Use the budgeting tool that works for you. (Here’s what works for us.)

There’s a million different ways to manage your money.

And a million different tools to help.

I get asked often what tool should I use?

My answer is always the same…

Use the tool that works best for you.

Here’s what works best for us.

Carrie and I use a Google Sheet.

We use it to track our spending, work a monthly budget, work our debt snowball, and track our net worth.

From day one I liked having control over how our budget worked and looked. I also love the straightforward simplicity of spreadsheets.

We did a hand written budget for the first six months. Yeah, like… pencil, paper, calculator. (I know!)

After we had control of our budget I re-created the paper budget with a spreadsheet using Google Docs.

We used that same spreadsheet for six years! And we still use it today.

Put a rocket on your spreadsheet

I mentioned that we’ve been using the same spreadsheet for six years now.

Truth.

But not the whole truth.

About a year ago I found Tiller!!!!!!!!!

Tiller automatically pulls your bank transactions into a Google Sheet for you. All you need to do is categorize each transaction to track your spending and create a new budget for the upcoming month.

The automation saves me between 20 and 30 minutes of punching in the numbers by hand. It eliminates the chances of missing a transaction or counting a transaction twice. But it’s not too automated. I’ve tried some of the other tools that try to auto-categorize your spending for you and they never got it right. I was always second guessing it and ended up checking everything anyway! I want to be involved with my budget, I don’t want a tool to do it all for me, in my opinion that’s missing the entire point.

If you already use a spreadsheet, you’ll love Tiller.

If you tried another budgeting tool but it didn’t rock your world, try Tiller.

If you don’t have a budget at all, try Tiller immediately!

If you want to track (and grow) your net worth, Tiller.

If you want to pay off your debt faster, Tiller.

If you want to track your spending, Tiller.

Check out my free video series that shows you exactly how Tiller works.

For the millionth-billionth time, do what works for you.

What tool do you use? Why do you like it? What do you wish it did better?

-Derek