All it took was a shower to put Josh Philbrick on the road to entrepreneurship. It wasn’t even his own. Sure, he and his wife Sonya had those offhand conversations every couple has when they are out. They were living in Florida where smoothie shops are plentiful and would occasionally say to each other, “we should open one of these.”

But Sonya was pursuing a career in therapy and social work and Josh was working construction and they never pursued the thought until they moved back to NH in 2015 to be closer to family after the birth of their second child.

In 2017, Sonya launched her own therapy practice, CARE Counseling in Manchester (which now has four locations). One morning in 2018, Sonya emerged from the shower and proclaimed Josh should pursue a smoothie business. That’s all it took. He bought a used ice cream truck in Pennsylvania and retrofitted it into what was the beginning of his new business – Smoothie Bus. The couple developed 10 flavors of smoothies and then Josh hit the road for the first time, parking at a car dealership.

Originally, the plan was the business would be a weekend endeavor – a side hustle. But business that first day was enough to inspire Josh to quit his construction job the following Monday.

The couple spent the summer selling smoothies at farmers markets and quickly bought two more buses for the next summer. “It was crazy. We were staying up to midnight, one o’clock to prep. It was a mad house,” Josh says.

Knowing winter was coming and selling smoothies from a food truck was not the best plan, Josh opened a smoothie shop inside an office building on Elm Street in Manchester. Josh admits it wasn’t a great location as it had no street visibility.

However, the business grew rapidly and by 2020, he opened a second location in Concord. Josh kept experimenting with flavors, developing 50 of them, including rotating seasonal flavors such as a Watermelon Strawberry summer smoothie, Pumpkin Spice in the fall, and Peppermint Bark in winter. Smoothie Bus also offers smoothie bowls, which are thicker and topped with fruit and granola.

Then COVID hit and put the business into a temporary freeze. Smoothie Bus survived through online and DoorDash orders until it could reopen to the public. Since then, Josh has reorganized the business. The buses no longer go to farmers markets but are used strictly for corporate and private events. (Josh says corporate clients book the buses for employee and client appreciation events and business is so brisk the three buses visit up to 30 locations in one day).

He says the buses, in their six months of use, generate the equivalent revenue of what the shop makes in a year. 

Josh had plans to franchise the business. Staffing shortages forced him to close the Concord store and he relocated the Manchester store to a more visible location along South Willow Street. With the bus business taking off, prepping at the smoothie store kitchen became cumbersome, so he opened a 6,000-square-foot commissary in Manchester in 2022.

Josh had excess space in the commercial kitchen and opened it up to other startup food businesses. “I didn’t realize how much need there was for a commissary kitchen,” he says. “We get tons of inquiries.” There are now a dozen businesses using the commissary.

While rising labor costs forced him to dramatically cut back staffing from a high of 30 to four, in October he opened another smoothie shop at the Merrimack Premium Outlets, which he expects to do brisk business this summer.

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• The 50/30/20 rule designates 50% of your income to needs, 30% to wants, and 20% to debt or savings.
• Careful tracking of your spending is crucial to making a 50/30/20 budget work.
• This approach is best for people who are paid regularly and don’t have high-interest debt.

Personal budgets are an organized way to make sure all of your financial obligations are met. They make it easier to plan for the future, spend responsibly, and stay out of debt. However, learning how to budget isn’t always straightforward.

Though there are many options, a strategy that divides your income into three parts using the so-called 50/30/20 rule has become a popular choice for many people as they decide how much they should save each month.

Introduction to the 50/30/20 rule

Overview of the 50/30/20 rule

The 50/30/20 rule is a straightforward rule of thumb that involves breaking up your spending into three distinct categories: needs, wants, and savings and paying off debt. Calculated with after-tax income, each specific category is allocated to a certain percentage of your income. 

Following the rule, 50% should go toward needs, 30% toward wants, and 20% toward savings and debt. “What’s nice about the system is it’s simple,” says Jay Zigmont, PhD, CFP, and founder of Childfree Wealth. 

Origin and popularity 

Sen. Elizabeth Warren and her daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi, who wrote about 50/30/20 in their book published in 2005, “All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan,” are widely credited for popularizing its use in personal budgeting. 

