Our Favorite Budgeting Apps (& The Ones to Avoid!)

Published Dec 15, 2023, 7:00 AM

The most beloved budgeting app, Mint, is no longer going to be with us for next year. So in this episode, we’re checking out the other best budgeting apps as well as the worst! Jen and Jill list app recommendations judging from its ability down to the app’s promised data privacy, which are all accompanied by reviews from other fellow Mint users on Reddit.

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Episode three sixty three, our favorite budgeting apps and the ones to avoid.

Welcome to the Brugal Friends podcast, where you'll learn to save money, embrace simplicity, and liver life. Here your hosts Jen and Jill.

Welcome to the Frugal Friends podcast. My name is Jen, my name is Jill, and rip Mint is going away January first. So this is our episode on budgeting apps. We've done episodes on personal finance apps and like just fintech in general, but this one even meal planning apps. This one's specific for budgeting. We're not looking at any of the peripheral offerings. We will talk about them, but we are judging each app by its specific ability to budget. So even if we like an app for something else, if we don't like it for budgeting, it's either not on the list or we don't have great things to say about it.

We're just gonna judge. We're gonna sit here and we're going to judge, and Happy New Year.

We're judging, but it's not technically us judging. So who doesn't love Reddit?

Not us? We love Reddit. We are going to Reddit.

Because Mint users have their own Reddit and they are furiously trying apps to replace Mint. So we're going to talk about if you're not a Mint lover, but you want to try a new budgeting app, which that was me. I wasn't super into Mint, but I still love looking at budgeting apps even though I don't currently use one. And we'll talk about what we use coming up, but we wanted to specifically talk to people who have used Mint and are familiar because we're going to talk about how each app is different. So even if you don't like Mint, if you're familiar with it, that's the gauge we're using, and we are we have gone to Reddit to get feedback on these apps in addition to what the articles say, because I've been I've been like an article writer reviewing budgeting apps, and you only get so much time to review each app before you have to write your article, right, and these people have the collective Mint Reddit it's mint to it. The Mint to it reddit has a wealth of time to be uploading everything and testing out these apps, and so we are calling on the collective time of redditors to bring you their wisdom.

Google Reddit read it. It's eclipsing Google or becoming Google. Who knows swear We're turning.

First We want to say that this episode is brought to you by friends, No, not the TV show, but actual friends of ours, Cody and Justin, who are fellow podcasters. They host the five Show, the Financial Independence Show, So if you are into financial independence, our friends Cody and Justin. They share stories and insights into financial freedom and early retirement. They feature regular people like you and me who have achieved incredible financial wins, like a mailman who retired at twenty seven, or a couple who quit their jobs from real estate.

All kinds of.

Stuff like that woman who saved ninety percent of her income. Tons of stories that may not one hundred percent be relatable, but you can pick and choose the ones that fit for you. Everyone's going to find something they like. So if you are interested in financial independence, early retirement, or just like cool stories of normal people doing really cool things financially and then check out the five Show. They just replayed an episode recently that I was a guest on. I was the guest. Uh, and yeah, we really liked them and we just wanted to give them a shout out today. They did not pay us to say this. We just want to do a say hey, thanks, Cody and justin for being our friends.

Hey friends, Yeah.

So let's get into it. If you are into apps and you don't feel like you have enough apps on your phone and you're looking to put more apps onto your phone, then check out our other episodes that we've done. We did episode two thirty four where we compare meal planning apps those you only need one of, So listen to that episode, find your favorite meal planning app and you're done. And there's episode one eighty seven where we compare various personal finance apps, so not just budgeting apps, but net worth trackers, investment trackers, all kinds of different trackers, and fun investing apps. So check that one out. But I think more people are going to be attracted to this one, which is just budgeting apps, and we have shied away from doing it because we don't use budgeting apps. Yeah, Jill loves Jill loves a spreadsheet and I love ignoring it and using a spreadsheet sometimes. So this but I actually have. But we have a podcast, yes, and.

We don't claim to.

This isn't the Budgeting Besties podcast, that's the Frugal Friends. And I have written articles about budgeting apps, so I have always I felt like I'm on a mission to find the perfect budgeting app, specifically for free, and what I have learned from Reddit is that the perfect free budgeting app does not exist. There are definitely alternatives like free, and we will talk about that, but they will not get you everything you want. They will not give you a lot of things you want, and even if they give you some of the things that you want, some of them are actually selling your data to the point that is scary. So we're going to talk about some of those in the next article. But so let's start off on a high note and talk about the four budgeting apps that we have found to be consistently the ones people are turning to from mint for various reasons. And they're actually all on this nine best budget apps article from US News, but we are only going to go through four of them because we have found that these four are the ones that do do the most.

