What are the best budget apps without bank linking?

Which budget apps work without a bank connection?

App	How it budgets	What you type	Bank connection
Portio	giving first, then bills, then the rest by percentages, as a payday checklist	your income, once a month	none: it never asks for a bank login
Goodbudget	envelopes	every purchase	not on the free plan
EveryDollar	zero-based: every unit of income gets a job	every purchase	not on the free version
YNAB	zero-based, with detailed spending reports	every purchase, or a file from your bank	optional
Actual Budget	envelopes, open source, data kept on your device	every purchase, or a file from your bank	optional
A spreadsheet	whatever you build	everything	none

Plans and features change. Check each app's own page before you choose.

Why budget without linking a bank account?

There are four common reasons:

• Your bank is not supported. Bank connections cover a short list of countries. Outside them, an app built around syncing has little to offer.
• You are paid in cash, or you use several banks. A synced app sees only the accounts it is connected to.
• Connections break. A bank changes its login page and the sync stops for a week. A budget you type yourself has nothing to break.
• Privacy. A budget needs two facts: what you earn and what you have promised to pay. It does not need your full transaction history.

Is manual entry too much work?

It depends on what you enter. There are two kinds of manual budget:

• Tracking. You record every purchase, usually several a day. It gives you a detailed picture of where money went. Many people stop after a few weeks.
• Planning. You enter your income when it arrives and decide where it goes. That is one entry a month if you have one salary.

Goodbudget, EveryDollar and YNAB are tracking apps. Portio is a planning app: on an income of 3,000 with 5% giving and 1,050 of bills, it shows 150 to give, 1,050 of bills, and 1,800 to split into savings, investment, trips and debt. You make those transfers at your own bank and tick each line when the money has moved.

What do you lose without bank sync?

• Automatic history. Nothing records your purchases for you.
• Spending reports by category. A planning app tells you how much went to savings. It does not tell you how much went on coffee.
• A live balance. The app knows what you told it, not what your bank shows.

If those are what you want from a budget, choose an app with sync, or a tracking app and the patience to type. If your problem is that the salary has no plan on the day it arrives, you do not need them.

Is it safe to link a bank account to a budget app?

Most large budget apps connect through a regulated service and can read your transactions but cannot move money. Many people use them for years without trouble. The cost is that your transaction history is held by one more company. Whether that is acceptable is your decision, and choosing not to share it is a reasonable one.

How do you budget without a bank connection?

1. Write down what you earn this month.
2. Take out what you give, as a percentage.
3. List your fixed bills as real amounts: rent, power, internet.
4. Split what is left by percentages that add up to 100.
5. On payday, make the transfers in that order and tick each one.

The payday routine covers the order in detail, and how to split your salary compares the rules you can use for step 4.

Which one should I choose?

• You want a plan for payday and no daily typing. Portio. It is free for one income a month and runs in any browser, in English, French and Arabic, with any currency.
• You like envelopes and will record each purchase. Goodbudget.
• You want zero-based budgeting and detailed reports. YNAB with unlinked accounts, or the free version of EveryDollar.
• You want your data on your own device. Actual Budget, or a spreadsheet you build yourself.