I know many are using YNAB and Monarch but I’ve used both of them and always ended back in a spreadsheet. It was always something: the banking system randomly breaks down, you never understand how numbers are calculated because it’s behind a wall or you end up paying a fortune in a year.
With something like a standard Google Sheets spreadsheet or Excel built-in template you get it for free. Even if you use a more powerful template like FinancialAha, Vertex42 or a spreadsheet from Etsy you pay a small fee once and then use it forever. It’s yours and you have full control over your data and you can easily make whatever change you want. And no third party has access to your bank data.
Am I the only one feeling this way or are other spreadsheet lovers here too? If you use an app, why keep paying a monthly fee?
Unpopular opinion: most budgeting apps are waste of money when a spreadsheet does the same
byu/St3fanHere infinancialindependence
Posted by St3fanHere
2 Comments
A lot of people can barely do math let alone use a spreadsheet. Budget apps are easier to use. You can’t automatically pull credit card spendings on a spreadsheet unless you got some complicated set up.
You could but apps have a lot of simplification and nicer UI with some added features. You could do a lot with a spreadsheet and some scripting though.
I do agree the pricing has gotten a bit nuts and I am getting some real subscription fatigue. I ended up building my own app to use to avoid that though. There’s no getting around bank sync costs however if you want that.