For the least or capitalize on your dollars the most.

So the first one on here that we're going to talk about happens to be just the first one on this list of nine, and it is simplify spelt with an I at the end instead of a Y. Because that's fun. That's put out by Quicken. And this article by US News describes Simplify app as the best for budgeting beginners, and they go on to say that Quicken has been one of the most recognizable names in the budgeting software space, and the company has a mobile app, so that is great for those who are looking for a more streamlined budgeting tool. And the Simplify app is going to allow you to link and sync a number of things, from your bank to credit cards, to loans and investment accounts from more than fourteen thousand financial institutions. The app can also automatically detect regular bills, they can recommend a personalized spending plan, and the users can set up a watch list for monitoring certain categories of spending such as dining out. They could even receive alerts when spending reaches a certain level. So Simplify is AD free. You do pay a price. This is not it is not free. It is ad free, so you can pay five ninety nine a month or thirty five ninety nine if you choose to be billed annually instead. And then when we turn to Reddit and look at some of the pros and cons, so the things that people have said who are testing it out is that this is the most affordable app. They are citing it as a third the price of Monarch, which we will talk about next. Somebody else said that another thing going for the Simplify app is that I don't think Quicken is eggxsit the I don't know what PFM stands for, but mark it anytime soon. So it's going to be around for decades. I don't want to go through this dance again anytime soon.

So for someone who personal finance management, oh, I think, yeah.

That sounds right, Yeah, that they're not going to be leaving this landscape anytime soon, maybe something like what we've just seen with Mint. Who knows. That's probably opinion, because I think people looked at Mint as kind of the stalwart of a budgeting app.

Yeah, also not leaving the space anytime soon, but they deemed Mint was probably too much of a risk and the lost leader was too much of a loss and not enough of a leader. So it's I mean, the fact was is that into It never charged for Mint, they never tried to charge for it to the best of our knowledge, and that Quicken is charging for Simplify, so it should be a lost leader. It's ad free, it's its own product, and so that's got something going for it for longevity, and it is the one that I have maybe seen the most people in the personal finance community switched to promoting because it is so affordable. So like you can get it for what like four or five bucks a month as opposed to some of the other ones on this list that are double that. But it's definitely you get what you pay for to some extent. But that doesn't mean less quality. That just means fewer features, but you may not need all the features. So that's what we're going to go through each one.

Yeah, So some of the cons that people are listing who have tried out the Simplify app by Quicken is that it does not bring custom categories in. So they were finding that as the user, they had to recategorize a lot of transactions. They said, I gave up after I took an hour rec categorizing over one thousand transactions, which that's a lot of transactions, but also that's a lot That sounds efficient that they did that much in an hour. Nonetheless, not something that I would necessarily want to do. Somebody else mentioned that there's no rollover for discretionary expense categories, and that they can't see the statement amount on credit cards, So maybe some quirks to the app where you would still have to go into your credit card statement to really get some of the details behind it. So maybe a little bit clunky in a few ways.

Yeah, I think the big thing that is going to be something that's a deal breaker for if you like this feature mount Mint is that rollover. So if you don't spend one hundred percent, like say you budget one hundred dollars for clothing for the month and you only spend seventy five, Quicken simplify like won't recognize that when it rolls over to the next month, where I believe Mint did recognize that. That has never been something that has been important to me. If you're a zero based budgeter, then you can just do that manually.

That's not a big deal.

But to some people it is helpful to have that that extra money figured out if you don't want to move it around. Usually I would when I budgeted, I just moved it around to coffee or something. I would purposely put more to a category that I This is so silly to a category I knew I wouldn't spend it, so I could artificially deflate certain budget categories that I was embarrassed to spend so much on, so that when I didn't spend in the other category, I could just move it, oh to that when I was quote unquote embarrassed about.

Right, Oh wow, those are storing right moves? And who are you doing that for? Who else is looking at it? It's just your SA It's just it's just me.