Overall, the template keeps things simple, gives a general idea of where money could go, and serves as a framework to track spending against.

“It’s easy, it’s well structured — because of the forced savings component — and that’s why it’s been popular,” Frank McLaughlin, a CFP and wealth advisor at Merriman, says of the reasons it’s caught on so much in the last decade and a half.

How the 50/30/20 rule works

Allocating 50% to necessities

With this system, needs are often the bare minimum for survival: food, shelter, health care, basic clothing, and other items of this nature. “I really think of that as your core cost of living,” says McLaughlin. “They’re those things that you could not live without.” Often, it takes a critical and honest attitude toward spending to figure out what truly belongs in this category.

Following the 50/30/20 rule, no more than 50% of your after-tax income should go towards this category. If your “needs” spending is accounting for more than half of your income, the idea of the system is that you cut back or adjust your lifestyle until you’re under that threshold. 

Allocating 30% to wants

Wants are things you don’t need, but they make you happy. Eating out, concerts, events, leisurely shopping, home upgrades, or vacations could fall into this category. It’s things you can live without, but that you’d prefer not to. Following the 50/30/20 rule, these purchases shouldn’t cost more than 30% of whatever your after-tax pay is.

Allocating 20% to savings and debt repayment

The last, and smallest category, of the 50/30/20 rule is for managing debt and savings. This could mean paying down student loans, funding retirement accounts, paying off credit card debt, working toward longer-term savings goals, or building an emergency fund.

“Either way, it’s increasing your net worth by either saving more or putting money toward your liabilities or areas that you owe money,” McLaughlin says.

You can also use this 20% for safe investments, especially if you don’t have any debt to pay off.

Benefits of using the 50/30/20 rule

Simplifying financial planning

One of the biggest benefits of the 50/30/20 rule in personal finance is that it’s one of the least complicated budgeting strategies to use. While strategies like Dave Ramsey’s envelope system or zero-balance budgets require you to keep track of your finances down to the dollar each month, the 50/30/20 rule lets you work on a larger scale. 

It also doesn’t require you to separate your spending into lots of smaller categories, preferring instead to focus on three bigger ones. This might be helpful for people who struggle to keep track of day-to-day purchases. 

Encouraging financial discipline

At the same time, the 50/30/20 rule encourages you to limit how much money you’re spending on unnecessary purchases. By knowing just how much money you have to spend on things like concerts and candles, you’ll be able to better understand how each purchase fits into your greater budget and make more informed decisions on what purchases are important enough to go through with. 

It will also help you start saving for the future, whether in the form of a retirement plan, a high-yield savings account, or just paying off outstanding debts.

How to implement the 50/30/20 rule

Tracking your spending

In order to track your spending, you first need to know how much you’re making. You’ll want to go through your pay stubs to determine how much money you’re taking home after tax each month. Part of the reason it’s important to look at your pay stub, and not just the amount deposited into your account, is because you’ll want to make note of any contributions that are going to a retirement plan or other savings account.

“That would be considered part of the 20% into savings, so you don’t want to shortchange yourself or discredit all the work that you’re doing,” McLaughlin explains. 

Next, you’ll need to track your monthly spending. According to McLaughlin, this is often one of the most difficult parts of the budget. Because it can be tedious, it may discourage some potential users. A budgeting app is one way to make the process simpler, but pencil and paper or personal spreadsheets can also help you keep track of your spending. 

You can also go through your bank statements at the end of the month and categorize each purchase to see how much you’re spending on what

Adjusting your budget categories

Next, you’ll want to calculate 50%, 30%, and 20% of your net pay to determine how much to spend in each category. To do this, multiply your after-tax pay by 0.5, 0.3, and 0.2, respectively. “Those will give you the numbers that you can roughly try to squeeze things into for those different buckets,” McLaughlin says. 

If those numbers don’t work for you — for example, if you want to pay off your credit card fast, and therefore need more than 20% of your income to go to debt repayment— you can always tweak the percentages until they work for you.

Challenges and solutions

Addressing common obstacles

Though the 50/30/20 rule can be a useful starting point, it’s not always the best choice for everyone. For example, retirees may not be saving 20%, or any money at all, once they stop working. It could also be difficult to implement for those who experience irregular pay month to month or year to year — like contract workers or people who work mainly on commission.

