It may take some time to get there, but I've found YNAB the best tool to support this type of prudent financial management.įor those with a Mac looking for software, Banktivity is an excellent choice. As a result, you're not living paycheck to paycheck. The goal is to live off of money you earned the previous month. Once you've used the software for about a month, you'll rarely need to categorize expenses manually.Īnd YNAB follows a very interesting approach to budgeting. Categories can be assigned to your spending automatically. It uses a familiar spreadsheet format that's very easy to use. I've tried virtually every budgeting tool available, and YNAB is without question the most effective. It even provides useful data on 529 accounts you may have for your children and tracks the value of real estate.įor those focused exclusively on their budget, there's nothing better than YNAB (short for You Need a Budget). You can see if you are on track to retire as planned. This is particularly helpful if you, like me, have multiple retirement and taxable accounts.įinally, Personal Captial offers a retirement planning tool. From asset allocation to investing fees, this tool gives you easy insight into your investment portfolio. Once linked, Personal Capital provides a wealth of information about your portfolio. It enables you to link all of your investment accounts.