A New Way to Budget

Budgeting is one of the most important concepts of financial literacy. Budgets force people to spend within their means and show where money can be saved. Creating and sticking to a budget can save anyone hundreds of dollars. Creating a budget is fairly easy. There are countless ways to set one up, whether it be through an app, a spreadsheet, or a simple scratch piece of paper. However, sticking to a budget is a different story. Keeping track of how much you spend and what that money is going towards requires a bit of work and discipline. What if there was an app out there that forced you to stick to this budget? Enter Qube Money.

Qube Money is a banking app that uses the cash envelope system, making it easy to pick and choose what ‘envelope’ or ‘qube’ you would like to withdraw from. In other words, instead of just having a checking or savings account, you can split your account into various ‘qubes’ that fit your budget plan. The basic Qube account (which is free) gives users up to 10 qubes, while any of their paid plans (ranging from $8-$25 per month) offer unlimited qubes and a variety of other benefits for couples or families (joint accounts, multiple cards, etc.). What makes Qube different, is that it forces the user to approve every transaction and then assign an envelope to take the money from. For example, if you wanted to buy a new pair of shoes with your Qube debit card, you would have to approve the transaction and select what virtual envelope (perhaps ‘shopping’ or ‘clothes’) you would like to pull from before it would go through. This process makes the user see where they spend every dollar in their account and eliminates potential overdrafts.

Qube is one of several great budgeting tools out there. Budgeting apps like Mint are among the many fantastic free tools available for students. What makes Qube stand out to me, is that it is both a free budgeting service and a bank. This is a free product I genuinely believe in and was brought to me by a former FWC peer mentor, Scott Henderson. As mentioned above, there are countless great finance/budgeting/banking tools out there that are 100% free to anyone. I would highly recommend checking out the resources tab on our website,https://financialwellness.utah.edu/resources/index.php , or our Instragram account @uofu_financialwellness for more tools or tips!

 

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