Best 4 Budgeting Apps! (Ranked By The Money Guy Team)

Best 4 Budgeting Apps! (Ranked By The Money Guy Team)





Bring confidence to your wealth building with simplified strategies from The Money Guy. Learn how to apply financial tactics that go beyond common sense and help you reach your money goals faster. Make your assets do the heavy lifting so you can quit worrying and start living a more fulfilled life.

[BrennanSedivy]

I started YNAB in January of 2024. It was an awkward adjustment at first and I needed several pay cycles to acclimate. I still have some improvements to make (e.g. overspent categories) but so far the paradigm shift in how I see money is already giving me confidence and sense of security. I’m almost a month ahead on my budget for the first time in my life and making small advances towards saving for an auto loan down payment (which was previously inconceivable). My credit card is paid off and taking the back seat.

[dragoncat]

$17/month for a budgeting app would be my first place to cut LOL. Been using the same Google docs spreadsheet for 15 years, it's free and easy and I don't have to worry about a spreadsheet shutting down on me suddenly.

[ThePpglover]

I use an Excel sheet to set up my monthly budget. And then for the paycheck budgets and expense tracking I use The Budget Mom's Budget Workbook.

You can get a printable version for 20$ and then just reprint as needed.

And I find having to write down all expenses physically does make me actually think about the cost of things. "Oh wow, I spent 38$ on the craft store today. I probably shouldn't buy more craft supplies until I use up some of my others."

[jessemeier]

I strict budgeted for 3 years and stopped maybe 3 years ago, and am excited to hear your takes. I've never carried a credit card balance, however, I have come to realize recently that I am spending more than I think I normally would by swiping that dang thing. Probably no matter where you are in the financial journey, it can't hurt to see where you've gained some "financial fat" in certain areas and to be more mindful.

[Brucefulness]

Two things on Every dollar.

1. After a while it learns your purchases and starts auto categorizing them seamlessly.

2. Gotta shout out paycheck planning. If you have odd income it really helps you layout your monthly budget to to see where you can make adjustments on payments or where you'll be light on cash at any time of the month. Super helpful.

[demondragon]

monarch was the best transition from mint for us

[JayDailyTV]

Joined Monarch instead of Co-pilot because they support PC browser. Thank you for researching and covering this topic.

[FlyKaleb]

Empower aka personal capital. Great spending monitoring, see investments and allocation in one place. Been a great resource.

[danayarbrough]

I’m old school pen and paper. I know my take home and every bill, subtract the total of those bills and what’s left over I break into categories for sinking funds. From there I either transfer to my hysa or take cash. Easy peasy 9:49

[lukasclark]

You should invite Jesse Meacham from YNAB to come talk on the podcast.

[ikewashere]

Transitioned to Monarch from Mint, love it!

[tylerstrausbaugh]

Hey Money Guys, I’m hearing a low frequency buzz in the audio. That’s happened to me before when I’ve crossed audio cables over power cables. I think it could be removed by using a high pass filter set to 100mhz to remove the low frequency hum or buzz. Thanks for the great content!

[AAG]

For me keeping a budget is essential. While we have all our bases covered (emergency fund, 25% retirement savings, and other savings) but…. We are in the messy middle (young 30, one two year old and wife is pregnant ). I know we could move to a cash management model, but….we don't want life style creep to sneak in. Maybe some day!

[mydachshundlife]

The one thing I’ll say about sharing a bedroom, especially if it’s a small bedroom, it does hit a point when it’s hard. When my sister and I hit our teenage years we detested sharing a room. We were constantly in each other’s space, throwing elbows, etc. But, on the flip side, it also kinda forced us to get along and figure it out. Sometimes we didn’t want to figure it out, we just wanted the other to go away, but ultimately we knew we were going to have to deal with whatever the issue was, because eventually we had to go to bed.

[dylantaylor]

Ruby stepped up and did an amazing job on this one! Also I’ve always wondered what the number counter is for in the background?

[CaedenV]

For the variable income question; Ours isn't quite that extreme, but my job has a higher than typical chance of getting cut, and my wife is self employed and seasonal. While our income is good, it is definately variable throughout the year, and with high chances of a lapse in payment if I am between jobs.
1) Keep your minimum budget below your minimum income, and then turn your other items into 'projects'. Avoiding required monthly or yearly expenses is key to not getting stuck in a rough spot when the chashflow slows down.
2) Instead of doing a normal budget where you pay the same thing month-to-month, have projects, prioritize them, and then pay them down through out the year sequentially. More like a debt snowball... but for things you actually want.
As an example, $580/mo every month would max out your roth. But if your income is variable, if you are having a tough year then you might have to cut your savings part way through the year. So instead, we put our $7k in as soon as possible, and then move on to the next thing. So years like last year where my wife's income wasn't as high, and we had a series of unfortunate and expensive things come up through the year, we didn't even make it to the roth contribution. But this year has been much better, so we knocked out last year's roth contributions already, and are now working on this year's contributions, and we will likely make it though a bunch of small projects that have been on the back-burner for the past few years.
3) When saving your emergency fund, focus on the minimum/typical budget, not the ideal budget. Because so much of our budget is a wishlist of prioritized projects, we technically have $200k of items on the list, but we have never made more than $100k in a year. We aren't going to save a whole year's worth of income in order to fill a 6 months of an overly idealized list of budgeted projects. Our minimum required budget is $50k, so our emergency fund is based on maintaining that for 3-6 months. When we are in emergency mode, the projects are going to be ignored, savings goals go out the window, and we only need to fund the $50k part of the budget.

[juswise]

I just use a very detailed spreadsheet. I like to be very hands on with tracking

[INVESTony]

Big miss not discussion Empower (Previously Personal Capital).

[joshuaharbman]

Nobody:...
Brian: I'VE NEVER EVEN HEARD OF A MICRODOSE

[larasutton]

Why is Bo always “So excited about this”? Just once, I would like to hear him say “I think this one is stupid but I got out voted.” Or “This one really ticks me off.”