What budgeting app work and can be trusted

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Looking to really crack down on our miscellaneous spending and want an easy way to have it visually broken up into sectors.

Now a quick search reveals that "there's an app for that"

But which one. I'm leaning to twenty to seven or something
 
I just drew up an Excel spreadsheet.

Income on the left.
Fixed expenses on the right.

Which leaves a specific amount for spending each month.

Simple really...no app. needed for me to be honest.
 
I've tried a few and they never worked for me. The only app that I swear by now is YNAB (You need a budget)
It changed the way I managed my money. Most budgeting apps are reactive to your spending. YNAB is proactive in the way it forces to plan ahead. It really is a change of mindset.
With YNAB, you input what you have right now. Then you allocate each $ to a category. Once done, you should be left with 0 in the (to be budgeted) TBB.
As you spend, you then input that spending and YNAB deducts this from your category. So at any point in time, you know upfront what you have left to spend.
Do you really need that coffee? Its only 40 bux, do you have money in your category? If not, it means you moving cash from another category(groceries eg.) to cover your unplanned spending.

I really can't praise the software more. Its pricey, (85$ subscription) but it literally paid for itself in like 2 months for me. (btw you get a 30 day trial, that you can extend to 2 months if you ask the support team.)
 
VikashLurker said:
I've tried a few and they never worked for me. The only app that I swear by now is YNAB (You need a budget)
It changed the way I managed my money. Most budgeting apps are reactive to your spending. YNAB is proactive in the way it forces to plan ahead. It really is a change of mindset.
With YNAB, you input what you have right now. Then you allocate each $ to a category. Once done, you should be left with 0 in the (to be budgeted) TBB.
As you spend, you then input that spending and YNAB deducts this from your category. So at any point in time, you know upfront what you have left to spend.
Do you really need that coffee? Its only 40 bux, do you have money in your category? If not, it means you moving cash from another category(groceries eg.) to cover your unplanned spending.

I really can't praise the software more. Its pricey, (85$ subscription) but it literally paid for itself in like 2 months for me. (btw you get a 30 day trial, that you can extend to 2 months if you ask the support team.)
Click to expand...
I use Pennies, which I think does the same thing. Not sure what I paid for it... I got before I started tracking my spending and it's been ignored for years.
 
Speedster said:
22 seven is the answer to your problems
Click to expand...

I tried 22 seven and as a automated budget tool it works. The orignal YNAB is still my go to budgeting tool however even eclipsing the new subscription version of YNAB.
 
Not SA specific, but if you're in the Apple ecosystem, give Debit & Credit a look. It is not country spacific, supports mutliple accounts & budgets in multiple currencies.
 
I track my debit orders and monthly manual payments in a spreadsheet. Day to day spend (groceries, petrol, and entertainment) is all on my credit card and linked to 22Seven.
 
I just found the open source budgeting app Actual Budget that works almost exactly like YNAB 4. It offers local stand alone, self hosted server with webpages or paid cloud hosted server with webpages options.

actualbudget.org

Your Finances — made simple | Actual Budget

Actual Budget is a super fast and privacy-focused app for managing your finances. At its heart is the well proven and much loved Envelope Budgeting methodology.
actualbudget.org actualbudget.org
 
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