“Not everyone is going to fit neatly into these buckets,” McLaughlin says. 

In some circumstances, the 50/30/20 rule just may not be possible. If you make less money, housing alone could take up half of your pay. Some people have personal loans that already total more than 20% before evening thinking about savings. 

The rule also doesn’t account for interest, inflation, or any other factors outside of spending categories. If you’ve got credit card debt with a high interest rate, more times than not it makes more sense to pay that down as quickly as possible before spending 30% of your income on wants. 

Tips for successful implementation

“It’s going to work best for people that have enough money and low enough debt to make it work,” says Zigmont. For people who don’t have any debt or low-interest, “good” debt, the rule might make sense. It could also be a good starting template for anyone who is brand new to budgeting and looking for a simple template.

“The budget is good about getting you to actually work on a budget,” Zigmont says. “If it works out that it’s 60/20/20 that’s fine, at least you’re using a budget. That’s what’s important.”

Alternatives to the 50/30/20 rule

There are a few alternatives to the 50/30/20 budgeting method.

If you want a similarly flexible rule, but you’d prefer that it focused more on debt, the 70/20/10 rule might be better for you. In the 70/20/10 rule, 70% of your budget goes to both wants and needs, 20% goes to savings, and 10% goes to paying back debts or donating. This rule also doesn’t focus as much on defining what counts as a “want” and what counts as a “need.” 

If you’d rather focus your budgeting on your financial goals, the pay yourself first system might work better for you. With this system, you start by figuring out how much money you want to save or pay off debts with each month. You then subtract that from your income for that month and use the resulting number to determine how much you have for other expenses or purchases.

If you do want a budgeting strategy that’s more granular, either a traditional budget or something like the envelope system might work better for you. A traditional budget, or a zero-balance budget, asks you to have your income equal your expenses. The envelope system asks you to put paper money into envelopes corresponding with each thing you want to spend money on that month (for example, food, clothing, or rent).

50/30/2o budget FAQs

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OMAHA, Neb. — (AP) — Warren Buffett cautioned the tens of thousands of shareholders who packed an arena for his annual meeting that artificial intelligence scams could become “the growth industry of all time.”

Doubling down on his cautionary words from last year, Buffett told the throngs he recently came face to face with the downside of AI. And it looked and sounded just like him. Someone made a fake video of Buffett, apparently convincing enough that the so-called Oracle of Omaha himself said he could imagine it tricking him into sending money overseas.

The billionaire investing guru predicted scammers will seize on the technology, and may do more harm with it than society can wring good.

“As someone who doesn’t understand a damn thing about it, it has enormous potential for good and enormous potential for harm and I just don’t know how that plays out,” he said.

EARNINGS BEFORE MUSINGS

The day started early Saturday with Berkshire Hathaway announcing a steep drop in earnings as the paper value of its investments plummeted and it pared its Apple holdings. The company reported a $12.7 billion profit, or $8.825 per Class A share, in first the quarter, down 64% from $35.5 billion, or $24,377 per A share a year ago.

But Buffett encourages investors to pay more attention to the conglomerate’s operating earnings from the companies it actually owns. Those jumped 39% to $11.222 billion, or $7,796.47 per Class A share, led by insurance companies’ performance.

None of it that got in the way of the fun.

Throngs flooded the arena to buy up Squishmallows of Buffett and former Vice Chairman Charlie Munger, who died last fall. The event attracts investors from all over the world and is unlike any other company meeting. Those attending for the first time are driven by an urgency to get here while the 93-year-old Buffett is still alive.

“This is one of the best events in the world to learn about investing. To learn from the gods of the industry,” said Akshay Bhansali, who spent the better part of two days traveling from India to Omaha.

A NOTABLE ABSENCE

Devotees come from all over the world to vacuum up tidbits of wisdom from Buffett, who famously dubbed the meeting ‘Woodstock for Capitalists.’

But a key ingredient was missing this year: It was the first meeting since Munger died.

