Shared budget app for iPhone?

December 8, 2013 3:26 PM

I am looking for an iPhone app that will allow two users to track their spending for a shared budget.

Right now I use the app Balance, which is fine for just me. But I would like the equivalent of the OurGroceries app, which allows my partner and I to make and edit shopping lists from both our phones, and which automatically updates. A simple, clean app is ideal - I don't really need much more than what Balance provides. Free is also good!

posted by leedly to Technology (9 answers total)

Ynab. Not free but worth the money.
posted by melissasaurus at 3:43 PM on December 8, 2013

Perhaps Toshl would do the trick?
posted by wavelette at 4:04 PM on December 8, 2013

YNAB is the best option for this, but the desktop is the primary (necessary) version, and the iPhone app is sold separately.
posted by supercres at 4:24 PM on December 8, 2013

...and the iPhone app is sold separately.

Was true once, but now the mobile versions are free. Still dependent on the desktop version, though.
posted by jon1270 at 4:40 PM on December 8, 2013

Mint?
posted by bleep at 5:31 PM on December 8, 2013

Expense Tool is $1.99 and works well for me and mine. It allows you to share expenses, figure who owes what to the communal pot, etc. NB: it does not automatically update. You will have to make a point of doing a Data Exchange with your partner from time to time. Très romantique!
posted by mumkin at 10:00 PM on December 8, 2013

If you want to track actual spending then I second Mint.com, though though for up-to-the-minute data you're still at the mercy of your financial institutions making the data available for scraping. Mint has some budget tools and as long as your transactions are being properly categorized (requires a little babysitting) you'll get alerts when you're close to or over budgeted amounts. We've also found it useful for identifying historical trends in our spending that we'd benefit from correcting.
posted by bizwank at 11:24 PM on December 8, 2013

Thirding YNAB. You set up the budget on a traditional computer, allow it to save to Dropbox, then use iPhone/Android apps to track your spending. As a time-saver, it uses GPS to remember what store you're recording your spending from. It is considerably more expensive than your average app though.
posted by rouftop at 3:55 PM on December 9, 2013

Fourthing YNAB - my wife and I sync via Dropbox and it works a treat. As noted, it's not free (it requires the desktop software), but the software, along with the methodology and the great support on their site, have been a life-changer for us.
posted by Happy Dave at 2:36 AM on December 10, 2013