Dr Bling Bling
How to track your money without linking your bank account
Plenty of careful people will not connect a bank account to an app, and they are not being paranoid. There are three ways to manage without it.
Why people say no to the link
Most money apps get your transactions through a data company that sits between the app and your bank. In the US that is often Plaid. It is legal and widely used, and many banks now handle it without giving the app your password.
The objection is a simpler one. Your full spending history ends up on somebody's servers, and it stays there for as long as that company decides. When Mint closed in 2024, millions of people found out how much of their history depended on one company's plans.
Way one: type it in
Apps like Monefy, and the free version of EveryDollar, have you enter each purchase yourself. It keeps you aware of every dollar, and for cash it is the only way.
The cost is that you have to keep doing it. Most people stop around the time of the first busy week, and then the numbers are wrong and the app is useless.
Way two: a spreadsheet
Download a CSV from your bank and paste it into a sheet. You keep total control, and it is free. You also become the person who sorts every line, every month, and bank descriptions like SQ *CORNER CAFE 8842 do not sort themselves.
Way three: an app that reads statements
Your bank already lists every payment, once a month, in a file you can download. An app that reads that file gives you the record without the typing and without the connection.
That is what Dr Bling Bling does. You share a PDF, Excel or CSV statement to it, or photograph a paper one. It reads the statement on the iPhone, sorts the payments, and asks about the ones it cannot place. Nothing is uploaded, and there is no account.
What you give up
Be clear about this before you choose. Without a connection nothing arrives by itself. You see last month when you add last month's statement, and you get no live balance. If you need to know what you spent today, your bank's own app is the place for that.
For the question most people actually have, where did it all go, a monthly statement answers it completely.
See what your own statement says
Free to download, and every way of adding a statement is free. No bank login, no account, no subscription.
Questions people ask
Is linking my bank to an app safe?
Regulated connections are generally well protected. The real decision is whether you want your full history held by another company. That is a preference, not a mistake either way.
What is the best budget app that doesn't connect to your bank?
If you want to plan and do not mind typing, a manual budget app. If you want to skip the typing, an app that reads statements. Dr Bling Bling is the second kind and it does not do budgets.
Keep reading
Written by the people who make Dr Bling Bling. Checked on 1 November 2026. Sources: Mint's closure, NerdWallet.