TLDR Money vs PocketGuard

What PocketGuard does better

PocketGuard reduces everything to one number: what is actually spendable after bills, goals and essentials. That is a genuinely good idea, and for someone who finds full budgeting overwhelming it is often the only thing they will keep using.

Where it is weaker

The free tier is capped at a small number of accounts and categories, so most people meet the paywall quickly. Plus is $74.99 a year, or a $149.99 lifetime purchase. No net worth tracking and no projection.

What TLDR Money does that PocketGuard does not

A financial independence projection. PocketGuard tells you where your money went. TLDR Money connects that to the year your investments could cover your spending permanently — the same arithmetic as our free FIRE calculator, running on your real numbers rather than estimates.

Net worth in the same app. Assets and liabilities you maintain, feeding straight into that projection.

No bank connection, ever. No Plaid, no open banking, no credentials to leak, no aggregator holding a live link to your accounts. That is a genuine trade — you type your transactions instead — and our security page sets out both sides of it.

Choose PocketGuard if

You want one simple number telling you what is safe to spend today, and nothing more complicated.

Choose TLDR Money if

You want your spending, your net worth and your financial independence date in one place; you would rather not hand any app your banking credentials; and you can wait for it to launch.