Tiller has bank-grade security and has partnered with a company that works with some of the biggest banks in North America to ensure it’s up to the same high standards banks are held to. (Don’t worry they have a 60-day money-back guarantee as well). If you’re like me and spend an hour or more getting your data into a uniform format or have avoided budgeting because you don’t want to take the time to mess with your data, $$6.58/month is well worth what you are getting in return for Tiller’s service. You can use my link for a free 30 day trial, but after that it’s $$6.58/month. They will come through in a uniform format that looks something like this: Once you sign up for Tiller you simply have to connect your accounts and your financial transactions will be dumped into a Google Spreadsheet each day. But they don’t allow you to dump your data into a spreadsheet because they either haven’t built a tool that can do that or they have a huge incentive to not allow their users to dump data into a spreadsheet. Now there are a ton of apps out there that link to your accounts. Tiller is what I have been waiting for: it automates the process of pulling in your financial data into a clean, uniform format. That all changed when I discovered Tiller. Fast forward four years and I still haven’t shared a spreadsheet. I didn’t want to share a budgeting spreadsheet until I solved this key piece of the puzzle. No two financial institutions seem to export data in the same format. I have a number of credit cards due to credit card churning, plus throw in a bank account and you can see why it would take quite a bit of time to reformat everything. The biggest issue with spreadsheet budgeting is getting all the data in the proper format. When I share spreadsheets and tools I want them to be as easy to use as possible. I’ve had the same spreadsheet for over four years now. I’m an Excel nerd so using a spreadsheet to budget was a no-brainer for me. But first let me tell you a bit about the budgeting process I’ve used in the past. Today we finally have a budget spreadsheet in Excel that is automated and easy to update.

The more people I talk to about budgeting, the more I hear that people desire a spreadsheet-based budget without all the manual work that comes with it. Many people find them useful, and there’s no denying that there are a ton of good ones out there.īut I personally have used a budget spreadsheet for years and have found it useful. Spreadsheets offer control and flexibility to users, and allows them to look closer at the transactions going through their accounts.

There are a ton of budgeting apps out there, but many people end up using some sort of a spreadsheet for their budget.

Free budget spreadsheet