can anybody share their experiences with the various budgeting apps out there - mint.com, everydollar, ynab? Any tips for choosing one over the others? I see frum.finance is pushing ynab. Why?

In the last couple months I have tried: Mint Copilot Monarch Maybe Rocket money Prism Nerd wallet But I’ve tried it mostly to just keep all of my financial info in one place. Not really for budgeting

I use mint and EveryDollar. I like mint because it aggregates all of my different accounts into one place so that I can see all of my transactions from various credit cards and bank accounts chronologically. Then at the beginning of the month I manually put all of those transactions into EveryDollar (for the previous month) which I like for its clean user interface. It’s a little labor intensive to do it that way but the creators of EveryDollar are religiously against the use of credit cards so even their paid tier will not automatically link and import CC transactions hence the need for mint.com.

I've been using mint practically since it started. It does a great job aggregating and has nice graphs, but takes a lot of work to categorize purchases and chase after things that stopped syncing.

I use Mint and very happy with it. EveryDollar didn’t work for me.

I've been using YNAB since 2014. A big part of it is their "4 rules" which you can read about on their website for free. They use "zero sum budgeting" ("giving every dollar a job). I think EveryDollar does too. It helps you be more intentional and in control of allocating funds. It's the digital equivalent of the envelope system. It is a more hands-on approach to budgeting which can be beneficial. By contrast, they refer to the budgeting that goes on in mint and quicken as "forecasting".

I use mint and ynab. I don’t think its possible to put these two applications in the same bucket at all honestly. Mint is an incredible net worth calculator, but doesn’t really allow for real budgeting. It only does look back categorization, which is not budgeting. I haven’t used EveryDollar so I can’t speak to that one, but I can say that if you are using mint.com you aren’t budgeting, you are categorizing. Mint’s budgets are month to month, and that isn’t how to properly budget in my opinion. The envelope method is key to a proper budget. Every dollar needs a job (sounds like maybe EveryDollar does this to?). If I overspend in one category, a proper budget needs to force you to take funds from a different category to cover the expense (which mint.com doesn’t do). Budgets are also multi year things, not month-to-month like mint.com has it. For example, my family’s sheitel budget is a 4-5 year budget, not a monthly budget.

I can agree with @mysterious-tomato-10057 and @acceptable-angle-23240 that ynab is a great tool. I just started with it a few days ago. It is amazing how you can budget in so many ways that cater to your needs. Whether it is needs for spending, savings builder, debt collection, etc you can and are encouraged to assign the money that you currently have to each of your budgets. Whereas mint let's u make, budgets but only shows you how your transactions are applied to each budget category. Mint also batches all extra money together so umits easy to overlook any money that has no specific budget.

I’ve used YNAB for 3 years and it’s changed our budgeting life. I’ll push it to anyone who will listen. I’ve gotten 3-4 families in my neighborhood on it and they love it.

@thousands-sunset-8939 can you compare to everydollar?

I ALWAYS end up going back to a google sheet

There is definitely what to be said about using google sheets. I use it for almost everything, but not budgeting. I think ben once you read the thread you’ll see that you aren’t using it for budgeting either, but rather for categorization most likely. Looking back vs looking forward

I use Google sheets for a while. Yes you have do everything manually. Yes there is a pro aspect to that because you are very on top of all your expenses. However with different software you can import your expenses manually file import resynchronize with the bank and still be on top of all your transactions. Additionally why not catches on to any transaction that doesn't have a category lets you know about it right away. They also inform you about any transactions that are overspent in any category so you can fix that and the sign all your dollars to their right category.

Yup the advice I give to all my ynab families is daily checking. Its what puts you in charge!

Just seeing this @narrow-night-57825. I used every dollar at the beginning and one major drawback is that it didn’t seem to let me use credit cards. Maybe that’s passed by now, but I use CC for 99% of my purchases. Also, it could have been a learning curve but I found every dollar to be more spending tracking than actually budgeting. YNAB’s four rules are pretty cool too

I don't think the person who asked the question is in this thread anymore 🤣 @green-dusk-60018 we are here when you're back!

I've been using mint for a couple years and was going to ask if there was a better tool for some budgeting aspects that I felt mint didn't offer (i like the differentiation between budgeting and categorizing). I'll check out ynab, definitely sounds like what I'm looking for, thanks

@mysterious-tomato-10057 I'm back 🙂 been a wild week with kids home on midwinter vacay and trying to get work in. dropped anything remotely extra

Yes, there are security risks but there are with everything and you will lose your mind if you go crazy with avoiding them. Use a password manager and have every login be a random password that you don't know. Use two factor when you can. So many things are security risks right now that honestly it's crazy to try and avoid them.

I have used EveryDollar and YNAB. I liked EveryDollar because it forced making a plan at the beginning of each month for the money I was going to make that month. I don’t like YNAB because it feels more reactive, like I am just tracking what I spent rather than planning where I will spend. It also only deals with the money in the bank, not the monthly total earn. I would rather plan a month of income vs plan where each dollar I currently have will go. I happen to be a big Dave Ramsey fan.

