4 apps to help college students get their finances off to a strong start

Managing your finances as a college student is often easier said than done. You may find yourself trying to balance the various expenses of attending school (paying for textbooks, meal plans, supplies and commuting) on a limited budget without a lot of guidance. Sometimes, it can be hard to know where to even start.

Making a habit of saving, investing and budgeting as early as possible can help get you on the road to financial flexibility. Having an emergency fund, for example, will allow you to cover unexpected expenses that pop up in everyday life, from car repairs to broken laptops. And getting started with investing when you're young, means that you can avoid keeping to much money in cash and enjoy the long-term benefits of compound interest.

To help anyone out there who's just getting started, CNBC Select rounded up some of the best money apps every college student needs. They're all easy to use but really effective when it comes to managing your cash, so you can begin to dip your toe into money management and build a stronger foundation for your future.

• For learning how to budget: Goodbudget
• For getting started with investing: Acorns
• For saving money: Digit
• For cash back without a credit card: Rakuten

Budgeting may sound intimidating, but it's simply a plan for how you'll spend your money each month. When you know what's coming in (i.e. how much you're earning), you can more effectively manage how you choose to spend it. There are many different ways to create a budget, but beginners who want to manage their money on-the-go should check out the Goodbudget app.

The app is pretty much the digital version of the envelope method, a budgeting strategy where you label a few envelopes with different spending categories and put a certain amount of cash into each. Once you spend all the money, you'll need to wait for your next paycheck (or the next month) to replenish your envelopes.

Goodbudget pretty much uses the same idea, but instead of real envelopes, you'll have digital ones. You can label them to indicate things you usually spend on — for example, school supplies, gas, fun money and food. Each category will have its own envelope. You'll divvy up your paycheck among each one, and you're only allowed to spend the amount allocated in each envelope.

If you overspend, the envelope will turn red to indicate that you went over budget.

Unlike most budgeting and expense tracker apps, Goodbudget does not link to your bank accounts. You have to manually create the digital envelopes and input your transactions. The app gives you 20 envelopes for free, or you can sign-up for unlimited envelopes for $7 per month, or $60 per year. You can learn more about Goodbudget in our roundup of the best budgeting apps.

One common misconception about investing is that you need a lot of money in order to get started. In fact, you can get started with as little as some spare change, and that's exactly what the Acorns app does.

The app rounds up spare change from your everyday purchases and invests it into preconfigured portfolios. In other words, you can invest even while buying your daily cold brew from the campus coffee shop. Let's say that coffee costs $4.30 – Acorns will take 70 cents and invest it for you. Just be sure to link your credit card to the app and use it to pay for items, otherwise, you won't be able to use the roundup feature.

You can also deposit money into the app without making purchases. The account is free to open but you'll need a minimum of $5 to start investing.

When it comes to saving money, every dollar adds up — especially when you're consistently stashing small amounts over time. That's pretty much what Digit is here to help you do.

The app connects to your bank account and automatically saves small amounts of money for you each day. This could be 75 cents, one dollar, five dollars and anything in between. (You can indicate a maximum amount you want Digit to save on any given day.) Digit puts saving on autopilot, so you don't have to manually move money into a separate account.

You can also create different goals to save toward, like a spring break trip or a new laptop. And if you don't have any specific goals in mind, you can just save money for the sake of getting a jump start on post-grad life.

Once you're in college, some expenses are just hard to escape, like textbooks and groceries. But it's nice to earn a little cash back on these essentials. That's where Rakuten comes in. It's both an app and a browser extension that can help you earn cash back when shopping online or in-person.

To get started, connect your debit or credit card(s) to the app. Then, when you make a purchase from a brand within Rakuten's network (there hundreds to choose from), you'll receive a certain percentage in cash back. The cash back gets paid out quarterly and can be a great way to boost your savings just by buying things you needed anyway.

While using apps to manage your money may not be a good fit for everyone, one thing's certain: practicing good habits are essential for building a strong financial foundation – and college is a great time to start! Keep in mind that personal finance is personal – whether you love an app that automatically syncs your bank account info or you prefer creating your budget manually, there's a method out there for pretty much everyone.

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Disclosure: NBCUniversal and Comcast Ventures are investors in Acorns.