The meeting opened with a video tribute highlighting some of his best known quotes, including classic lines like “If people weren’t so often wrong, we wouldn’t be so rich.” The video also featured skits the investors made with Hollywood stars over the years, including a “Desperate Housewives” spoof where one of the women introduced Munger as her boyfriend and another in which actress Jaimie Lee Curtis swooned over him.

As the video ended, the arena erupted in a prolonged standing ovation honoring Munger, whom Buffett called “the architect of Berkshire Hathaway.”

Buffett said Munger remained curious about the world up until the end of his life at 99, hosting dinner parties, meeting with people and holding regular Zoom calls.

“Like his hero Ben Franklin, Charlie wanted to understand everything,” Buffett said.

For decades, Munger and Buffett functioned as a classic comedy duo, with Buffett offering lengthy setups to Munger’s witty one-liners. He once referred to unproven internet companies as “turds.”

Together, the pair transformed Berkshire from a floundering textile mill into a massive conglomerate made up of a variety of interests, from insurance companies such as Geico to BNSF railroad to several major utilities and an assortment of other companies.

Munger often summed up the key to Berkshire’s success as “trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.” He and Buffett also were known for sticking to businesses they understood well.

“Warren always did at least 80% of the talking. But Charlie was a great foil,” said Stansberry Research analyst Whitney Tilson, who was looking forward to his 27th consecutive meeting.

NEXT GEN LEADERS

Munger’s absence, however, created space for shareholders to get to know better the two executives who directly oversee Berkshire’s companies: Ajit Jain, who manages the insurance units; and Abel, who handles everything else and has been named Buffett’s successor. The two shared the main stage with Buffett this year.

The first time Buffett kicked a question to Abel, he mistakenly said “Charlie?” Abel shrugged off the mistake and dove into the challenges utilities face from the increased risk of wildfires and some regulators’ reluctance to let them collect a reasonable profit.

Morningstar analyst Greggory Warren said he believes Abel spoke up more Saturday and let shareholders see some of the brilliance Berkshire executives talk about.

Abel offered a twist on Munger’s classic “I have nothing to add” line by often starting his answers Saturday by saying “The only thing I would add.”

“Greg’s a rock star,” said Chris Bloomstran, president of Semper Augustus Investments Group. “The bench is deep. He won’t have the same humor at the meeting. But I think we all come here to get a reminder every year to be rational.”

A LOOK TO THE FUTURE

Buffett has made clear that Abel will be Berkshire’s next CEO, but he said Saturday that he had changed his opinion on how the company’s investment portfolio should be handled. He had previously said it would fall to two investment managers who handle small chunks of the portfolio now. On Saturday, Buffett endorsed Abel for the gig, as well as overseeing the operating businesses and any acquisitions.

“He understands businesses extremely well. and if you understand businesses, you understand common stocks,” Buffett said. Ultimately, it will be up to the board to decide, but the billionaire said he might come back and haunt them if they try to do it differently.

Overall, Buffett said Berkshire’s system of having all the noninsurance companies report to Abel and the insurers report to Jain is working well. He himself hardly gets any calls from managers anymore because they get more guidance from Abel and Jain.

“This place would work extremely well the next day if something happened to me,” Buffett said.

Nevertheless, the best applause line of the day was Buffett’s closing remark: “I not only hope that you come next year but I hope that I come next year.” ___

For more AP coverage of Warren Buffett look here: https://apnews.com/hub/warren-buffett. For Berkshire Hathaway news, see here: https://apnews.com/hub/berkshire-hathaway-inc. Follow Josh Funk online at https://www.twitter.com/funkwrite and https://www.linkedin.com/in/funkwrite.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

Japan calls US president’s remarks ‘unfortunate’, while India says it’s open to immigrants.

India and Japan have rejected President Joe Biden’s remarks calling the US allies “xenophobic” countries who do not welcome immigrants, and grouping the two nations with China and Russia.

India’s Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said the country has historically been open to immigrants and is on strong economic footing, The Economic Times newspaper reported on Saturday.

“First of all, our economy is not faltering,” Jaishankar said at a roundtable hosted by The Economic Times on Friday, after Biden said the four nations were failing to capitalise on the economic benefits of migration.

