My Budget Book

Review by eFreeware

The most distinctive thing about My Budget Book is what it refuses to do: it asks for no internet permission at all. OneTwoApps built the app around keeping your financial records on the device. There is no advertising and no hidden in-app costs.

That makes it a good fit for anyone who wants to keep a close, private record of their money rather than hand it to a service. It is a paid app at $5.99, and the developer is upfront that it has been under active development for years, with an update in late September 2026. If you like the idea of a ledger you own outright, this is the sort of app worth a closer look.

It is not a lightweight spending diary. The app handles multiple accounts, transfers, subcategories, reconciliation, imports and exports. I would expect people who enjoy that level of detail to get the most from it, while anyone hoping for a two-tap way to log a coffee will find more here than they need.

A ledger for people who like detail

The core of the app is straightforward: you record income and expenses, either as one-off entries or as recurring transactions, and the app tracks and forecasts your balances from there. Recurring entries matter because they let the app project forward, so a rent payment or a subscription shows up in future balances without being typed in again each month.

Around that core sits a fair amount of structure. You can run several accounts and move money between them, build your own categories and subcategories, and sort records by category, payment type, person or group. Reconciliation against a bank statement is part of the package, which tells you the app is built for people who check their records rather than set and forget.

There are smaller touches that suggest long use: attaching photos or receipts to a transaction, reminders for pending payments, templates for entries you make often, and a setting for where your month begins, whether that is the 1st or the 15th. None of it is glamorous, but each one removes a repeated chore.

You can protect the whole thing with a password or a fingerprint, which is optional. That layer of protection is a sensible addition.

Budgets that carry over

Budget mode is where the app earns its name. You set limits or goals over periods you choose, so a monthly cap on clothing, a weekly limit on takeout coffee or a savings target every two weeks are all the same mechanism with different numbers. You can set limits for payment types and credit card accounts, not only categories.

The feature I find most interesting is rollover. Turn it on and a budget carries what you did not spend, or overspent, into the next period, which means the app accounts for money owed or saved rather than resetting to zero. For irregular spending that is closer to how a real household works.

Charts and graphs turn the same records into something you can read at a glance, and the interface uses a Material Design layout with a configurable dark mode. Four widgets put parts of that information on your home screen. Tabs and a range of sorting options keep the views manageable once the data builds up.

Getting data in and out

Import is handled through CSV, so existing records or bank statements can come in from a spreadsheet, and the recent update added new CSV formats. Other formats may be made available on request, according to the developer. Exports come in HTML, Excel and CSV for viewing or printing on a computer.

Backups are automatic and local, and you can create your own whenever you like. The recent update brought Storage Access Framework-compatible cloud providers such as Google Drive into the picture, so backups, photos and other files can be stored in the cloud without the app holding internet permission. That is a neat way around the privacy constraint.

The app also ships with a comprehensive manual, and support is handled by email or through a support function inside the app. For software with this many moving parts, having the documentation built in matters more than it would in a simpler tracker.

What you pay, and what you do not

My Budget Book costs $5.99 as a one-time purchase. There is no advertising in the app, and the developer says there are no hidden in-app costs.

That is a clean arrangement for a finance app. You are not trading your attention for a free tool. The developer also invites you to try it for a month and offers a refund by email if it does not fit your needs, which lowers the risk of paying up front.

The trade-off is that you pay before you know whether the workflow suits you. With 500,000-plus installs and a 4.7 average across more than 26,000 ratings, plenty of people have decided it does, but a rating is not a substitute for trying the entry screens yourself.

Where a dedicated tracker leaves gaps

The obvious alternative is a spreadsheet. You already have one, it costs nothing extra, and you can shape it however you like. What you give up is the structure: recurring transactions, rollover budgets, reconciliation, reminders, widgets and receipt photos all have to be built by hand, and a spreadsheet will not project your balances for you.

The other direction is a bank-linked budgeting service, which pulls transactions in automatically and saves you the typing. My Budget Book works the opposite way. You enter and import your own records. Which of those you prefer is really a question about how much you mind manual entry.

A general note-taking or expense-logging app is a third option, and it will feel lighter for a while. It tends to stop being enough once you want budgets that carry over, several accounts with transfers between them, or an export you can hand to an accountant. The point at which you outgrow a simple list is roughly where this app starts.

A tracker for people who want to own their numbers

My Budget Book is a mature, detailed expense tracker with a clear position: your financial records stay on your phone, and you pay once for the privilege. The budget mode, with custom periods and rollover, is the strongest argument for choosing it over a spreadsheet, and the import and export options mean you are never locked in.

It suits someone who is willing to enter or import transactions and wants the app to do the arithmetic, forecast balances and enforce limits afterward. That person will find the categories, accounts, reconciliation and reminders genuinely useful rather than fussy. Someone who wants spending captured automatically from their bank will find the manual side of it a chore.

At $5.99 with no ads, the cost is easy to justify if you keep it up for a few months, and the developer's refund offer covers the case where you do not. The app has been around since 2012 and was still being updated in September 2026, which is a reasonable sign of care. For an offline, ad-free budget tracker, this is one of the more complete options I have come across.

What's new in version 9.14

Storage Access Framework-compatible cloud storage providers such as Google Drive can now be used to store backups, photos, and other files. No internet permission is required. New CSV formats. You can find all changes in the “Last changes” dialog. If you have any questions, feel free to email us at [email protected] or use the integrated support feature.