A Community Of Canadians Living And Thriving Debt Free
I used to feel like I needed to keep my budget the same as it was when I made it…and that’s silly.
Have you ever set a budget and gone over it without even thinking or noticing it happen? The key to avoiding this is to make it IMPOSSIBLE to go over budget! If this happens to you often, you may want to consider implementing some version of the envelope system. Watch this video to see how the envelope system works and why it might be something for you to consider in your financial life!
Some people claim that living without a credit card in Canada is IMPOSSIBLE! Using a credit card makes transactions easier, but life got much easier for us when we stopped using them, that’s for sure! In fact, I am now convinced that (1) it’s totally doable, and (2) it’s totally worth it.
Since we got out of debt, we have stopped using our credit cards entirely, and thanks to this, we control our money 1000x better than we ever did while using them. Today, we easily track nearly every penny of our budget and are able to live intentionally. More, we travel and do all the things that people think are impossible without a credit card. There are two key tools that have been instrumental in this process, and I go over them here.
Thanks for visiting! If you struggle with budgeting and tracking your budget like I did, you may like this: I created a PDF of the actual steps I use today to track my budget, even at 9:30 pm at night when I’m exhausted. Click below to get the free PDF:
When I was a kid, I was one of the lucky ones who was taught how to budget, and because I was that kid who was good at school, I did pretty well in it! Aced the ideas, and could create a budget in very little time. I’m even a bit of an Excel guru, and so working in excel, doing everything manually was the way I was most comfortable. I could customize anything I wanted in any way I wanted.
Thus, it was all the more frustrating when I couldn’t make a budget that I actually stuck to.
In the fall of 2015 I discovered Dave Ramsey, and by January of 2016, I was ready to go for it. I saw people who were certainly not as talented/smart/sexy as I was (ok, maybe not the sexy one 🤣), making less money as me and paying off more debt than we had, and doing it in 2 years or less!
My first thought was it was flat out fake, or maybe most of them were.
But as I kept listening, I was convinced. So I got on board and convinced my wife to go after it with me.
Now came the time to actually make and track a new budget – one where debt repayment was front and center.
Over the next 18 months, I spent countless hours and efforts trying with all my budgeting skills and Excel skills to produce a budget that we would actually stick to (and that we could track to make sure we actually did).
At some point, I tried Dave Ramsey’s app EveryDollar, and I hated it. It seemed impossible to track everything I was doing.
Hours and hours of work with very little success.
Finally, we got out of debt, and went on a vacation…but we still hadn’t learned to budget…needless to say, it didn’t go well. Want the whole store? I detail it in a video here.
At the end of the day, I was DONE with credit cards forever, and I haven’t used them since.
At some point after giving up credit cards, I was grasping at straws with this budgeting thing, so I decided to give EveryDollar a try again…
It was a night and day difference.
The app hadn’t changed, but now not using credit cards, I found it 1000% easier to use!
(In fact, it was so drastic that I sometimes wonder if Dave Ramsey and his team designed the app to be hard to use while still using credit cards because he calls credit cards the cigarette of the financial world!)
From that day, I was hooked. I have been using this app ever since.
At some point, friends started to tell me that the EveryDollar app was coming up as “Not available in your country”. I figured it was just a mistake and it would clear up soon.
It never did and it still hasn’t.
I reached out directly to the company on Twitter in April 2019. Here’s the response I got:
The Android app had to be removed from the google play store in Canada due to some restrictions put in place. You can still use EveryDollar.com on a computer, but can’t download the Android app at this time. Let me know if you have any more questions. Thanks
When I pushed and asked what the restrictions were, here’s the response I got:
Not sure, honestly. That’s just what we were told when we had to take it down. Hopefully we can get it added back one day. Let me know if you have any more questions. Thanks
Shocking and annoying. But there it is.
First and foremost, try the official stores first. Hopefully one day soon it’ll be available in Canada again and these will work no problem. Please check them first for your device:
If it does say it’s unavailable in your country, you can still get around this by downloading from a third party. The main one I’ve discovered and used is called apkmonk. Click below to check out the app on apkmonk:
This is the same app (as you can see through the most recent versions list).
I’ve been looking around for another app in the event that neither of these apps works and recently found one.
Unfortunately, it’s not free, but it does only cost $7.99 for a lifetime, as opposed to a monthly fee. As of January 2020, I’m using this to manage the finances in this business.
The two main ones people seem to like are YNAB (You Need A Budget) and Mint. I don’t like either of these options for doing a Zero-based budget. I’m not going into a review them here, but I would 100x encourage both EveryDollar and 1Money over either of these apps.
Shoot me an email and let me know! rob at wepayoffdebt dot ca. Thanks much!
It’s not the mathematically best way, but in fact, it has been proven to be the best way. We did it, and you should too. Paying off debt feels AMAZING – get to it!
It was a painful lesson. As someone who LOVED my credit card points, it was very hard to give them up. This is the #1 reason I see that looking back, I would have stopped using them WAYYYY sooner than I did.
PS: I made some step by step instructions giving you the exact process I use today to track my budget. Click below to download!