“I think we should be open to people who have the need to come to India, who have a claim to come to India,” Jaishankar added, pointing to a contentious citizenship law that fast-tracks naturalisation for some non-Muslim immigrants.

Japan, which has the lowest immigrant population of any Group of Seven (G7) nation at less than 2 percent, also took issue with the US president’s comments, its embassy in Washington, DC, describing them as “unfortunate” and “not based on an accurate understanding of Japan’s policies”.

‘They don’t want immigrants’

At a recent campaign fundraiser, Biden criticised the countries for taking in fewer migrants, while arguing migration has bolstered the US economy.

“Why is China stalling so badly economically, why is Japan having trouble, why is Russia, why is India, because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants,” Biden said at the event, which marked the start of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

“One of the reasons why our economy’s growing is because of you and many others. Why? Because we welcome immigrants.”

The president’s singling out of Japan and India came as a surprise as he has made a point of strengthening ties with the two nations since taking office in 2021.

Last year, Biden welcomed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the White House, where he hailed the two countries’ shared “democratic character” and “diversity”.

In April, he hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for a state dinner, celebrating the United States and Japan’s “unbreakable” partnership, and commitment to “democracy and freedom”.

Japan’s embassy on Friday said it had raised the issue with administration officials, in a statement cited by US media.

It also said that it was “aware” that the administration had clarified that Biden’s comments were intended to highlight immigrants’ role in strengthening the US, “and that his comment was not made with the intent of undermining the importance and permanence of the Japan-US relationship”.

The controversy would not affect Japan’s future work with the US, it added.

The White House subsequently sought to downplay the remarks. It said the president’s “broader point” was to highlight the US’s own diversity, emphasising that “our allies know very well how much the president respects them”.

Japan, despite its historically strict immigration policy, has been slowly opening its doors to outsiders to compensate for its rapidly ageing population.

India, the world’s most populous nation, has faced criticism for its move to implement the 2019 Citizenship Amendment Act, which expedites naturalisation for non-Muslims from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

While the law eases the migration process for some asylum seekers, critics say it discriminates against Muslims and is unconstitutional.

Main Character of the Week is a weekly column that tells you the most prominent “main character” online (good or bad). It runs on Fridays in the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter. If you want to get this column a day before we publish it, subscribe to web_crawlr, where you’ll get the daily scoop of internet culture delivered straight to your inbox.

The internet is a stage, and someone unwillingly stumbles onto it weekly. This makes them the “main character” online. Sometimes their story is heartwarming, like the DoorDash driver who put a customer on blast for ordering twice in the same day; usually it’s a gaffe. In any case, that main character energy flows through the news cycle and turbo-charges debate for several business days.

Here’s the Trending team’s main character of the week.

It’s the McDonald’s secret shopper who went to McDonald’s and got hit on by a McDonald’s worker. As we reported this week: The McDonald’s worker, per Kayla the secret shopper, asked her if she was satisfied when handing her the order, told her to come back if she wasn’t, and winked.

“He was licking his chops at me,” Kayla said, alleging that the man was looking at her in a suggestive manner.

Kayla (@kaylalaughsoutloud) uses her TikTok to post about her life as a secret shopper. For the uninitiated, secret shoppers get paid by brands to check out their storefronts via plain-clothed drop-ins. It’s the kind of job that’s existed for decades, but in the social media era has gained notoriety for its consequential nature, secretive execution, and our perpetual fascination with side hustles.

It’s an appealing gig for narcs who want to turn on their fellow comrades in the labor trenches. A certain type of personality will enjoy nothing more than silently judging you while being paid to stuff their face at Outback Steakhouse.

Kayla faced a particularly hilarious and heinous breach of company best practices. Her cheeseburger was overpriced, incorrectly assembled, strewn with too many onions, and to top it off the drive-thru guy got fresh with her. She is a victim and her TikTok is a fascinating window into a cloak-draped profession that we appreciate at the Daily Dot.

Even then, I’m of the opinion that secret shoppers exist to subjugate workers. Quality control is merely their guise.

The internet both values these jobs and is fascinated by them. Every time we cover secret shoppers at the Daily Dot it tends to yield significant pageviews.

Our stories about them are bolstered by human relatability, brand recognition, and political subtext. After all, every reader is a worker or a customer.

