Tiller Money: The Best Budgeting App Out There
Tiller Money is a spreadsheet based budgeting tool. Here's why I think it's the best budgeting app out there.
Money is a core part of modern adult life. People sell their lives to earn it and end relationships over disagreements about it. Whether you realize it or not, money shapes who you are where you go in life.
Yet the vast majority of people don’t know how to manage their money. A whopping 69% of Gen Zers report that they set a budget for themselves but 30% of Gen Z reports having up to $50,000 in debt while only 20% of Gen Z are saving for retirement.
Because today’s economic landscape has made it next to impossible to find a good job, it’s more important than ever before to learn how to manage your money.
Tiller Money is a spreadsheet-based personal finance tool that helps you manage your money. It connects with your bank, pulling financial transactions into different customizable dashboards. It allows you to set budgets, keep track of spending, and analyze your balance sheet to make sure you’re working toward your goals.
I’ve been using Tiller Money since 2023 and have found it indispensable in managing my money. By using Tiller Money to keep track of my spending, I’ve been able to set better budgets, cutting my discretionary spending. The savings has put me on track to pay off not one, not two, but three debts later this summer.
This article will review Tiller Money from an actual user. I’ll share what works, what doesn’t, and what you should look for in a budgeting tool.
What is Tiller Money?
Tiller Money was founded in 2015 as a way to give budgeters more options to manage their finances. If you’ve used any budgeting tool you can probably relate. A lot of tools are great, but their user interfaces are limited and you can’t always see the information you need to see to adjust your month-to-month spending.
Like most consumer financial management companies, Tiller Money was designed to empower users to take more control over their finances. It does this by integrating with a format most people are already familiar with – spreadsheets.
Tiller connects with your bank accounts and automatically imports daily transactions and balances into either a Google Sheet or an Excel spreadsheet. From there, you can pick different dashboards to build a budget, track expenses, or plan for your financial future.
As someone who works for herself, I’ve found Tiller works well to help me manage business and personal finances in one place. While I do maintain a separate Quickbooks account, any non-accountant who deals with accounting software knows how unintuitive it is. Tiller makes it easy to keep track of my business income and it creates a redundancy to square away my books at the end of the year.
Some of the best features of Tiller Money include:
Automated data imports: Tiller uses Yodlee to connect with banks and other financial institutions like brokerage firms and yes, even your student loan manager.
Auto Categorization: Once you download the spreadsheet and populate it with data, you can set rules to automate how you categorize income and expenses. While this takes some time on the front-end to set up, it’ll make managing your budget way easier later on.
Customizable templates: You can add new sheets within your Tiller spreadsheet to add different views and financial reports. Each of these are editable so if you spend with cash, for example, you just add the entry into your transactions.
Daily email summaries: If you opt into emails, Tiller will send you a daily email summarizing your account balances and recent transactions. If you want to know whether or not you’re staying under budget, Tiller will straight up tell you.
Tiller Money is designed for spreadsheet nerds. While it is customizable and there’s a whole community you can tap into to answer any questions you might have, if you don’t like spreadsheets, Tiller isn’t for you.
User Experience
I started using Tiller Money back in 2023 when I was commissioned to write a review of the platform for a personal finance website. While most personal finance influencers don’t actually use the platforms they promote, Tiller Money intrigued me.
The setup process was and still is super simple. You sign in with either your Google or Microsoft account. From there you link your financial accounts to your Tiller account.
Tiller will recommend starting with a Foundations Template spreadsheet and I would agree with that. It has the basics and if you want to add other sheets you can. You can either use the template with Google Sheets or download it to use in Excel.
Once you have the template setup and populated with data, you are ready to start budgeting with Tiller. You can adjust different dashboards to reflect your personal financial situation, download new dashboards, and set up auto categories to streamline the entire budgeting process.
One thing that makes Tiller unique is that other Tiller users can create templates and share them with the rest of the Tiller Community. For example, if tracking your retirement savings is important to you, there’s a community-generated template you can add to your spreadsheet.
The system is easy to modify to your liking but again, if you’re not a fan of spreadsheets, this probably won’t be a good fit for you.
Pricing
Tiller Money comes with a free 30-day trial period to test drive the platform out. But let’s be honest here, if you spend the time adding your accounts and importing all of your data you’re not going to want to jump ship after the 30 days is over.
Before you dive into Tiller be mindful that it costs $79 per year. Even though that comes down to about $6.58 per month, there isn’t a monthly payment option. You’ll be billed $79 annually for as long as you want to keep the platform.
Personally, I think it’s worth it. It’s half of a Netflix subscription which is basically brain rot and you know what you’re getting up front. While freemium budgeting tools may seem cost-effective if you’re not paying for something you are the product. You might not know it but free budgeting tools are probably selling your financial data to advertisers.