Uh So that was like some unhealthy attitude I had towards budgeting that we hope that we are saving you from. So simplify, they say, is best for budgeting beginners. Uh So, this is definitely like a more simplified, simplified way to budget. But the user interface is beautiful again AD free, so it's much It looks much better than Mint while doing pretty much the same thing. It does have an investment tracker, but it's not as robust. It's not meant for that. Uh And it does have a way for you to share an account with somebody you trust, so you can give your partner or accountant their own login and they don't even need their own subscriptions. So if you're looking to manage money with a partner. This is something that will allow you to do that. You can make custom savings goals, track your progress whether it's vacations or emergency funds. It will give you the personalized spending plan. I know you mentioned that, but like, I think that's very cool. Like based on your income and expenses, it looks at what you have done and it will give you a recommendation to know for what to do next month. And it's a take it or leave it sort of thing. It sees where your money's going and can help you. Probably depending on how many goals you have, it probably will tailor it to that, but I don't know that for sure, but it looks like a very cool app. A lot of Mint users have good things to say about it. Our next app on the list is the app that is definitely the other most popular option for Mint users, and it's on this list. It is best for customizable display and it is Monarch Money. So they say, if you want more control over your app's dashboard and display, Monarch is the way to go. It gives you the freedom to change up your desktop and phone dashboards and both Simplify and Monarch do have desktop and app capability, so if that's something you want. The article says it's been great for tracking and bank connectivity. It features unlimited customization for spending category, so I think that's going to be Actually, I think that's more of the deal breaker than the rollover money is if you are adamant about creating your own spending categories, if you want either a very robust custom category lineup or a very simplified streamline custom category lineup, Simplify is not for you, Monarch is for you. I think that is going to be the difference on which one you go to. But with more customization comes a higher price tag. So where Simplify is like five dollars a month, I think Monarch is about eight to ten. I will I will double check that, but.

Yeah, between fourteen ninety nine a month or one hundred for the year.

Yeah, so you're definitely paying for that customization. But people love the user interface. They say it's the This is what Reddit says the best and most seamless mint transition. Importing transactions was easy, the filters on the transactions are super snappy, and bulk editing is really easy. The cons Monarch does not have credit scoring and some of the budgeting reporting functionality for Mint is missing, but you can easily see that being filled in at a later date. Connects to Canadian banks, so if you are Canadian, then some of these apps will connect to Canadian banks but not have the Canadian dollar to US dollar conversion. This one doesn't have that. It just has the Canadian bank connection. So these aren't going to I don't think anything on this list is going to be the best for a Canadian listener. But Monarch does connect to Canadian banks, but it lacks that conversion of US Canadian US dollar.

The third one on this list that we're going to talk about is Wine app, So that's you need a budget I'm sure you've heard us talk about them before. They have a budgeting app. This is listed as the best for zero based budgeting. So that's that concept of assigning every dollar a task, beginning with the money that you already have, not the money that you will have, is the approach that Wynab takes with their budgeting, and so their app follows suit. What the article says about it is that the app and software program can be used across multiple platforms. Users can link similar to some of these other apps bank accounts create a budget and continuously sync data, so that's offering just an ideal solution for those who want to watch financial transactions in real time. The app can also track goals, create reports detailing financial progress, So for those who really kind of like that gamified experience and being able to watch it and keep an eye on it, this might be the one for you. List in here a quote. You need a budget is a fantastic service as it allows folks to set a budget based on their income and make adjustments when unexpected financial circumstances occur. This one similar to Monarch pretty much same exact price fourteen ninety nine a month or ninety nine a year if you pay for the full year. So things to keep in mind with that one. The pros and cons of it listed out by people who have tried it out again on Reddit is that one of the pros is that winnab is proactive. Mint was reactive, and again that's just talking about the difference in budgeting techniques that you're looking at what's already in the account and where am I putting those dollars rather than basing your budget off of what am I thinking I'm going to make this month. Another user said that Mint always left me living paycheck to paycheck but still binge spending with little consequence, whereas with wynab, I have to make what I have work, and each paycheck is a chance to reprioritize. I'm having way more fun doing it too, probably because it requires more interaction and thought. So for those who do like to be more involved in the minutia and be able to change things around and be able to set goals and see yourself achieve those goals, I think this is a good app for you. Then the cons from users are also saying that winnab is not a tracking tool like Mint was. It's a real zero based budget, So when you start with winnab, you basically start with your current cash balance, budget it all to zero, then go from there. It has a learning curve, but if you actually want to budget and not track, it's the way to go. It is infinitely more powerful budgeting tool. So that's funny kind of a con but by the end that kind of came around. But I think just saying that if you're not accustomed to budgeting this way, it might take a little bit of time to kind of understand how you're approaching your money. It's a different mindset with that way of budgeting for most, So that's something to keep in mind. But if it's something you want to give a try to, it's yeah, probably worth your while.