There is definitely what to be said about using google sheets. I use it for almost everything, but not budgeting. I think ben once you read the thread you’ll see that you aren’t using it for budgeting either, but rather for categorization most likely. Looking back vs looking forward

not really sure what you mean by categorization I basically have 2 columns income and expenses I sum up both columns and always make sure the income is bigger than the expenses I usually pick some timeline usually a month...but sometimes the columns might be for multiple months in advance.

So for example if you want to have a seforim budget where you put aside 100 a month for seforim, but you buy once a year, how would you accomplish that in a Google sheet? How would you handle it if you spent more money than was in your seforim budget?

well, assuming my 'time window' was 1 month...meaning my 2 columns are only accounting for 1 months worth of income and expense...then 100 for seforim would be on the expenses column. happens to be currently on my spreadsheet I have a longer term set a 2 columns and a short term. So I guess the 1200 for seforim would be on the long term set of columns. make sense?

Yeah the goal is to be restricted. I also am a big fan of sheets. If it works for you, have at it! yasher koach. I just need it to be is simple as possible. Don’t let me go to the next month until I fill up all my envolopes. Google sheets can’t force me to do anything but I want software to force my hand to make sure my monkey brain doesn’t miss something.

yeah I've tried the other things multiple times, but I always end up going back to sheets

That’s cool if it works for you! Like I said before I love YNAB and I’ve ‘recruited’ some friends in my neighborhood who also end up loving it 😍 . But whatever helps you get more in control of your finances!

Does YNAB work in Israel as well?

@rapid-account-67960 the app and website should be supported, but you’ll have to add the transactions manually. Doesn’t look like it will automatically sync transactions. Pro tip: you ‘should’ be adding transactions manually anyway and the auto sync is just a fail safe IMO

Sounds like tons of work. You have time to do that?

Haha what do you mean? When I make a transaction, I enter it. Where’s the ton of work?

Also your wife and kids (often we send the kids to the store to get something small) What about things paid automatically, especially when you don't know how much (eg., Electric bill) I always go shopping Thursday morning, but when I get back I have to go right to work (wfh), and if don't do this immediately, I'll forget.

Good questions. So I also WFH but right when I get into the car after leaving the supermarket, I add everything in. It takes maybe 2 mins at most. I ask my wife to add what she buys, or I’ll ask her for the receipt when she comes home if she forgets. Again, it’s a 30 second task at that. My oldest is almost 4 so I don’t have that problem yet lol. But I would imagine the same thing, just ask for the receipt and enter it. You’d be surprised how fast this is. In terms of the auto bills, that’s a good question, I average out how much I need to put aside each month for those categories and I get an email about my bill, even if it’s automatic to tell me how much it is. So, I go and enter it into YNAB, even if it’s days early. I want to see that money ‘spent’ and out of that category. Regarding splitting up the supermarket bill, yes absolutely. I would say this is more of the time consuming aspect, but again, marginally. I just add up each item that has its own category, let’s say if I buy cleaning supplies or diapers etc, and just split it up in the categories in YNAB. The math I have to do is simple addition for those items, and YNAB leaves me the extra for the grocery category usually. I hope this is helpful for you!

It seems YNAB's import partners don't support Israeli banks. Manual import in QIF or CSV format might work. Originally YNAB did not support imports. They looked at this as a "feature" because it forces you to be more conscious of spending. You can still accomplish something similar by by paying attention when reviewing new transactions. Let me jump in here with a slightly different perspective: Categories are useful for things that you are trying to track and improve spending for. So when I get some "household supplies" along with my "groceries" I will usually just leave it in the groceries category. Sometimes if I'm going to Target/Walmart I'll split out the categories if they are blatantly different (such as clothing, furniture, home maintenance), or if its easy because its one larger item to split out YNAB founder was going crazy keeping track of his wife's clothing shopping and returns, with money flying in and out, going over and back under the budget. So now she has a credit card just for that, and he only deals with the statement balance at the end of the month Also, give yourself and your spouse a "spending money" category, so even if you have a tight budget, neither of you feel restricted if want to spend something small here and there. The right amount for this will vary depending on your situation. Can be even $20.

We are talking about the YNAB I just googled that costs $100/year? As an aside, from a security perspective, I have 3 points to make: 1. Credit card accounts don't really matter. What's the worst someone could do? Pay my bill? I give mint my CCs, but not my asset accounts (bank, retirement, etc.). Instead I scripted my own scraper that dumps all info into a Google sheet every morning. 2. Differentiate between giving over actual login info ("bad") vs. using the financial institution's API (good). Many don't have an API. Not sure if Plaid counts. Might be hard for a non-techie to know the difference, but this is especially relevant to the next point. 3. T&C for financial institutions likely say that if you give over your password to a third-party, they are absolved of liability for hacks. This is a scary clause in my book. Just my 3 cents

Yes that’s the YNAB. I don’t know much about those 3 things…

I was writing those security points in response to @green-dusk-60018's question