Budgeting with an app

ActionCat · 26 October 2019 at 10:10PM

Hello, can anyone recommend a decent app for budgeting and not just tracking spending please? My finances are really tight and I want to set and track a lot of budgets. I have looked at YOLT but the categories don't match anything near what I need them to. Emma doesn't link with Smile bank so no good for me either.

A few years ago, I used to have a basic budget app which allowed me to set lots of categories and I would manually add and move the money from each budget in the app for every transaction. While I would love something that was a bit more automatic, even something like this would be good. (The app disappeared when I wiped my phone and was no longer available to download).

Any recommendations?

colsten · 26 October 2019 at 11:55PM

ActionCat wrote: »

Any recommendations?

search this board

Fiftyfivepercent · 26 October 2019 at 11:57PM

I’d recommend looking at YNAB (You Need A Budget). I’ve been using it for a few years. It took a while to get my head round it, but I wouldn’t know what to do without it now.

It’s £65 a year but I think there’s a months free trial, they don’t take any card details when you start a trial.

enthusiasticsaver · 27 October 2019 at 12:16AM

Clear checkbook allows you to set budgets, allocate envelopes etc. I use the free version.

Herbyme · 27 October 2019 at 12:51AM

I just looked at YNAB and found it overwhelming, the quick start video lasts for 40 minutes, that was too much for me. If you do decide to try it, I suggest you sign up to the free one month trial on the last day of October and use it for the month of November, so that at the end of the month you have an idea of how it will work for you, I think it takes a lot of time to get the hang of it, the danger is that at the end of the trial, you have worked out how to use it, but not whether it works for you

tempus_fugit · 27 October 2019 at 3:19AM

I've always found YNAB to be quite straightforward, apart from the way it handles credit cards, which can seem a little counter-intuitive initially. I started on YNAB 4, which was the desktop app, and "got" it straight away. It was such an epiphany for me and I knew straight away that it was what I needed. It's much more pro-active as regards budgeting than any other app I have seen.