Is EveryDollar.com Right for You?

Thank you to Dave Ramsey and his amazing team for sponsoring this post! As always all opinions are my own. 

Y’all know that I am a huge fan of budgeting and of Ol’Mr. Dave Ramsey so I was super excited to try out his new online budgeting tool, EveryDollar.com for y’all! You set up your budget on EveryDollar.com and from there you can track your expenses either there or through the iPhone app while you are on the go. I know many of my readers have asked about an app for budgeting that I recommend and so far, I love this one!

What is EveryDollar.com?

“EveryDollar is a brand new online budget tool that allows you to focus your money on what matters. It’s free and easy to use.

You start by giving every dollar you earn each month a name until there are no more dollars to name! Your income now equals your outgo. As you update your EveryDollar budget with day-to-day expenses you’re able to see if your spending behavior is aligning with the spending choices you’ve already made and make behavioral adjustments as needed. It also walks you through the Baby Steps, a proven plan to help you save for emergencies, eliminate your debts, save for the future, build wealth and live (and give) like no one else!” – EveryDollar.com

The Upside

It is super easy. I have used Mint.com in the past and EveryDollar.com works similarly, to how they work. The app makes it super easy to look over your budget and makes it easier for my hubs to see how much he is still allowed to spend. The app works wonders for him (and subsequently us), but for me I found that it was not necessary since I am a stay-at-home mom and prefer my laptop over phone any day.

Another advantage of EveryDollar.com is that you can access your budget from anywhere on your phone, thus keeping you better in line with your financial goals.

The Downside

Okay, so this is mainly just a downside for me because I like a handwritten budget. Every time I try to work with online software, I meet the same problem. We have several different savings accounts that meet our budget with automatic withdrawals and typically, online budgeting software has a difficult time categorizing these. This then makes me have to go in and manually do it every time, which for me drives me crazy.

Also, because I like to track things by hand I find that I end up getting pretty lazy when I have to manually categorize transactions and view them online. I do a much better job tracking with our spreadsheet (that my hubs and I share in Google Drive) than I do with an online budgeting software program.

Another downside is that the free version does not automatically connect to your bank to pull transactions. You will have to upgrade your account to EveryDollar Plus in order to have those transactions automatically pulled. However, with the free version, you could just check in with your bank while having your daily money minute and just copy those transactions to your budget on EveryDollar.com (you were probably already doing this when you were tracking by hand or in a spreadsheet).

Okay, so how do you use it?

You will have to set up your EveryDollar.com account on a desktop computer, but after that you can use it freely on your iPhone. Once you create your account, you then create your budget, add budget items, then funds. After you take care of setting up your budget, you then start adding and tracking your transactions and categorizing them where they fall within your budget. You can read more on how to set up your EveryDollar.com (it’s super easy and fast) here.

The Biggest and Bestest Benefit

The absolute biggest benefit to using EveryDollar.com is the Baby Steps tool. If you have followed my site for any length of time, you know that after reading The Total Money Makeover * in early 2013, my hubs and I started our journey using Dave’s seven baby steps. The Baby Steps section of EveryDollar.com is such an amazing way to keep you motivated on your journey towards financial freedom.

If you’re interested in getting started with EveryDollar.com, head here to start the signup process. It’s super fast and easy to get started so you can start tracking where you are with your Baby Steps!

What is your perfered method of managing your budget (by hand, software, spreadsheet, etc.)? Have you tried EveryDollar.com yet?

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