I have been a subscriber since 2016, back when the price was like $45 per year. The price now along with inflation doesn’t make sense in my budget. You know, I need to eat eggs. What alternatives are there? I tried Liquid Budget but it is an alpha project with no mobile app. Good Budget seems like it just open sourced now. Are there any other good alternatives which act in the same way as YNAB? EveryDollar just sucks; it isn’t a true envelope style budgeting app. Any help is appreciated.
I switched to Actual Budget at the start of this month. It’s incredibly similar to YNAB and even has the rollover within categories that early YNAB had. It is free. I don’t sync with my bank and I just host it on my laptop, but you can sync and also host on a server for a small fee.
I have the iOS app but it doesn’t work anymore.
Agreed. I did the same exact thing for February. This would be my first stop for anyone who’s used and liked YNAB. PikaPod hosting was quick and painless.
For budgeting, I use a spreadsheet (Apple Numbers). For bank integration, I import .csv transaction files downloaded from the bank.
Try Heron! https://heron.money/ Disclaimer: I wrote it, but I think you’ll find it works well for what you need. Have a look and let me know if you have any questions. I try to respond pretty quickly.
Kim said:
Try Heron! https://heron.money/ Disclaimer: I wrote it, but I think you’ll find it works well for what you need. Have a look and let me know if you have any questions. I try to respond pretty quickly.
This app is really confusing.
@MeganClark
Is there something specific I can help with, like a particular feature, or is the overall concept confusing? I really appreciate the feedback.
Like how do you set up the budget? It goes by day. This is nothing like YNAB.
MeganClark said:
Like how do you set up the budget? It goes by day. This is nothing like YNAB.
Ah, so it does the approach a little differently. You create your future transactions, some of which may be envelopes, and track your forecasted balance based on those transactions and any financial accounts you want to include. Once that’s set up, you can see your forecasted balance on the budget chart, or see the actual data in the budget tab.
If you’re looking for an iOS app with manual entry (and no bank sync, since that’s where all the costs come from), check out Keencents. It’s fully offline and totally free. Follows the same methodology as YNAB.
Take a look at https://boney.app, its manual but well designed to follow your expenses by categories.
There are many budgeting tools available which include budgeting templates, spreadsheets, and free AI budgeting tools. Take a look at this resource to learn more about AI budgeting tools: Best Free AI Budgeting Tools: Top 10 Picks.
You may try exploring another methodology. Instead of tracking past expenses, you can just concentrate on forecast incomes/expenses. Easier to do and much less tedious. If you wish to try this approach, you can use the totally free and open source graphical-budget-planner (Releases - claude_dumas/gbp - Codeberg.org), which is following this approach. Note that there is no mobile app, just Linux and Windows (Mac is possible if there is demand). Cheers.
No, I like a zero-based budget, thanks for your input.
r/Fina Money is great and actually does envelope budgeting. Other options: Actual Budget (one-time fee), Buckets (a bit clunky), and GoodBudget. If you don’t need YNAB’s exact system, Fina is the best free choice. Works great for me.
If you do not need imports, EveryDollar has a free version.
Scout said:
If you do not need imports, EveryDollar has a free version.
EveryDollar is not a great app. Doesn’t work well with credit cards.
If you are on Android, try Beyond Budget.