Get Financially Efficient with Budgetable

Any time you watch the news, you will find that most of the time, the main topics are related somehow to money. It has been around for centuries, but yet we still can’t seem to figure it out. Money can be a great thing, but yet so destructive as well.

One web app has come out recently that piqued my interest because it looked like it paid attention to the details when it comes to money. Budgetable, which is currently in beta, takes looking at your spending differently than some other apps that do similar functions, like Mint. Instead of just looking at your transactions and categories of spending, you get a more in depth look at your money and how it is affecting your savings.

Budget Score

One of the main things that separates Budgetable from similar apps are that they give you what is called a budget score. In order to get your score, you need to give Budgetable some information about your accounts so that they can analyze your spending. You can add your bank accounts and later on you will be able to add your credit cards, loans and investments. After you do this, the app, categorizes your spending into three major categories, Essential, Nonessential, and Debt.

Based upon your spending, Budgetable is able to come up with a budget score for you. The higher the score, the better you with your money, and vice versa. For the most part, the app does a decently good job of automatically categorizing your purchases into the three main categories. You have the option of going into each one and changing a purchase to what should be the right category if they get it wrong.

Where Did My Money Go?

I find myself asking that question more and more these days. Budgetable has a variety of tools to help you see where your money goes and what you are spending it on. I won’t go into detail on every single tool, but I will try to explain most of the major ones that are offered.

On the home page you will find something called the “Spending Heat Map.” This heat map is actually pretty cool and gives you a good visual of where your money is going. There are nine main categories on the map, and wherever you are spending the most money that part of the map will be brighter than other areas where you don’t spend a whole lot. This is a quick and easy way to see where are the areas that your money is going to and where you could possibly cut back.

Secondly, similar to an app like Mint, or your bank’s website, you can see all of your transactions. But what makes it even better is the fact you can see what purchases are considered essential or not. What I like about this view versus what you see on your bank’s website is that you can really analyze your transactions and see not only where your money is going but how your money is being spent.

The last major view that you can use to help see where your money is going is the calendar feature. In this view you can see your transactions by the day, week or month. I like this view because it gives you a different option than the one that I previously talked about. This is more of a general overview and is a good way to quickly glance at your money situation.

Thoughts

Let me first say that I was given the opportunity to test out the beta version of this application, so I didn’t get to use the app to its fullest extent. Given that, I tried to test it out as best as I could knowing that it wasn’t going to be close to done.

To be honest, at first I was a little overwhelmed by the homepage after I added my bank account, as you can see below in the picture. There was just so much information and features on there that I really didn’t know where to start. I almost gave up on it for this reason, but, decided to hang in there and really give it a go for a few more days. The more I used it, the more I started to understand it better and see its usefullness. This is not one of those apps where you can log in and easily dive in. Although everything is somewhat intuitive, it does take some time to learn and know how to use, but once you get the hang of it, you will see that it has got some good potential to educate you on your spending.

Will It Work?

Personally, I think this app can work for the masses of people out there that want to really take a look at their spending. This definitely isn’t for everyone because like anything you want to be good at, you have to be patient and disciplined. I say that because you have to be patient enough to learn how the app works so that you can use it to your advantage. You also have to be disciplined enough to use the app to help you by manually categorizing some of the transactions that Budgetable gets wrong so it can give you accurate information.

In the end, for Budgetable being in beta and still working out the kinks, the app worked really well and I didn’t run into any problems using it. Right now, it is in “invite only” mode, so you can head over to the website and enter your email address and get on the list. If you are serious about cutting down on your spending and you want an app that can do a good job of analyzing where your money goes so that you can cut back, then go and check Budgetable out.