Budgeting without a bank connection
Most budgeting apps start by asking for your bank password. These don’t have to. Here are the options we’d actually suggest, what each costs as of October 2026, and who each one suits. Disclosure: we make Minturn Money, one of the five.
The options
Ours first because we know it best, not because it suits everyone.
Envelope budgeting that runs on your device and works offline. You enter purchases yourself, in a couple of taps.
Open-source, local-first envelope budgeting. Its own site calls it “a local app, plain and simple” that works regardless of your network connection.
The best-known zero-based budgeting app, with a large community and a lot of teaching material.
The best-known digital envelope app, around for many years.
Google Sheets, Excel or Numbers with one row per envelope and one per purchase.
Details checked on each app’s own site in October 2026 and may have changed. Product names are trademarks of their owners; Minturn Money is not affiliated with any of them.
Choosing
Two reasons come up most. Privacy: linking usually means a third-party aggregator holds a credential or token for your bank. And habit: entering a purchase yourself is the moment you notice it, which is the point of a budget. The cost is a few seconds per purchase.
A spreadsheet is free. Actual Budget is open source; you either run its sync server yourself or pay a host. Goodbudget and Minturn Money both have free tiers with limits. YNAB has a 34-day free trial and then is paid.
In most of these, yes, by downloading a file from your bank yourself — no login involved. YNAB offers file-based import, and Minturn Money reads statement files for reconciliation on Ultimate.
We make Minturn Money, so read it with that in mind. We have kept to facts we could check on each app’s own site, dated them, and said where another app is the better fit.
Free to start, no card. 14 days of Premium if you want the rest.
Never Summer Mountains · mark byzewski, CC BY 2.0