Yeah. So Monarch and winnab are the same price points, so I think it might be useful kind of to look at the difference, like why you would choose one over the other. So if you want in addition to budgeting, you want kind of all of your money management in one place, including like your net worth, your investments, all of that, Monarch will do that, whinnab will not. Winnapp has no investment tracking. It is only budgeting. Again, like what Jill said, it doesn't have that recurring expense detection. So whinnap doesn't automatically identify subscriptions where Monarch automatically does that, and you can get notified before you're build on something, so if you can cancel like a free trial, stuff like that, and then pretty much the goals of whynab is to teach you a new way to budget. So you have to subscribe to their ideas of how to budget, which is great. Why not has a really robust collection of videos and stuff to teach you how to budget. So if you're ready to do something brand new or really dive into budgeting, then whynab is great. But if you do not want to go through a learning curve, if you already feel like I kind of I kind of just need some tracking and some maybe some like long term higher level planning you know, overview, that's Monarch. So other than that, they are very similar. Both great budgeting tools, But if you care about kind of the learning curve, you hate it. You want some you know, investment stuff attached to your budgeting tools, you want Monarch. If you're really just concerned about budgeting and you're really just budgeting to maybe like payoff debt. You're putting one hundred bucks a month towards your investments, but you don't care about them right now, then maybe whine Ab is better for you. Our last on the list is one that people were talking about on the Reddit forum, but it's not people's favorite for budgeting, and it's in Power and people are trying it out because it's free. That's the biggest pro is that empower is free and you can see all of your things in one so net worth, cash flow transactions all in there. I will use it to collect all of my transactions to export into a Google doc. So that's that's what I use it for. I use it for budgeting, but not like explicitly. Uh so some of the redditors are saying I don't do super detailed budgeting, but they offer an interesting view with category breakdowns. I was able to link everything, but Apple card and sync seems pretty fast. Desktop view is solid. iOS widget with the U index is pretty cool too. So the U index you is your It shows you what your investments, how you're growing, and it compares it to like another popular index like the S and P five hundred. So how does the U index compare to the you know, SMP five hundred index?

So that's kind of cool.

But the cons. A lot of the cons have to do with with the budgeting, so it can't bulk edit transactions to change categories. It's much more focused on investment tracking.

Empower used to.

Work pretty well for me back in the day, but then something changed and they lost support for my primary bank. I can't get it to pull anything for my checking account other than available balance, no transaction history at all, and because it's a free app. You're not going to get much help from their you know, the department on that they do. I have reached out to their support before to like connect a mortgage, and I do get responses. Sometimes the answer is like, hey, we don't support connection for that bank yet you know we're working on it, and that's like the response. So but yeah, so empower is definitely best for tracking investments. So if that is what you mainly want and you I love looking at their cash flow, Like I can see my income and expenses each month and it will track the positive or negative cash flow. So that's a very light way to budget.

But Empower works for me because I'm not a big budgeter.

I usually will just use it to export transactions into a Google sheet so I can do a ninety day transaction inventory every once in a while and get there. But definitely the other three and they are the ones. They all cost money, Like I'm so sorry, they all cost money. They're they're the best ones of the ones that we've seen, Like there's always the tried and true. They've got ones you know on the list. You've got you know, your good budget, you've got busy kid, pocket Guard some of these have free versions, some of them don't. It's not saying on here. Oh yeah, most see, most of them still cost money. Even they have they have like a free version, but it's always very limited.

Yeah.

And then I was talking with Andy for Marriage, Kids Money about Honeydow, which he used to talk about them, but they've just kind of gone off It seems they've gone offline, like they're not investing in.

The app anymore.

But all of these Quickened, Monarch, and winab all have options for budgeting with a partner, so if you're if it's two people budgeting, you don't have to worry about any All three of those apps have capabilities for couples without buying an extra like paying for an extra account.

And if you want the links to any of those four that we've talked about, you got to you gotta have our newsletter. We're gonna have the links in the newsletter email that goes out today the day that this podcast comes out.

Right, they are not accessible anywhere else except for the frind letter, So we actually do need you to be on the front letter so that you can access the links to these.

Forgo friendspodcast dot com.

Yes, and you'll get a free a free trial of winnab. Honestly, I would definitely try the free trial of wineab just because you get it and see how that is for you. And if it's not for you, then try Monarch or simplify so and wineab will not take your credit card info, so it will not charge you at the end of thirty four days.

So that's that's how long their trial is. That their trial is.

Thirty four days, and that's a specific there's a specific reason it's thirty four days, and you learn about that when you are learning about their way of budgeting.

I love that.

I definitely, in your downtime over the holidays, might pick up a little wine ab education just see if it's for you. But we like all three of these for budgeting. But what do we not like for budgeting? Not a lot of places are saying like it's very easy to find best budgeting app articles.

