I've used every dollar and you need a budget for extended periods of time so today we're
going to put them head to head to decide what the best budgeting app is in 2022.
What is going on everyone I hope you are all having a fantastic day.
So I recently did an updated review on every dollar as well as you need a budget and while
I do personally use every dollar right now, neither of these platforms is sponsoring this
video and I have used both of them for extended periods of time.
So right out of the gate both of these platforms use in identical approach to budgeting known
as zero base budgeting and this simply means that you are giving every single dollar that
you earn a purpose whether that is going towards your various expenses saving, giving, or investing
it.
YNAB goes about this a little bit differently in that they want you to live off of income
that you earned last month and for me personally I actually really like that approach and while
that isn't intended to be how every dollar is used, you absolutely could still budget
that way by simply applying last month's income to this month budget.
But regardless both get a thumbs up from me on the 0 based budgeting because I do believe
that this is by far the best budgeting strategy.
Each platform can be accessed via well designed mobile apps as well as desktop applications
and while both have seen significant improvements over the years, every dollar in general is
a much more simple design while YNAB goes into a lot more depth and is more of an advanced
platform and I'll give you my thoughts on whether or not that's a good or bad thing
in a second.
But as you would expect, on the surface both are going to function in a very similar way
in that you're going to open your accounts, be given some standard budgeting categories
and from there you're able to customize those expenses, input your income, link any external
bank accounts or credit cards, and from there all of your transactions are going to automatically
be synced and you then simply apply them to each of the budgeting categories that you
created.
So if you create a budgeting category for groceries then when you make that transaction
you'll see that show up in each of these apps and you just apply that to the grocery budgeting
category.
Largely the same for both but the first major difference is actually how these platforms
handle credit card transactions.
Now I talked about this briefly in those previous reviews but if you have a bank account and
your credit card linked to your budgeting app then what ends up happening is the credit
card transaction shows up plus when you pay off that card the money leaving your bank
account to pay it off shows up and you also see a credit to your accounts because you
paid off your balance so one transaction ends up showing up as three transactions which
can get really frustrating really quickly.
Now thankfully you need a budget has a solution to this allowing you to set up a credit card
payment category where you can simply drag those duplicate transactions and it will essentially
remove that issue from your budget.
Every dollar on the other hand does not offer this and that's to be expected considering
every dollar was created by Dave Ramsey who is notoriously anti credit card.
So that is a difference that you'll want to keep in mind but like I said I'm personally
using every dollar right now I have multiple credit cards linked to my budget and while
it is a little bit annoying that you have to delete those duplicate transactions or
create a fund as a manual work around, there is a way to categorize and delete transactions
in bulk which I'll show you in a second so not that big of a deal.
Now before we go much further in terms of the cooler features, I do feel we should talk
about the differences in price since obviously that's going to be a big consideration.
Both platforms offer a free trial with YNAB offering you 34 days giving you a full month
to try out the platform while every dollar currently offers a 14 day free trial.
Each platform also allows you to pay buy the month or save money by paying for the entire
year.
Now up until recently the only way to get every dollar was by purchasing Ramsey plus
which is $130 per year and includes financial peace university and some other tools but
thankfully they have now separated the premium version of every dollar from those other tools
that you may not need and it now costs just $80 for the year or $13.00 per month if you
want to pay monthly.
YNAB on the other hand is $99 for the year or $15 per month if you pay monthly.
So you need a budget is a little bit more expensive and outside of that 34 day free
trial, there is no free version of YNAB while every dollar does allow you to use it for
completely free the only difference is that you're not able to automatically sync your
transactions.
But as we'll talk about at the end of the video, a successful budget is all about removing
the pain and friction that is often associated with budgeting so if you're going to use one
of these platforms or any other budgeting platform for that matter, I'd say go ahead
and just upgrade to the premium version because it's a small investment that will pay for
itself 100 times over.
