EveryDollar App Pros & Cons from a Former Mint User

In this video, I'll go over what I consider to be the biggest pros and cons of the EveryDollar budgeting app.

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Hi, everyone. This is Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video, I'll go over what I consider to be the biggest pros and cons of the EveryDollar budgeting app.

I've been demo-ing a bunch of budget apps in the past several months. I've had Mint, YNAB, and EveryDollar running in parallel on my computer and phone for the past month. This has given me an idea of the strengths and weaknesses of each budgeting system and app. I've already done series on Mint and YNAB and in my last video, I did an overview/tutorial of EveryDollar's budgeting software. Today I'll share what I like and what I don't like about EveryDollar. First

PROS

Easy to get started
One of the best things about EveryDollar is that is is so easy to start a budget. You can set one up in minutes. You estimate your income, set up a couple of simple categories, estimate spending, and you are off and running. The interface is easy to understand and work with and you can customize your budget as much as you want. There is a lot of flexibility in adding, deleting, and changing things around. You don't have to wait for income to arrive and you don't even have to set up any accounts if you are putting transactions in manually. EveryDollar doesn't keep track of different accounts, so need to set any up -- just start entering in transactions. In addition, it is

Easy to understand
The interface is clean and simple. You can understand immediately what is meant by budgeted, spent, and remaining and there aren't a bunch of totals or reports cluttering up the screen and complicating things. Since you are estimating income and budgeting based on that monthly estimate, you don't need your bank balances or a complicated approach to credit cards. You simply count everything that isn't income as an expense. The fund feature helps you to carry accumulating money over from month to month so that you can save and it's easy to see where you have overspent. Also, searching for transactions is easy and intuitive. Okay -- so what are the

CONS
I should have said this at the beginning, but I'm one person with my own preferences. Everyone will have different needs, so just because I like something and dislike something else doesn't mean that holds true for everyone. Okay -- I think the drawbacks of EveryDollar fall into three categories: poor usability, less accountability, and too simple. Let's start with

Usability
The two things you'll do the most in your budgeting software are entering new transactions and -- if you have your bank accounts linked with the Plus version -- tagging transactions with the correct budget category. EveryDollar doesn't help to make those activities faster. If you are entering in new transactions, the web version makes you enter in the entire date -- you can't leave out the year. If you start typing the vendor, it doesn't auto-suggest names that you've used in the past so you have to type out the full name and it doesn't remember the budget category you used last with this vendor. That's the biggest issue with tagging transactions that have been imported from your bank. Other software, including Mint, will either remember or can be told what your budget category is for that vendor. For example, Starbucks is always going to go into Restaurants. It's annoying that EveryDollar can't remember that and just let you approve it. It does have a fancy dragging to categorize feature, but it's not nearly as fast as having it default to the last used. I'd also rather have the screen cluttered up and see three columns, rather than having to toggle back and forth between spent and remaining. In addition, EveryDollar doesn’t match transactions, so if you are entering your purchases in real time, it won’t match that when it imports that same transaction, so you could end up with a bunch of duplicates. The next issue for me is that EveryDollar is . . .

[jjgkmt]

I love Dave Ramsey too and have been a long time Every Dollar user. To your point, I love the simplicity of a quick glance of what I have spent and what I have left. I recently decided to switch to the YNAB wagon, and the learning curve is steep! I miss being able to forecast my budget since I am paid monthly and my wife is bi-weekly, but I do love the extra reporting of how things were spent and the defaulting of all vendors.

[aleehal.]

Thanks for these videos comparing the various budgeting programs. I did want to let you know that I believe the EveryDollar app does show their minimal reporting in the app as well as the website. In the app if you touch the colored “left to budget” bar or circle near the top of the screen, it’ll pull up the same reporting area/screens as online. That’s just FYI. Thanks again

[acchaladka]

I think a great part of the attraction is that with EDollar you get the Dave Ramsay coaching in the background and it's a lot simpler and safer to not provide all your banking information. As Canadians spouse and I are not comfortable with the US lack-of-approach to data privacy and security, whether it's read-only data or not. Every Dollar has the benefit of allowing us to say 'we earn $100k' and track expenses against it without getting into the weeds of connecting accounts and telling the app what's income from where etc. Also Ramsey feels more connected to helping the average wage slave out here build wealth than the silicon valley kids trying to build the perfect app. I know that's a lot of attitude but I'm trying to understand the pros and cons before deciding....

[realtimerecruitinginc.]

Thanks Laura - good feedback. I am jumping on the YNAB wagon.

[DK-jqcb]

personally, I hate that I cant track Bi-weekly on ED. Also $129, JUST to track transactions that does not even do that well is not worth it at all.

[AdamSmith-zegl]

Thanks for the video. @Marble Jar Channel - What app / software do you recommend? I like Everydollar to track spending but lack of output to Excel for data analytics is frustrating. Agree that EveryDollar does not hold you accountable. Hopefully they will keep basic, plus and then add a new "Nerd" feature to give us what we need. The other Dave Ramsey stuff is nice like the learning features.

[quilt]

this is the first budget app I've really tried and I started with the free trial. I cancelled it after a week or so as my checking account had to continually be 'refreshed' due to it's log on restrictions/security. I like the free version though but can't see paying for it. It takes too long for transactions to go through, esp if I pay through paypal - by the time they show up I could be out of money in that budget category! some other things I dislike are the funds automatically adding the scheduled deposit - the runnting total confused me - I finally made all but the emergency fund a non-fund and I manually enter the transaction as it autodrafts from checking. another thing I really hate is it uses the estimated paycheck but when you put in the actual transaction it doesn't change the amount over or under! I don't understand the purpose in 2 columns... and I have to go through and enter the stuff for the first paycheck before entering the 2nd paycheck or I won't be sure nothing will bounce before the 2nd paycheck! I'm not sure how well mint or ynab would work for me with my checking needing all the security stuff and transactions needing to be tracked asap.

[nazishateeq]

So you don't recommend Mint anymore? Could you please just suggest one single best software?