Yeah, oh, we don't like it. We don't like it when they do in shady stuff behind the scenes.

For us, the worst budgeting apps are not definitely are not like the ones for We're not going to judge an app's user interface.

We're not going to.

Judge how we would interpret using them, because it's not you know, not every budgeting app is for everyone, and so we're not judging based on the actual app. But our next article is judging based on data sharing. So Incognate did a survey of a bunch of budgeting apps about how much data they're collecting and how much they're sharing with third parties. And so if you do not want your data shared to third parties, these are the ones you're going to want to stay away from.

I love that the title of this post it includes a statistic that's they're just out the gate with it. It's titled good for your Wallet, but Not for Your Privacy. Sixty percent of twenty popular apps share your data. And then they give an amazing table that's color coded to indicate who are the best and worst for privacy and levels and types of data sharing. So certainly feel free to check it out so you can measure up the budgeting app you're using against this. But some of the worst ones that we're gonna highlight because we don't care, we have podcasts, we don't care. We're gonna we're gonna call them out. The first one we'll talk about is nerd wallets. So this one is the most generous app when it comes to sharing data, so generous and not all the great ways. So nerd wallet is sharing on fourteen data points from six different categories. So this is going to include things like user names, phone numbers, purchase history, and they're sharing that with third parties, third party payers. I'm going to assume five out of these fourteen data points that are shared are categorized as personal info. And interestingly, the app admits to sharing more data than it declares to collect in the Google Play Data safety section. How's that for some rich rich tea.

Yeah, I love.

At the very bottom of the nerd wallet app website, it says your security our priority. We always have your security in mind. Rest easy knowing your data is encrypted for enhanced protection. But it doesn't say this, but we will share it with our third party partners to serve you emails and ads so that we get kickbacks and that's how we make money on a free app. So that is and hopefully you'd hope that nerd wallet is vetting these third parties that they're sharing your data to.

But you don't know. Honestly, you can't just.

Blindly trust that these people are sharing your info with it just so.

It just makes me think of the.

Latest controversy in crypto with Binance of the guy who's charged with fraud. And then you've got Sam Bakman whatever his name is, with FDx. And then I saw this image on social media. Forbes had on the cover the Binance Guide, the FTX guy, Elizabeth Holmes and oh SVB so Silicon Valley Banks said that gave him some award for like being the best new bank or most innovative bank or something. They had put all of these on the cover of Forbes, and I was like, you would think that you could trust these people because of the you know, of the publicity that they're getting.

You think you can.

Trust these apps because of the publicity that they get, right, And they're from these companies that are supposedly uh stalwarts in the industry and quote unquote reliable. But you don't know what's going on behind closed stores, and so we're not conspiracy theorists, but also we're asking we also, you know, we want to like acknowledge, we don't know what goes behind goes on behind closed stores, so we prefer to be safe rather than sorry, And that's one of the reasons why now it's better to pay for an ad free pay pay for a product versus being a product, and nerd wallet is just a great example of that because that's how they make their money, is just referring people to you for all kinds of loans and financial services and all that stuff, and they figure out what they can serve, what best served to you based on the information you give on this app.

Yeah, you're paying one way or another. I mean, these apps need to make money somehow, and if it's not going to be off of you, it's going to be off of ads. And many of them are doing both charging you and selling your info. It's probably worth mentioning some of these top categories of So some apps are just collecting data and it seems probably for internal use. And then there's these apps who will do both collect it and sell sell the data out, give them, give it out to these third parties and so.

Some of them it's share Yeah.

Wow, okay, So personal information includes your name. I'm assumed that's your first life middle however many names you got, email addresses, and then financial information is going to include things like your credit score, your payment history. App info and performance. This is a little bit less nefarious, keeping track of crash logs and at performance information that sort of thing. And then app activity. I am not even sure what this would include, but they're listing out user generated content other installed apps. I don't know if you know anything about that, Jen, Is that Are they indicating that they can then see what other apps you have installed by installing their app and sell that information?

I don't one hundred percent no, So I don't want to speculate.

Who knows what goes on behind closed doors.

Right, don't? I don't know.

