Hi everyone,
I’m currently on the lookout for a self-hosted budgeting tool that utilizes the envelope method, similar to what YNAB offers. I’ve been using Firefly III for a while, and it’s great, but I’m seeking something that brings the budgeting aspect more to the forefront, rather than something I refer to in hindsight.
Ideally, I’d like a tool that allows for proactive budget management, where I can allocate funds to specific categories or ‘envelopes’ ahead of time. This way, I can track my expenses against my budget as they happen, rather than just reviewing them after the fact.
Additionally, having an iOS app for easy access and management on the go would be a huge plus.
Does anyone have recommendations for tools that fit this description? Any suggestions or insights from personal experiences would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance!
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Last time I saw this question, someone else recommended Actual Budget. I haven’t used this myself (still using YNAB4), but I’m planning to switch to it in the future. It currently only imports from YNAB4, but they have an open API so it might import from other apps in the future.
Yes I switched from YNAB to Actual Budget and this is the closest thing to what OP is looking for.
That said the interface isn’t as polished, there are no bank imports outside Europe, mobile apps are discontinued and reports are sorely lacking.
But if those aren’t deal breakers it has all the same core features and has been pretty solid for me.
I’ve recently started using this, running it in a docker container on my media server. It’s fairly simplistic but that’s exactly what I was looking for.
Not self-hosted (not online at all, actually) and the apps are in early stages (read-only afaik), but I’d recommend Buckets. I’ve done the same search as you, and nothing has even come close to it. The license is a tad expensive, but it’s from the WinRAR school of licensing where it doesn’t disable anything. It just nags you until you buy it. It syncs with SimpleFIN and everything is in a single file, so I just have it in a Syncthing folder to keep it updated between everywhere (though it does have a built in sync function).
I couldn’t find any details on their page, but do you know how they handle bank account syncing? Is it using a backend service like Plaid or something similar to securely link the accounts, or do you have to provide your bank credentials to the app directly?
https://bridge.simplefin.org/ with this. It costs, but I spot checked some finicky banks, and they’re supported, so I suspect the coverage is quite good.
Not sure if you’re into command line tools but I’m using hledger and have emulated pretty well the YNAB envelope method and I’m liking it quite a bit. Using plain text for transaction journals is amazing and has solved some of the ambiguity I felt when using YNAB. Tons of information here for this type of accounting method. And look here specifically for implementing the envelope method with these sorts of tools.
No phone apps are available as far as I know but depending on your technical expertise you could provide reports from a webpage pretty easily.
Not sure how similar to Ynab but firefly 3 looks good.
Also I was on a similar search recently and found plaintext accounting and that’s all I use now. plaintextaccounting.org
I’m using firefly iii now and mentioned it in the post.
What kinds of questions would your ideal system help you to answer?
He said YNAB, so it is most likely his standard.
Gnucash ? You can use it in any Ubuntu machine. No need to host it too
I used to be a GNUCash user for 5+ years but I don’t think it did budgeting very well either, let alone via the envelope method. Am I missing something there in the newest versions?
GNUcash is a great expense tracker and that’s it. It is not a budgeting tool.
A notepad, calculator, and pen
