book your hotel room on any platform you’d like (including sites like Expedia, Trivago, Hotels.ca and Booking.com) and then simply forward the email confirmation to save@pruvo.com. If the hotel room rate drops – which happens about 40 per cent of the time, according to Pruvo – you’ll be notified on your phone about how much you’ll save and instructed how to re-book at the lower rate. The only catch is that you need to cancel the original reservation – which Pruvo walks you through, too – so make sure that a cancellation option is selected when you first book the room.

Gas Buddy

Especially given the high cost of gas today, why pay more at the pumps than you need to? That’s the simple premise behind Gas Buddy, a convenient app designed to save you money while filling up. For Canadian and U.S. users, this app shows you which nearby stations have the lowest prices and provides maps if you don’t know the area. View gas stations by distance or price (or if they have restrooms!), plus you can see prices for regular, midgrade, premium and diesel fuel. There are several other tools, too like a trip cost calculator, fuel logbook, vehicle recalls, and more.

fuelService

On a related note, disabled drivers were forced to fill up at pricier full-serve stations, with attendants who can pump gas in their vehicles for them, but a new app called fuelService solves this problem. Quite simply, fuelService tells you which nearby self-serve stations have assistants available who will refuel your car. When it’s safe to do so, such as before leaving the home, the first step is to open the app, choose fuel type and select a station from the list (or map view); fuelService will then contact the gas station and ask them if they can help. Great idea.

Budgeting

Apps and websites aren’t just about saving you money on purchases, but some can help you manage your money, too.

You Need A Budget

While only free for a month, You Need a Budget – or “YNAB,” for short (pronounced “why nab”) – is a great tool that teaches how to manage your money, get out of debt, and save more for the future. According to the company, new users save $600 in the first two months, on average. After the free trial, YNAB costs $149 a year. To automate many of its features, you may sync YNAB with your accounts (such as a supported bank and credit cards) to access real-time info, share with a partner and set and track goals. Available on a mobile device or computer, YNAB offers detailed (and visual) spending and trend reports to help measure progress, as well as more than 100 free and live workshops each week.