Many people make budgeting more complicated than it needs to be and the amount of online budgeting tools out there only help to make things complicated. Besides old school pen and paper methods, there are online budgeting tools and lots of apps that you could use. It can get overwhelming! When it boils down to it though, you really only need a handful of tools to do your budget and to stay on track with it. A lot of us have a habit (a bad one honestly) of picking up every single new tool that we find and in the end, that can be more damaging that not having a budget at all. Doing too many things just complicates the process. Check out these 5 budgeting tools that make budgeting easy and pick one that works for you. In reality they’re all that you would most likely need!
5 Budgeting Tools
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Every Dollar – If you’re looking for an easy to use budget software, this is it. Every Dollar is based off of the Dave Ramsey system and is just like his software over at the Total Money Makeover website. Input your income, put in your expenses, add or delete categories as needed and bam! Insta-budget. The best part? It’s totally free unless you want to import your expenses.
Budget Simple – This is another budgeting software that lives up to its name. It’s based off of the owner’s personal budget spreadsheet and is very simple to use. It is a bit more complicated than Every Dollar, but it works for those looking for something that’s easy to use. Again, it’s free to use unless you want to import your banking transactions.
You Need a Budget – Also known as YNAB, this pc program is awesome for those folks who want something fairly simple, but something that also is a bit more in depth. YNAB will set you back around $50.00, but that includes updates and re-downloads if for some reason you need to re-download it.
Mint – For those who want something really in depth, Mint.com is the place to be. It’s totally free to use all features, can import transactions, track your debt, and give you your net worth plus a few other great features. It’s owned by the same people that own Turbo Tax efile so you can feel totally safe letting them import your deposits and expenses.
Digit – Digit is an awesome text based tool for saving money. Every few days Digit will pull a few dollars out of your checking account and deposit it into your Digit account. You’ll never notice that it’s gone and if you do need the cash in your savings account, just shoot Digit a text and he’ll transfer it. The best part is that it’s free to use and your money is FDIC insured up to $250,000.
Any of these 5 budgeting tools would make it easy to not only stay on budget, but to also save (as long as you really do use them regularly).
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Use them alone or together, but either way? Your budget (and your wallet) will be much happier!
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My husband is an accountant, so I leave most of the budgeting up to him. He is good with that sort of thing.
Lucky you! I handle all the finances for my family.
It is essential to have a budget, though most people nowadays do not use one! It’s apparent by all of the debt! Thanks for the helpful sites.
Thanks so much for sharing these! Budgeting is such a pain in the butt. These all sound like they could make the process much easier.
They would make budgeting much easier if you like using technology. I’m more of a pen and paper girl!
Thank you for this round up of budgeting tools. These are quite helpful.
These are some good tools to have on hand. Thanks for sharing.
This is some really helpful information, thank you for sharing!
I’m the budget gal of the family so these are super helpful! I feel like I work on our budget a lot but it works so I can’t complain. I’ll try these too!
These sound like great budgeting tools. I have always found it hard to stick to a budget. I will have to check these out.
Mint.com looks like a great site to help with budgeting and money management. I think that I could really benefit from this. Thank you for sharing.
It is challenging to allocate finances on a tight budget but with thiese toold, it is possible. Thanks for sharing.
I don’t worry about things like that. My hubby is an accounting major and has such a head for numbers and business that it is incredible. It is something I feel blessed about actually.
This is really awesome, budgeting is something I always have a problem with. It’s great to know that there are tools to help me out!
About a year ago, my husband and I tried revamping our budget to live more frugal and it’s been pretty successful so far. We’ve been able to set aside more for retirement than we originally expected so we’re pleased. 🙂 I’d never heard of mint.com before and it sounds like a pretty useful tool so I’ll be checking that out next. Thank you for sharing these great tips with us!
I’ve heard of Mint.com before but never really checked it out. Thanks for this list. Going to look into some of these.
I surely wasn’t aware of those tools. I would definitely check them out because to be honest, I am having a hard time when it comes to budgeting sometimes. 🙂
These are really great tools, most of which I didn’t know were out there! Really good things to know!
Those are great budgeting tools. I need to try some of them as my budget is not doing well lately
I have tried Mint, but I’ve never heard of the other ones. All of them sound really helpful. I need a reminder to USE them though!
I don’t currently use any of these for budgeting. I just use a calendar and my checkbook register. Perhaps I will check these out.
Thank you for sharing these apps. I’ve heard great things about the Dave Ramsey plan. I haven’t looked into it.
We did the Dave Ramsey study when I was in church and we really loved him. I have a friend that did his envelope system and is debt free right now.
Oh yes! Thank you for sharing this! I’ve been working on my business financed with a pen and paper but definitely would love an app to use.