Budgeting apps and open banking

[WildFlowerBees]

I'd like to use a budgeting app I tried YNAB but I just couldn't get to grips with it.

Is Emma or Snoop any good?

Also, open banking. Is it safe? I'm not sure how I feel about other companies having direct access to my financial business. Can someone put me straight on that? Thank you.

I've not found any app particularly helpful with budgeting tbh. I've now resorted to a budgeting book from Amazon. I used to have a really good spreadsheet but I don't have a laptop anymore and I hate excel on chrome book.

I've written down all my outgoings and what I have left which is fine but I'm not sure what I do with what's left and it's that I need to track. Short of writing down every transaction I'd like an app to show me where my excess is going.

You could move your excess into one or more accounts (or set up pots within accounts) or pay for it all with a credit card (which is then paid off in full every month by direct debit).

Any of these will allow you to analyse the transactions to tell you what you spent in different categories either within an app or by downloading into a spreadsheet, but it will need a bit of tweaking as some of the categorisations are a bit weird, eg my credit card puts McDonalds, Greggs and similar into 'entertainment' but I can go in and tell it to change all these to something more appropriate such as fast food/lunches.

I’ve found Moneyhub pretty good, have you looked at that?

I love snoop. I know myself well enough to know that I'd have one month of diligently recording spends and then give up, whereas with snoop I can just check when it reminds me and make any changes to the categories of the spends. It's better for me than Emma as I have lots of bank accounts (bill account, joint, personal, credit card etc.) and the free version of Emma didn't let me load enough.

It has made changes to my spending seeing if all in black in white - my yearly spend at deliveroo was a shocker.

I have a starling bank account and it does all that. It has pots for different spending, bills manager so it allocates all your bills at the start of the month so you don't over spend, and you can tag each transaction in to a category so you can see where your money is going.

I love YNAB. Took a bit of persevering but now I wouldn't be without it.