Tiller Money Review--Is Tiller the Best Budget App Ever Made?

Tools & Resources

0:00 Tiller Money Review
0:55 The Problem with spreadsheet budgets
2:00 How Tiller Works
4:30 How to connect bank accounts to Tiller
7:25 Tiller spreadsheets
9:40 Tiller Categories
12:20 Tiller Budget
14:40 Tiller Auto Categories
20:11 Tiller Money Labs
24:05 Tiller Debt Planner
25:58 Tiller for Small Business Owners

Tiller Money enables you to manage your financial life in spreadsheets that are automatically updated every day. The tools make it easy to create budgets, track net worth, and even manage your Investments. We'll take a deep dive into the tool in this 2021 Tiller money review and user guide.

I met the Tiller Money team several years ago at Fincon, a personal finance bloggers conference. They were kind enough to give me a demo of their software. At the time, I'll be honest, I didn't really understand how Tiller Money worked. I found it confusing at first. Once I understood the basic concept, however, it became clear just how powerful and easy it is to use. More recently, I've spent a lot of time with the tool and absolutely love it. It's become my primary budgeting tool, which I use in conjunction with Personal Capital to track my investments.

In this review and user's guide, I'll walk through the main features of Tiller Money, how I use the tool, and how it can help you manage your money.

#tiller #budget #budgetingapp

ABOUT ME

While still working as a trial attorney in the securities field, I started writing about personal finance and investing In 2007. In 2013 I started the Doughroller Money Podcast, which has been downloaded millions of times. Today I'm the Deputy Editor of Forbes Advisor, managing a growing team of editors and writers that produce content to help readers make the most of their money.

LET'S CONNECT

DISCLAIMER: I am not a financial adviser. These videos are for educational purposes only. Investing of any kind involves risk. Your investment and other financial decisions are solely your responsibility. It is imperative that you conduct your own research and seek professional advice as necessary. I am merely sharing my opinions.

AFFILIATE DISCLOSURE: Some of the links on this channel are affiliate links, meaning at no cost to you I earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase and/or subscribe. However, I only recommend products or services that (1) I believe in and (2) would recommend to my own mom.

[carbonunit]

I have watched every video I can find on Tiller and your review has been the most helpful me. Thank you. I had also considered YNAB but I like spreadsheets and don't care about the phone app. I actually sent an email to Tiller asking if I could do category splitting which no one but you have covered by in the videos I have seen so far. Am also possible interested in zero sum budgeting which I read that Tiller can do but don't know. The other thing I will want to do is planning for upcoming expenses like vacations or major purchases. I am retiring and am about to move to a fixed income so understanding my cash flow is very important.

[judymahoney]

Thank you for this great review. I've been using MS Money for many years, but each year i fear it will become too obsolete to keep moving to new equipment. Looking for replacement software, and your description sounds very practical, clearly laid out, well explained in enough detail to show me what I'd be getting into. Looking forward to trying this out.

[susanchapman]

I want to become addicted to Tiller too. But I've come from Money in Excel and find Tiller very frustrating! Your videos help. Right now, I am looking for help in setting up and using Tiller's Savings Budget and Saving & Debt sheets. What I am finding is two years old and not relevant. Thank you.

[billwessale]

Wow. Tiller looks like exactly what I'm looking for, and it will replace some of the manual spreadsheets I've been updating every month for the past 10 years. Thanks Rob for taking the time to make this video! An excellent presentation.

[MichaelBelfiore]

Thank you for this thorough review and demo. Convinced me to try Tiller and now I'm hooked; it's the only budgeting app that's ever worked for me.

[BetterMoneyTV]

Great stuff, Rob. I'll have to watch this a couple more times.

[HardDriver]

Thanks so much for this video, I feel like I have a much better understanding of how Tiller actually works now!

[jasonphillips]

Great video, I knew I was in the right spot when you listed those 3 problems with most personal finance softwares at the beginning of the video.

[robdickey]

Thanks so much for all the details. This was an amazing review.

[kathrynmarks]

What is the best way to handle those expenses that are paid only once a year? Is that just handled by the yearly overview?

[tunnanette]

I'm not a fan of linking my bank to these apps. I'd like to be able to import data like with Quicken. Does Tiller allow that option? And what kind of reports can be run? I use Bank Summary for the year and Transaction summary for the year in Quicken for tax preparation.

[dennisbuser]

Hi Rob. Great video. I just started the 30 Day Trial to test out Tiller. Love Excel and this tool not only auto links all my various accounts but has some slick reporting beyond my manual sheet.

Question - had plans to test Quicken in parallel. How do you think about the two when compared for budgeting, expense tracking and overall net worth tracking. Any major concession between the two or comparable. Quicken unfortunately does not have the 30 day free trial.

Thanks for any insight.

[JohnDPiii]

My wife and I have created a Monthly budget using a Budget template for the past 7 years, which does not change much each month. However, at the end of every month, we sit down for 30 minutes and look over the expenses. During the month I add in, manually, the Utilities and cash grocery. We put most $$'s in envelopes esp. for about 10 named Savings accounts, like Vacation, Birthday, Recreation, Medical, Vet (annual - svsaveded monthly) etc.
The template we use has four columns, Two columns for Actual and Budgeted on the left for 1/2 of the Categories and actual line items, and two columns on the right for the othe half of the categories and their items.
How des one enter the actuals, the cash items and where does the budgeted amount get enentered? I just saw one column for ea month for a year. And when you entered the Bufgeted amount, it ehtered it across all 12 months - which is great- but where dowes one enter the actuals, eitehr from the CC statement, checking account, or manually?

[daviddarnell]

Great video! I do have two questions:

1) Can you manually split the transactions in the 'transactions tab?

2) Can you manually add transactions?

[shepherddp]

Rob, thanks for the terrific info. I'm excited to dig in as Tiller looks like the budgeting tool I would have built...if I had the skills to build such a thing.

[dontwanttojoingoogle]

One of the things I hate about Mint is the lack of support. For $80/year, does Tiller have any kind of customer support?

[hatfieldbroadoak]

Great review. Question? Does Tiller automaticall record income?

[wallehtaghavi]

Thank you for this video, one quick question, allocating costs to the relevant months (if for example insurance, rent etc., is paid for the whole year, it should allocate that cost to the relevant months, so I can see how much cost I have per month without disturbing the transfer date for liquidity planning). Do you know if this is possible in Tiller? Thank you.

[priscillacallessert]

My version of Tiller doesn't have Tiller Money Labs. My version calls it Tiller Community Solutions and it does everything you described in labs.

[roundupsave]

Super helpful video, Rob. Hope to meet you at FinCon this year!