On Thursday, a Target customer broke decorum and snapped at one for following her around the store. It’s happened before. At Walmart, too.

Secret shoppers get the creepy “floor walker” name at Walmart, and likewise, customers have tried to troll them as retaliation for their overbearing nature. This has happened to Black customers, too, who have expressed disdain for secret shoppers who make them feel profiled.

Our collective understanding of secret shoppers in a post-Undercover Boss world has even turned the gig into a status symbol and bargaining chip. In March, someone threatened workers who said their ice cream machine was broken by telling them they were a secret shopper.

Do you know who I am? I’m the man who gets his meal comped in exchange for evaluating your commitment to the process, bucko. I am the one who knocks.

The internet is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here to get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.

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Ready to get a better understanding of your finances? Personal finance software can be a great tool for building better money habits and learning how to budget in the long term.

If you’d like more guidance when making a budget, consider also downloading a budgeting app.

The Best Personal Finance Software

Here are four excellent options you might consider if you’re searching for personal finance software.

Best for a Detailed Budget: Quicken Deluxe

Cost: Regular pricing is $5.99 per month

Why it stands out: Quicken Deluxe is a desktop software program. It’s available for download for Mac and Windows computers. 

With the program, you’ll be able to connect and keep track of bank accounts, investment accounts, loans, and credit cards. You’ll also be able to create a 12-month budget. Usually personal finance software programs only have monthly budget plans.

Quicken Deluxe also has a “what-if” tool that lets you see potential scenarios when you make certain investments or loan decisions to help you build a financial plan.

What to look out for: Quicken Deluxe primarily focuses on basic finances and investments. If you have a business or prefer more robust features, like priority customer support, you may fare better with Quicken Premier or Quicken Home & Business.

Regular pricing for Quicken software plans varies from $3.99 per month to $10.99 per month.

Sign up for Quicken Deluxe

Best for Tracking Investment Accounts: Empower Personal Dashboard

Cost: Free

Why it stands out: The Empower Personal Dashboard is another software tool that’s available through a mobile app or website. You might find the Empower Personal Dashboard appealing if you want to use a well-rounded platform that also helps monitor investment accounts and retirement plans.

With the Investment Checkup feature, you can check your current portfolio allocation alongside an ideal target allocation to minimize risk and reduce volatility. It also has a fee analyzer tool that reviews hidden fees for mutual funds, investment accounts, and retirement accounts.

What to look out for: Some tools are exclusively for Empower advisory clients. For example, clients will have access to a financial roadmap tool that can help them stick with major financial goals.

Sign up for Empower Personal Dashboard

Best for Taxes: TaxAct

Cost: $0.00 – $99.99 (+$39.99 or $59.99 for state return, depending on package)

Why it stands out: TaxAct is one of our best tax software picks. TaxAct has four DIY online options: Free, Deluxe, Premier, and Self-Employed plans. You’ll pay one price for a federal tax return, and if you have to file a state tax return you’ll pay an additional fee. 

TaxAct stands out from other tax software companies because it offers free expert support, regardless of which DIY plan you have. If you have questions while filing your tax returns, all you’ll need to do is submit questions, and an expert will reach out to you over the phone.

What to look out for: Other tax software companies do not charge a fee for state returns, and they have lower fees for filing federal tax returns (although, their features may not be as robust). 

File with TaxAct

Best for a Hands-On Approach: Google Sheets

Cost: Free

Why it stands out: Perhaps you don’t want to link all of your bank accounts or credit cards, and you don’t mind taking a more active approach to money management. Then, you might consider using Google Sheets for a straightforward way of analyzing your spending and savings goals. 

Even those who aren’t as tech-savvy will find that Google Sheets has a simple, no-fuss setup process. All you need to do is set up a Google account and open the Google Spreadsheets tab. Then, you can select a general template for budgets or investment tracking and follow the steps listed on the spreadsheet.

Keep in mind that you’ll have to update your spreadsheet regularly to have an effective spreadsheet.

What to look out for: Creating and maintaining your budget fully depends on whether you’re willing to manually input all your data. Some may like having a closer, more hands-on approach to tallying expenses or tracking changes. But if you’re worried that it might become too overwhelming to make updates every month, consider one of our other options. 