I don't know, but I would rather like, yeah, I'd rather be smart about it. And the second one, so there's there's three that will say the three highest that share the most data point, but it's the first two that, like by far and above, sell them or share the most data points. That second one is every dollar. So every dollar shares data from six categories and makes the number of unique data points made available to other companies is slightly lower at eleven. So where nerd wallet shares fourteen data points, every dollar shares eleven data points across six categories. It shares three data points from app info and performance three from personal info, including users' names and email addresses, and I have to imagine it's probably sharing with like the ELP, that whole you know area, But we like we know from experience that ELPs are not vetted and very thoroughly. So we've heard story after story after story about people going to ELPs and thinking they're getting somebody who is as committed to an ideology as they are, but the person literally just had to sign a statement saying that they agreed with it, and they don't practice the ideology and they're not very you know, extremely familiar with it. So there are obviously some that are as zealous about the ideology as you know as the people that use them. But for the most part, it is a marketing service, and I have to imagine that those are probably the people that they're sharing this data with.

Every dollar is the only one on this chart who is both collecting and sharing in and all of the categories that are listed in it, So they use different shapes for if it's just collected versus collected and shared, And in every category that that there is to share on they're collecting and sharing it. There's nothing that they are solely just collecting which is funny to me. So there's that.

Yeah, and it says sixty six percent of data points that you share to your app, they're collected, they are not shared, So most of your data is definitely safe and two percent is shared but not collected.

I don't know how that.

Works, but so it's thirty one percent of data is shared and collected. So take with that information what you will.

The last one that we'll mention on here is the app called money Lover. They collect fourteen data points, they share six of them with third parties, and you should just know with a name like that, they're not just selling you a money lover app.

They also love money. I love money. I mean, so I get it. I am actually money lover. That's me I am. That is my Zenga handle. That is my live journal. Uh you know what else I love? Oh yeah, I share one hundred percent of the time.

It would be also my Zenga profile. Name. The bill of the week.

That's right, it's time for the best minute of your entire week. Maybe a baby was born and his name is William. Maybe you paid off your mortgage. Maybe your car died and you're happy to not have to pay that Bill anymore. That's Bills Buffalo Bills, Bill Clinton. This is the bill of the week.

All right, what's your name, William? Where are you from?

Okay? And where's your vacation?

Ben?

This week?

Colorado?

Colorado? What was your favorite thing that you did in Colorado? Going on the trampoline? Did you get to visit somewhere cool yesterday, like on a hike? Where did you go?

Like there was a big.

We were a little around.

So a time of kit munks, chipmunks and on the way back, Oh, that's awesome. So we this week we had William visiting us, and everything that we did was virtually free. We went on hikes, we swam in the reservoir, we went to the river, and we realized that most of the best things in life and the way to do a vacation is to get out in nature because it's free and it's the most fun. And chipmunks crawl on you. Okay, love your podcast?

Thanks?

Can I we have Bill will Yeah, he didn't call directly, but he was here.

He was here. If you had a baby and his name is William, I mean, listen, here we go. There's a baby. His name's William. He's probably not a baby. You probably a big boy by now, and you are doing some fun stuff on your vacation, from trampolines to seeing chipmunks.

Wrestle to just do it not just wrestling there.

How amazing and what an amazing adult in your life to call this in for us. Thank you, William wow for sharing about your vacation and doing all the free things well done. This is making my day.

If you want to submit your bill of the week, then visit Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash bill let us know how many bills you saw wrestling on vacation.

And now it's time for light me around.

Peo Peo peo.

All right, So in today's Vulnerability Around, we're going to talk about what's the most important thing to you when making a budget. And Jill, this is mostly a question for you control. I'm gonna go with answer a control. Tell us about that the fine control?

Oh wow. I just I want to be able to do it my way. I want to I wanna math the math myself. I want to categorize the categories. I wanna gamify it. I want to sowitch it up if I want to. I want to change things halfway. Through and then switch them back. They have a podcast. Okay, so I'm going to do what I want.

I don't know how that relates. I do not know how that relates.

Yeah, I think that well. First of all, folks, I am not tech savvy. That's not something I'm ever gonna put on a resume of mine. Heck, I'm probably never going to get a job that's going to require that of me. And so I prefer to keep my calendar, pen and paper, and I prefer to do a combo of budgeting that includes pen and paper still to this day, and spreadsheets. I'm probably making it a little more complicated than it needs to be, but you know what, I'm in control, and I so for that reason. But also, you know, not feeling like I want to learn an app, but also knowing that I'm going to want such specific things that I feel an app is not gonna allow for me that I would rather do it myself. Budgeting is kind of a fun process for me, Like the act of looking at my transactions, setting goals for the month. That's fun for me when I get to sit down and do it. So I like doing it my way, how about you, Jen.

So for me, I love more to think about like my habits and real time spending than allocating specific amounts.

For each category.

