An EveryDollar alternative that doesn't renew.
EveryDollar's free tier makes you type everything in — which is fine, that's the method working — and then charges about $80 a year for the bank connection that undoes it. The Household Purse charges once and never asks for your bank.
If you're budgeting the zero-based way, you already accepted the discipline of giving every dollar a job. The question this page answers is narrow: should the ledger for that discipline live in Ramsey's account system, or in a file on your own machine?
The part of EveryDollar we admire
Zero-based budgeting works because typing the number is the point. EveryDollar's free tier gets that right, and we'd rather someone use it than nothing at all.
Where we differ
Premium's pitch is that connecting your bank removes the friction. We think the friction is the product — five minutes on a Sunday with the receipts is what changes behaviour, not a feed of transactions you swipe past. So we sell the method without the feed, once.
The arithmetic
Five years of EveryDollar Premium is about $400. The Household Purse is $49, once, and there is no year two. The full sum is here.
The refund
Thirty days, one e-mail, money back. The file stays with you either way.
Common questions
Can I keep using the Ramsey method?
Yes — the Purse is envelope-first: income at the top, categories beneath, every dollar assigned until the remainder is zero. The method is not proprietary; only the app was.
Can I import my EveryDollar history?
Export CSV from EveryDollar and paste it into the transactions tab. Category mapping is manual and one-time.
Is there a mobile app?
No app — the file opens in your phone's browser from wherever you keep it (iCloud, Dropbox, a folder). No install, no store.
What about the debt snowball?
The Debt Snowball is a separate tool in the catalog; fold it into the same knife and the two sit side by side.