Comparison with Other Budgeting Tools
Tiller Money is one of several budgeting apps you can choose from. Each person is different. Some people like apps, I personally like spreadsheets. Here are a couple of Tiller competitors you can consider.
Tiller vs. YNAB (You Need A Budget)
YNAB is known for its zero-based budgeting approach. Zero-based budgeting is a way to give every dollar a “job.” You basically allocate your spending, savings, and investing until there’s zero dollars left over at the end of the month.
This is good if you make enough money to have to figure out how to save and invest at the end of the month. If you struggle to bread even or are constantly running a deficit, zero-based budgeting is going to be difficult to do.
For me, I earn an inconsistent income each month. While I do like the idea of zero-based budgeting, it’s hard to implement when you don’t know how much money you’ll have coming in each month.
I tried YNAB before Tiller and found the user interface to be a bit clunky. It seemed like there was a lot I’d have to learn if I wanted to use the platform. Plus it’s more expensive. Annually, YNAB is $109 per year or you can access it monthly for $14.99.
Tiller vs. Every Dollar
Similar to YNBA, Every Dollar is a zero-based budgeting tool. Created by Dave Ramsey, Every Dollar is an app that makes it easy to create a budget.
Every Dollar is designed for someone who wants a basic approach to money management. You’re not going to get customizable options like you’ll get with Tiller and the categories are less flexible.
Every Dollar has a free and premium option. Every Dollar is $17.99 per month or $79.99 per year. There is a 14-day trial period to test the premium version out to see if it makes sense for you.
I have not personally tried out Every Dollar. If you have and find it helpful, share your thoughts in the comments.
Tiller vs. Empower (formerly Personal Capital)
Empower offers budgeting and expense tracking but it’s more designed for users who want to track their net worth. It comes with more advanced retirement and investment tracking dashboards than you’ll find with Tiller. And if you’re big into investing, you can leverage Empower’s asset management team to help you build your portfolio.
Empower’s budgeting tool is free to use but if you want to take advantage of Empower’s personal investing strategy services, be prepared to pony up. There is a $100,000 account minimum and there is a 0.49% to 0.89% account management fee.
Empower acquired Personal Capital back in 2020. I remember setting up a Personal Capital account back then to use its net worth tracking feature but after it got acquired by Empower, it fell off my radar. Personally, I’m not a fan of paying someone to manage my money but if that’s your jam, you do you.
My Experience
I love Tiller Money that’s why I’m taking the time to write about it. For me, spreadsheets are more intuitive and accessible than an app. Plus it gives me the chance to go deeper into the weeds to understand my spending habits.
Here’s an example. Tiller rolls up all of your monthly budgets into a yearly budget. Most of my income comes from freelance writing. Freelance writing isn’t doing too well at the moment so my annual budget projects a serious cash shortfall this year. Seeing this represented as a real number helps prioritize activities to generate more income.
It also helps me see how fast I’m burning through my budget. I’m planning on spending $5,165 this year on groceries but as of this moment, I’ve blown through about half my budget. If I want to stay under budget, I need to be more mindful of my grocery spending over the next few months.
Aside from spreadsheets, I love the visualizations that come with Tiller templates. I’m working on paying off all of my debt. Tiller connects all of my accounts in one place and allows me to see the progress I’m making (or not).
That said, there are some quirks. Some templates aren’t very intuitive and difficult to use. The cash flow forecast template seems like a really useful tool but I’ll be honest, I have no idea what type of information I should include on it. And I haven’t really taken the time to dive into Tiller’s resource library to figure it out.
I’ve also had issues where Tiller didn’t connect with my bank. There were several months where it wasn’t automatically pulling transactions into my spreadsheet. This was a pretty big inconvenience and I almost stopped using Tiller because of it. But integration issues are going to happen anywhere, it’s not really a problem Tiller can control.
Overall I’ve had a net positive experience and it’s a tool I’d highly recommend to other nerds who want a more hands-on approach to managing their finances.
Is Tiller Worth It?
Tiller is a highly customizable money management tool powered by spreadsheets. While there’s a slight learning curve it’s not as steep as budgeting tools that rely on zero-based budgeting. At $79 a year, Tiller is on par with similar financial management tools.
Because Tiller uses spreadsheets, you can download your data and import it into AI-powered tools like ChatGPT. This could revolutionize personal financial management, putting power back into the hands of everyday people.
Tiller comes with a 30-day free trial period. You can test it out to see if you like it before you commit.
FAQs
Does Tiller have a mobile app?
No. Tiller spreadsheets can be accessed via Google Sheets or Excel mobile apps.
Is my financial data secure with Tiller?
Yes. Tiller uses bank-grade 256-bit AES encryption and does not store your bank login credentials.
Can I use Tiller without linking my bank accounts?
Yes, you can manually input transactions into the spreadsheets if you want.
What happens after the free trial?
You can do nothing and Tiller will bill you $79 or you can cancel before your credit card is charged.
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