My Favorite Paperless Budgeting Tool

A huge thanks to Dave Ramsey’s EveryDollar for sponsoring this post. My favorable opinion of awesome programs that make my life easier are 100% my own. 🙂 For more information, see my disclosures here.

I’ve talked before about how Donnie and I are on somewhat opposite sides of the paper/paperless debate. He prefers everything paperless and does all record keeping, note taking, and planning electronically. I started out completely attached to my pen and paper, but he has slowly been luring me to the other side. 🙂 Though I still like to do a lot of my planning on paper, our household records, bills, and files are all currently paperless.

When it comes to making our budget, we’ve tried both ways. A while back we had an online budgeting system that was supposed to sync between our computers and smart phones and make our lives easier. I loved the idea of it, but in practice, it was glitchy, so we ultimately gave it up. I came up with my printable budget binder, and we’ve been using it ever since.

Now, I love, love, love my budget binder, but there are a few things that are more difficult with a paper budget vs. electronic: 1) There is only one, so only one spouse can have the binder in their possession at a time, and 2) It was too bulky to take with me everywhere. I ended up saving all of my receipts and entering them when I got home, but being able to enter everything at the time of purchase would have been convenient.

After the mess that was our previous attempt at an electronic budget, it was going to take a lot for me to attempt it again, but when my favorite budgeting guru– Dave Ramsey– rolled out his own online budgeting resource, I knew I had to give it a try, and I am SO glad that I did! If I was going to create an online version of my budget binder, Dave’s program EveryDollar would be it. It applies so many of the principles that I used when I came up with my paper budget binder, and I love its convenience and simplicity. Because I think this is such a valuable budgeting tool, I created an example budget and decided to do a little walkthrough of EveryDollar to show how easy and effective it is.

Setting Up the Budget

As I did with my paper budget binder, I needed to start by getting my budget set up. I headed over to EveryDollar and created my account, and the first thing I was invited to do was start my “EveryDollar budget.” If you’re familiar with Dave Ramsey’s principles, you know that he believes in assigning every dollar a “job.” Basically, you take the amount of money you make each month, and divide it amongst your bills and expenses, putting every cent you make into a designated category until each dollar is accounted for. That’s what they mean by an “EveryDollar budget.” So I started by entering my [example] income and then began to fill in expenditures in different categories, starting with giving.

As I enter my information, you can see that the graph on the right side of the screen updates with my income and expenses, including a percentage amount. I really liked that EveryDollar broke down the expenses into various categories and had pre-filled some of the more common expenses like mortgage and groceries, which could be added to or removed if need be. For example, we don’t have cable, so I was able to click the little dots beside the pre-filled “Cable” category, a trash icon showed up, and I clicked it to delete that category.

Like I did with my paper budget, I started by entering the expenses that are recurring each month, things like a mortgage, auto loans, insurance payments, utilities, etc.

Once I had filled in my fixed expenses, I was able to see how much I had left for my non-fixed expenses like groceries, clothing, gas, entertainment, etc.

As I filled in my categories, there was a little bar at the top of the screen that kept me updated and told me how much money I had left to assign to different areas. Once each dollar was accounted for, the program let me know that I had successfully created my EveryDollar budget! Yippee!

Tracking Expenses

So once I had my budget all filled out, as with my paper budget, I could start tracking my expenses to make sure I was staying under budget in all of my different categories. Let’s say as I was setting up my budget on my computer, I decided to enter the receipt from yesterday’s grocery trip.

I click on my “Groceries” category and choose “Add New Transaction.” Here I was able to choose the date, amount, and merchant. One really neat feature on this screen was the “Add a Split” option. If I’m at Trader Joe’s and I decide to buy flowers, which would fall in my “Fun Money” category rather than “Groceries,” the “Add a Split” feature allows me to split up my total right in this one screen rather than having to make two separate entries for purchases at the same store. This would especially come in handy at a store like Target, where I might have groceries, clothing, home decor, and gift purchases all on the same transaction.

Being able to enter my receipts on the computer is great, but what is really convenient is being able to update my transactions right when they happen at the store. I was able to download the EveryDollar app on my iPhone so I can enter my spending immediately.

My account is synced, so whenever I update my budget on the computer, the changes reflect on my phone, and vice versa.

Entering transactions on my phone is equally as simple as on the computer. With similar options to the web version, I can fill in my info right as I’m checking out at the store or filling the pump at the gas station.

It’s so simple, and I always know with one glance where we stand for the month. If it’s April 23rd and our grocery budget is almost depleted, I know I’m going to have to get a little creative in the kitchen for the rest of the month. 🙂 If it’s nearing the end of the month and I haven’t touched my clothing budget, I’m able to snag that new top I’ve had my eye on guilt-free because there is money in the budget designated for that. It’s really easy to get a snapshot of what my spending looks like for the month– where I need to be cautious and where I have a little wiggle room.

All of the features I mentioned above are part of the free version of EveryDollar, but their Plus version makes tracking your expenses even easier. For just a few dollars per month, you can connect EveryDollar with your bank account and the “FastTrack” feature will automatically download your transactions for you– all you have to do is put them in the correct categories! EveryDollar Plus also allows you to manage your bank accounts and credit cards all in one place.

Bonus: Track Your Baby Steps

If you are a Dave Ramsey fan, you will totally geek out over this next option like I did! Along with the budgeting tools, there is an area where you can track the progress you’ve made on your baby steps! If you’re not familiar with them, Dave’s baby steps are a logical progression of saving money and paying off debt that will help you make smart decisions for your financial future. The seven steps are…

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Within EveryDollar, then, I can head to the “Baby Steps” tab and see how much progress I’ve made with each one:

For me, it’s really encouraging to see a visual representation of my progress. I want to see my emergency fund go up and my debts go down each month, and since it’s so easy to check in on my progress, I’m motivated to keep those numbers moving in the direction I want them to go.

It doesn’t take much poking around this blog to figure out that I am a huge, huge, huge proponent of budgeting! The task might seem daunting, but it is so important, and if you find the tools that work for you, it will be much easier than you think. If you’re a paper and pencil person, by all means, snag my budget binder printables and hop to it! If you are more comfortable with paperless technology and an electronic budget, I encourage you to pop over to EveryDollar and give it a try.

I cannot express how freeing it is to be in control of where our money is going rather than feeling that helpless feeling when there never seems to be enough at the end of the month. Budgeting has been a total game changer for us, and I hope that it will be for your family as well. Happy budgeting!

What budgeting tools have been the most helpful for you? 

A huge thanks to Dave Ramsey’s EveryDollar for sponsoring this post. My favorable opinion of awesome programs that make my life easier are 100% my own. 🙂 For more information, see my disclosures here.