The industry of mobile commerce & smartphone apps ?is finding more and more ways to provide instantaneous service to its followers. Consumers have the ability to purchase anything online upon demand. Producers have had the ability to connect with consumers instantly through developments like QR codes and opt in location-based coupon offers. However, the most recent and exciting advancement is the ability to make money via your smartphone or tablet.

Although the concept is far from mainstream, the ability of the average person to make and save money specifically because of a mobile device is quickly trending into an entirely new economy. People are no longer chained to a desk or a specific geographic location. People can legitimately say that they are doing work while they are on the beach or the golf course.

There are many applications that have created these new and exciting opportunities for the average person. This article will go over a few of them.?

Money Making and Money Savings via Smartphone Apps  ?(Courtesy of Damian Gadal)

Budget 2012
This money-saving application will give you the ability to instantly reorganize your personal budget. It is able to combine all of your bank accounts into an easily organized singlescreen personal budgeting tool.

The application allows you to automatically pay bills every month and combine accounts in complex ways. Many people actually navigate their investments from this application as well.

Groupon Mobile Coupons
The number one name in online coupons has now expanded their repertoire to include mobile devices as well. The reason that the brand became so popular was because they were able to get coupons in the hands of people who wanted them more quickly than any other application. This trend continues with the mobile application.

The mobile application actually outshines the desktop application in some ways. Because it is mobile, it adds location-based services that are quite convenient to the average shopper. For instance, you can opt in to be notified of special offers from a business when you step into a certain radius around that business. You can also combine the application with a mobile version of Twitter. This can bring your personal and business worlds together in a money-saving conglomerate of contacts.

GasBuddy
This application has steadily increased in popularity over the past five years, and with good reason. As gas prices go up, GasBuddy tells you exactly how to keep your money in your wallet.

This application uses location-based services and an internal GPS to find the cheapest gas in your radius. No matter where you are, you can always save a few pennies at the pump.

Free App Finder
If you have ever wanted an application but did not want to pay for it, then you need to download Free App Finder. As the application that informs you when other downloadable apps become free, Free App Finder does exactly what it says it does.

CommercialAffiliate
This application will actually give you money for watching commercials on your smart phone. Although each commercial does not net you a great deal of money, in the aggregate the pennies can really add up.

If you do not have a lot of free time on your hands, you can also set the application to run automatically. This means that you're generating income whether or not you are looking at your phone.

The one downside to downloading all of these applications is the cost of using them from your carrier. If you are to take full advantage of the new economy that is slowly surfacing within the mobile environment, you must consider how you will keep your costs down.

SIM only phone plans are the way to keep your phone costs down. SIM only phone plans are the closest thing to pay-as-you-go on the market today, which can save you as much as 50% on your phone bill each month.

This is a guest article by Ruben Corbo, a freelance writer for technology, travel, and music production topics. When he?s not writing or making music, he?s enjoying a good post-apocalyptic novel or playing RTS Strategy online game. Ruben?s writing resume includes websites like SIM Only where you can get the best SIM only deals as well as other websites that help you save on your tech purchases.