Last month, I decided to get my finances in check because I’m tired of living paycheck to paycheck, so I downloaded a couple of budgeting apps-first Mint, then gave YNAB a shot. Mint kept glitching, wouldn’t sync with my bank, and half my expenses ended up in “miscellaneous,” so I had no clue where my money was going. YNAB felt like overkill-too many categories, and I spent more time setting it up than actually saving. I’m already cooking at home and skipping coffee shops, but by month’s end, I’m still scraping by. What budgeting apps actually help you track spending and save? Are there free ones that aren’t a pain to use?
Budget apps promise the world but deliver spreadsheets from hell.
byu/Tookie1010 inFrugal
Posted by Tookie1010
7 Comments
When I was broke, I used a custom-made Google spreadsheet.
The act of sitting down & entering shit instead of having charges fed to an app was so helpful.
You can look at budgeting apps till the sun comes up but if you arent actually making enough money to pay your core bills they arent going to help you save.
excel
Actual Budget has been good for me, very similar to YNAB but free. [https://actualbudget.org](https://actualbudget.org)
Its self hosted software but if you dig around their site you can find a pc/Mac app version. Theres no auto importing transactions, but I just download quicken files from my banks every few days. Importing and manually tagging transactions helps me stay on top of my budget.
Monarch Money has literally changed my life in terms of my money management. The best part is the dashboards/reporting area (as a data nerd who’s working on being better with money). It slightly pricey at $100 a year, but I find it so so so worth it.
I literally write down my purchases by hand. An added bonus is that I seem way more aware of what I’m spending when I literally have to handwrite it as opposed to an app just syncing with my bank and feeding it into a pie chart.
I’m team Google Sheets. Customizable to what data you want displayed.