So that's why I prefer to do the ninety day transaction inventory like a few times a year so I can look back and see, Okay, what have I been doing this? And this comes from years and years of budgeting, right uh? And I did a zero based budgets for years.

I have.

I've used every dollar I have used WINNAP, I have used gosh, probably fourteen other budgeting apps that we didn't talk about or don't exist anymore.

Like I've done it.

And I spent years figuring out what I love to spend money on and what I don't need to spend money on. And now I'm in a maintenance phase to where I still have to be diligent in paying attention to what I am spending because you never stop being influenced. You never stop having the voice in your head saying like, if you had this, you would be closer to where you want to be, or closer to the person people will like. So like, that voice never goes away, so you need to pay attention to it. But you do get better at saying like, shut up, voice, Uh, it's you do get better at realizing that everything on social media is carefully curated and knowing that and just accepting Like I think it comes with age too. I'm at a point in my life where I've young children and the house and we're under a renovation, and literally we are under it, and I don't care to an extent anymore. So, like some of it, it's just a combination of I have been working on building boundaries to say no to things that aren't aligned with my values, and building confidence to say yes without guilt to the things that do, and not caring. I've been working on those three areas of my life for many years, and we've built enough of a financial cushion that if I spend more than I make in a month, I spent significantly less than I made the month prior, and it just kind of all balances out.

At the end of the year.

We will do like quarterly check ins to see like and a lot of it is skewed too, because we're buying, we're cash flowing the renovations, right, So I'll spend like ten thousand dollars in a month on one month this year, which is not normal and yeah, so it's a it's a chaotic year for us, but I mean it would be the same if it wasn't a chaotic year. I just have done a little bit more checking in this year with it.

Yeah, well there we have it. Try our trick. If none of these budgeting apps seem like something you want, then try control, see how control feels, or try not budgeting like that.

Howither one it's a like it's a fair Yeah, it's a fair point. But I do when we were investing, we're taking a pause from investing. I know, sacrilege. This is not a financial independent podcast, but we would always make sure that all of our savings and our investing was done before we spend. So that is another another method that a lot of people do. It's to pay yourself first, spend what's left method, and a lot of people enjoy it.

If you get really good at it, then yeah, then you don't have to.

It's not two to oh one. It's a two to oh one budget. It's definitely not a one oh one. I definitely like these apps for the one oh one style, and I like manual transaction input when you're first starting out, so giving it like three weeks of not automating but literally just handwriting every single thing you spend money on for three weeks.

That's powerful. That is very powerful.

Oh that's what I do all the time, always, that is my method. Yeah, and here we go, And that's how I feel powerful.

Yes, And I don't need that kind of control. I love just fly by the seat of my athletic wries.

Well, okay, here we go as we are trying and failing to pull ourselves up out of this hole we'd done. Thanks for being here, Thanks for listening this far. In the things many of you know that we're not just doing a podcast, we're also doing a newsletter. Like you want more.

The same financial educating, education, edutainment in a newsletter.

For more of our tips and tricks. Get our friend letter that we put out three times a week. Podcast is two times a week. Friend letters three times a week. That's essentially every single weekday you can get more of this goodness us telling you how much we fail and try and fail.

And sometimes we're not failing. We're just doing things differently. And it's not what most expert Hey, here's the real here's the insider scoop, it's what real experts are doing, but they're.

Not talking about we know this for a fact, true.

Yeah, who also going to talk to you about apps and then actually say we don't use any of them. They're still worthwhile. But yeah, here's how we actually do it. So all right, Yeah, authenticity is what you can get from us, and also freebies and savings tips and life acts that are actually going to help you save money. That's what that friend letter is jam packed with. Forgal Friends podcast dot com. We do want to give a shout out to one of our friends who replied to our newsletter, which you can do. You can just straight up say reply and type us an email back and we get it because we're not that far removed from our emails. Yeah, exactly. So this person, short and sweet comes from. Lisa said this issue had the tips I didn't know that I needed in my life. I feel like a smarty pant now. I love that, I perfectly.

I remember it was the pants how you can get the highest quality, longest lasting pans without paying like all clad prices.

You save your heart Into that email, Jen Jen wrote that I'm.

Passionate about stainless steel cookware.

Jill.

It lasts forever, you know, this.

You it, I do know it, yeah, and I'm.

Passionate about it. But you don't have to own the top the line to own the top quality. And that's stuff we talk about in the friend letter.

Yeah.