Other Personal Finance Software We Considered That Didn’t Make the Cut and Why

• Tiller: Tiller might be worthwhile if you prefer tracking money in a spreadsheet, but don’t want to update it manually. It links your bank accounts and credit cards to Google Sheets or Microsoft sheets so your transaction and balance information automatically update. It wasn’t a top pick because Tiller only has a 30-day free trial, then costs $79 per year.
• YNAB App: You may use YNAB App through the web or on an app. While it could be a good choice if you struggle with your spending in specific categories, Quicken Deluxe have more robust features. It also has a 34-day free trial, then you’ll have to pay $14.99 per month or $99 annually.
• Monarch Money: Monarch Money is a personal finance app and online platform. The plan costs $14.99 per month or $99.99 per year and allows you to track investment accounts or use customizable budget categories.
• GNU Cash: This is a free accounting software for personal and small business finances. You may download the program for Windows and Mac devices. With GNU Cash, you manage your finances through a traditional checkbook system. It could be worth considering if you have a business, but for those who don’t, it likely won’t be an easy-to-use interface.
• Quicken Simplifi: Simplifi by Quicken is a cloud-based software program, which means you’ll need to have an internet connection to use its services. In comparison, other Quicken programs can be downloaded onto your computer. Simplifi by Quicken also isn’t as robust as Quicken’s desktop programs.
• Quicken Starter: Quicken Starter could be worthwhile if you want a basic overview of your finances. But if you want to be able to create a 12-month budget or keep track of investment accounts, Quicken Deluxe will be a more compelling option. 
• Rocket Money: Rocket Money has an app and online platform. Its premium plan has concierge services to review bills, premium customer support, unlimited budgets, and customizable budget categories. 
• TaxSlayer: TaxSlayer was featured as the best budget pick in our best tax software guide. However, to qualify for the Simply Free Plan, you must have taxable income under $100,000, and you won’t be able to claim dependents. TaxAct’s free plan allows you to claim dependents. It also offers expert help with all filing packages.
• H&R Block Tax Software: H&R Block is also featured in our best tax software guide. If you want to choose a more affordable option, you may prefer TaxAct, though.
• TurboTax: TurboTax is featured in our best tax software guide and might be worth considering if you have a complex tax situation. However, TurboTax Premium plan cost more than TaxAct options. 

Methodology: How did we choose the best personal finance software?

Research is an important part of choosing a personal finance software program that fits your needs. First, we compiled a list of 13 personal finance software programs. Then, we compared each program by analyzing the following criteria: platform accessibility, pricing, money management features, and user experience. With tax software programs, we only considered the DIY online filing options. We did not consider full-service packages where an expert helps with taxes.

Frequently asked questions

The Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) has issued a warning to Texans regarding a surge in fraudulent schemes targeting families who use state benefits cards. The agency has observed an increase in complaints about fraud targeting Lone Star cardholders who receive benefits from programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).

According to the HHSC’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), there has been a significant rise in complaints about a new telephone scam involving spoofing. Scammers mimic the Lone Star Card Help Desk, often using caller IDs to appear legitimate and lull victims into a false sense of security.

“As the OIG Fraud Hotline identifies new and increasingly sophisticated scams, we want Texans to be able to protect themselves against those attempts to steal their information,” said HHS Inspector General Raymond Charles Winter.

“Regardless of what the caller ID says, do not provide any personal information in response to an unsolicited call.”

What to do in case you have fallen victim to SNAP Benefits fraud

In this scam, victims receive calls with the Lone Star Card Help Desk listed on the caller ID. The caller, sometimes a prerecorded voice, then requests the client’s PIN, Social Security number, and date of birth in exchange for promised new or increased benefits.

HHSC reiterated that they will never reach out by phone, text, or email to ask for a card number and PIN. If individuals receive suspicious calls regarding their benefits, they are advised to confirm the legitimacy of the call by hanging up and contacting the number on the back of their Lone Star Card.

If anyone believes they have fallen victim to fraud, they should contact the Lone Star Card Help Desk at 800-777-7328 or report the incident to the OIG at 800-436-6184.