Spud’s Toolkit 🥔
Tools we’d actually use ourselves.
A short, honest list of the money tools we’d recommend to people we care about. We keep it small on purpose — because a short list you use beats a long list you ignore.
A quick, honest heads-up.
Some links below are affiliate links — if you sign up through them we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It never changes what we recommend. We only point you toward things we’d put our own family in.
What you won’t find here: leveraged crypto plays, “guaranteed returns,” BNPL apps, or get-rich-fast courses. If we recommend it, we’d use it ourselves — and if it stops being good, it stops being here.
High-Yield Savings
Where your emergency buffer should live
A high-yield savings account pays you many times more than a normal checking account for the exact same cash — and you can still get to it anytime.
Our pick — coming soon.
Budgeting Apps
If a spreadsheet isn’t your thing
A good app automates the whole three-bucket system and keeps everything in one place.
Monarch Money
Our top pick for most people. Friendly, modern, does budgeting + tracking in one place.
Link coming soon.
Quicken Simplifi
Simpler and a bit cheaper — a great no-fuss starting point.
Link coming soon.
Prefer free? Grab our Budget Sheet — it’s on the house.
Where People Actually Start Investing
Simple, low-cost, beginner-friendly
You don’t need to be rich or clever to start — you need a simple, low-cost account and time. We’ll point you to genuinely beginner-friendly brokerages and robo-advisors here.
Our picks — coming soon.
Books Worth Your Time
Three reads that changed how a lot of people think about money
I Will Teach You to Be Rich — Ramit Sethi
Practical, funny, zero guilt. Closest in spirit to what we do here.
The Psychology of Money — Morgan Housel
Short chapters on why we do weird things with money.
The Simple Path to Wealth — JL Collins
The clearest case for boring, long-term investing.
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