Both platforms also have some pretty good resources such as videos and articles teaching
you how to best use the platform but honestly the only way to learn is by playing around
with it making a crappy mess of a budget and then trying again the next month.
The last thing I want to talk about before we get to the biggest differentiator is the
customer support and truthfully I never had any experience with YNAB’s customer support
however it sounds like it's pretty good based on the customer reviews and they do have a
very extensive FAQ page, again a number of helpful videos and articles and live chat
support as well.
On the flip side I have had experience with everydollar customer service since when I
first started using this platform I actually had some issues with being able to view my
subaccounts within every dollar where I keep my emergency fund and other earmarked money.
Similar to you need a budget they have the same FAQ pages and resources but in my case
I sent them an e-mail describing the issue and they immediately forwarded that to the
programming team, performed some magic coding and within a few days I updated the app and
was now able to view the sub accounts from my own bank account and again this video isn't
sponsored they don’t know that I review products like this online so it's not like
I was getting any special service but in my experience that was top notch customer support.
Alright but the biggest differentiator that is honestly the reason why I decided to look
for an alternative budgeting option comes down to simplicity.
I talk about this word a lot on my channel because I am a firm believer that a successful
budget is one that doesn't take a whole lot of effort on your part.
Now that's probably not the case for everyone and for some, filling out homemade spreadsheets
and stuffing envelopes with cash is the most effective budgeting strategy.
But if you want to implement any other kind of habit into your life, the easiest way to
do that is to make that habit as seamless and painless as possible and one of these
platforms is much more easy to integrate into your life in my experience and that would
be every dollar.
Again this is just a difference that I have identified to work for me and it doesn't necessarily
mean that one is better than the other however just looking at the user interface and experience
it's quickly clear that every dollar is a much more bare bones simple platform while
YNAB goes into a lot more depth and is much more advanced.
Now in fairness, I did use you need a budget for a long time and therefore got to learn
my income and expenses how to create an effective budgets and ultimately got to a point where
I stopped using the app as much because I just knew those numbers in my head.
But overtime I fell outside the guide rails of that original budget but didn't feel like
going back to YNAB because I knew it is a little bit more complex and is going to be
much more hands on.
So that's when I decided to make the switch to every dollar and immediately I noticed
a huge difference in how often I was actually keeping up with tracking my transactions and
creating my budget.
In my experience they've almost gamified the budgeting process by having your planning
tab, spending tab, and remaining funds each month and after you input your planned income
on the first screen, you then get to divvy up that income across all of your planned
expenses until the number at the top equals 0 hence the zero based budget.
Maybe that's just my inner nerd but in general when I was using YNAB I would probably spend
at least a few hours per month moving transactions into categories and adjusting the numbers
whereas with every dollar I take 5 minutes and create the budget at the beginning of
the month, my wife and I go over it to make sure everything looks good and then we're
both able to view the budget throughout the month on each of our own devices quickly drag
and drop transactions into the planned categories we created together and that's pretty much
it.
In total we probably spend an hour per month on the app and as a result I'll likely we’ll
continue to use it because it is so frictionless.
So it's tough to say that one of these platforms is better than the other and on the surface,
pretty much every budgeting platform is going to track your income, show you your spending
categories and allow you to divide up your income across those categories.
So to me it's really about the user experience and what platform or budgeting method is going
to most seamlessly integrate into your life.
For me at least in my current stage of life I think it's the every dollar app but for
you it might be something more complex like YNAB or maybe even a good old fashioned spreadsheets
or even the envelope method.
Everyone is going to be a little bit different and its likely to chnage over time but I would
love to know what you think of these two platforms down in the comment section and whether you
prefer the every dollar budgeting app form or you need a budget.
Be sure to check out some of my favorite financial tools using the links down below the like
button many of which will give you some free cash when you sign up which we always love.
As always thank you so much for your time I really do appreciate it so much.
Take it easy and I'll see you in the next one!