GMR 125: Which App Is The Best - YNAB, EveryDollar, or Mint?
Over the past few episodes we’ve reviewed the most popular budgeting apps to see how well they align with our 4 Foundational Principles of a budget. In this episode of GMR, we provide you with a side by side comparison of YNAB, EveryDollar, and Mint, and make our final recommendation as to which one is best at helping you budget.
Show Notes
The 4 Foundational Principles of a Budget
Assign Every Dollar
Zero Based Budget - Spend on Purpose
Arrange Every Expense
7 to 9 Main Categories (housing)
Plus subcategories (rent, electricity, insurance, taxes)
Allocate It Evenly
Surplus & Deficits rollover
Looks ahead - Future Forecasting
Annual view, not monthly.
Adjust As Necessary
Tracking expenses often to ensure success.
Side by Side Comparison
Final Comments and Recommendations
A budget is supposed to be something that serves you well.
Not including Excel, which is something you can build and customize to your exact needs, the 3 we’ve covered all attempt to do this. However, none of them do everything we need to have in a budget, which is understandable.
Based on our criteria of the 4 Foundational Principles of a Budget, we would give YNAB the highest marks and recommendations because it is the best at meeting these 4 Principles if you ignore their 4 Rules.
It is also the easiest to use, and it gives you the most control over building and managing your budget.
It is a budgeting only software and helps you do that well with great features and enough detail to help you have a full view of your money and where it’s going.
Every Dollar - Good app with many good features, but lacks the detail necessary to make it a great app.
You can do most things but it requires extra work to implement.
It does not include individual transaction registers for each account, which can be problematic if you miss a transaction or miss-assign one because it will be hard to find the error.
Mint - Not a budget app really. It’s a thrown-in option that is limiting and not customizable and difficult to use.
Resources
Episode 120 - The 4 Foundational Principles of a Budget
Episode 121 - Reviewing the Yearly Budget Tool
Episode 122 - YNAB
Episode 123 - Every Dollar
Episode 124 - Mint