So again, if you want these freebies, these tips you didn't know that you needed. You want to feel like a smarty pants. You want to know more about values based spending hacks sent to your inbox every week, head to Frugal Friends podcast dot com slash friend Letter. You can also just go to our website Frugal friendspodcast dot com. You're gonna find it. Either way, you'll get the goodies. And if you already get the friend letter, then please do start sharing it with your friends, because then you get like real and more free goodies actually sent to you, literally mailed to you. For just one friend that you refer who signs up, you get a sticker, And the more and more friends the stickers sign up, you get a tote, a mug, a t shirt, the goodies.

Just keep using money on this thing, just give it away. I'm sorry, it's cool though. Those stickers are rad.

I like them.

See you next time. Google Friends is produced by Eric Siriani.

Okay, jen it has been pointed out to me an area of cheapness. Well, I don't know. I'm even gonna push in your life for mine, our life mine. So I am on that journey of less less, less paper products. Still toilet paper that's not going to go away. I promise you.

Always toilet paper, the good toilet paper, right, Like we don't do cheapest toilet paper, right, we do second cheapest, so we.

Do the real good one.

I'm doing a lot of rags and just figuring it out, maybe getting my hands a little dirty to just not use paper towels. But when i've when I have guests, which is a lot, everyone's asking me, we are your pair of towels, wear your pair towels towels and listen. I get it because that used to be me. But I'm just like, you don't need a paper towel for that you don't have. But I'm not that's I'm not that stingy. But people have started to notice that, Like I keep my paper towels like pretty hidden and then I will. I'm mostly using cloth napkins, but if I run out, I don't. I'm not doing the laundry that much. Then, yes, it's gonna be paper towel. The ones that I buy are already the half sheets, you know, not the full whatever one by one or foot by foot square. It's half of that, and then I tear them in half again. So from whatever you originally knew of a regular size paper towel, you're getting a quarter of it from me, And that's going to be your napkin. And it's just what I do. It's what I'm accustomed to. You're ripping the half and half. And I have been getting a little bit of pushback from people on this making fun of me. They're accepting it, and then it's you know, all turning into a joke with pretty much everything else. Like mile Loud, just.

Put it out there.

I know your friends and they're bougie and and I don't even know the specifically the ones you're talking about, but just in general, it's a bougie neighborhood, not a neighborhood like area area that I'm from.

They might all live on the same street. I don't know.

Wait that I'm from where I live now.

No, from where you're from.

Uh uh huh.

That's the people that stay with you usually.

Well yeah, but it's also like it's also our parents coming in town, like, oh boy, you're really and I learned the I mean, I don't do it now, but my mom was a wash out the plastic bag kind of kind of gal. I don't do that, and yet I'll still get a hard time for ripping the halfs and half not gonna change because.

We've we've been doing this show for you know, five and a half years, but I've I feel like that's like a normal behavior. People are cutting down on their napkin so we're using, you know, reusable stuff. And if you want to use reusable stuff, you don't need your paper towels out. And if you were like I'm trying to be more sustainable from the environment, people would be wouldn't look at you like you're cheap. People would look at you like you're cool. But because they know what you do for a living.

Yeah, they're all like, oh, there's a frugal thread for you. And I'm like, this is one thing. It's only one thing, but it's it's now like all I'm going to be known for, Like this, what the frugal friend does?

She I don't accept that for you. I don't I rebuke that identity.

But the other the other thing that Eric is not even putting up with is the rags that I have are old tea towels that were getting really ratty, had a lot of holes in them, so then I cut them up and they're now my rags. But they they're getting the phrase of thread off of them and you know, just becoming dirty from being my kitchen rags. So no one but me ends up using the rags. They're all just like, yeah, I didn't. I didn't really want to touch it because it was pretty gross. And Eric's just like, listen, I'm down for the rags, but these rags are so gross, and I'm like, I refuse to buy rags, like rags should happen out of rags, the things that are already in your home. But Eric doesn't want to touch them, and neither do the guests. Then they're like, I'm raping youse a paper towel. I'm like, no, I've got a rag for that, and if you don't want to do it, I'll do it. But my paper towels are wipe your mouth my rag.

I'll wipe your mouth with my rag.

I only know this, like I know this about you that you constantly are wiping down your counter and so your rags see.

They feel, they see a lot, they see of life.

Yeah, so so like for Christmas, it may be time to invest in some guest rags.

From the thrift store.

Yeah, there are tons of tons of guest rags at the thrift store. And because I get I can see their point.

Yeah, you've been to my house, you know what they look like.

Yeah, they see life, they've seen a lot.

Okay that I will that I can give in too, just updated rags.

Yeah you got this.

You've got this, you sustainable, frugal girl. Woman.

Friend. We'll just be a friend.

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