1. To link an account, start by tapping the Connect Account button at the bottom of the screen.
2. Next, choose "Add Account". A Plaid screen will pop up allowing you to find your financial institution. It will lead you through a series of steps to log in.
3. Finally, choose which accounts you would like to include in Jars. Normally it should return you to Jars. But in case it doesn't, just bring the Jars app back up to the foreground and it will complete the process.
How It Works
First Download the app
on the App Store or Google Play
The first 30-days is entirely free, no payment information is required for the free trial. Once the trial period is complete you’ll have the option to subscribe for $9.99 per month or $79.99/year total and that includes an account for everyone in your household. No extra fees for your family members.
Create an Account
You’ll need to provide your first and last name, email address, and optionally a photo. This will be the primary user account after the trial period.
Add Family Members
You can then add all applicable family members to your account at no additional cost. This allows you to budget, together.
Link your checking, savings, and credit card accounts to your Jars account with Plaid
We utilize Plaid ensuring security, end-to-end data encryption, strong authentication, and cloud infrastructure to protect your data.
Uncomfortable connecting to your online accounts?
You can use the Jars app without connecting any accounts, please keep in mind that you will then need to enter all your financial data manually. This is also good for banks that do not offer online connections through Plaid.
Grocery Jar
Lisa and the kids made meal planning a family activity, finding creative ways to reduce waste and buy only what they needed. Every dollar saved was another dollar closer to their trip.
Dining Jar
Joseph tracked how much they spent on eating out, making sure they stayed within their budget each month. By choosing home-cooked meals more often, they freed up an extra $150 per month—funds that went directly into their Vacation Jar.
Entertainment Jar
Instead of spontaneous outings, they checked their Jar balance before making weekend plans. If there wasn’t enough left for a movie night, they opted for a fun (and free) game night at home.
Assign Your Jars
Jars is based on the concept of envelope budgeting. Instead of picking an arbitrary time and guessing how much money you’re going to spend in that amount of time, Jars is a living budget. As you earn income, you place it in a specific “sub-account”. As you accumulate money in that Jar, you know how much you have to spend.
Everyday Jars
Known Obligation Jar: Mortgage or rent, car payment, or student loans. It’s a fixed
amount that you know how much you’re going to pay each month. These Jars tend to get funded an exact amount on every paycheck. They grow a balance and then return to 0 very routinely.
Unknown Obligation Jar: Some expenses aren’t known but can be estimated. Things like the energy bill, groceries, dining, and transportation. Jars will help you establish what your typical spend is for these items. You could put away the average spend plus perhaps a little cushion to help prevent going negative. If you do better than expected and a balance starts to accumulate, you can consider transferring money out of one of these Jars into one that needs a little help.
Goal Jars
These are for big purchases. Using a Jar to help plan for that European Vacation or New Car is a great way to pinpoint how much should be spent on each paycheck. Then, it’s just a matter of time. And if you ever find yourself in a pinch, you can consider skipping a payment to the goal jar to help catch up in the other Jars. Just make sure you’re ok with the impact of this. You could push back your deadline or make some catchup payments later on.
Big Annual Expenses
These are expenses that come up once or twice a year, but you want to make gradual progress towards it all year long so you have the cash in hand when it comes time to make the purchase. Things like a Christmas Fund, Car or Home Insurance, or large subscriptions that are paid annually (like paying for Jars itself!). Anything that you want to break up into smaller, more manageable payments, you can put in a Jar like this. That $80/year Jars fee isn’t so bad if you just put away $3.33 every paycheck!
Start using Jars
Once you can see where every dollar is going, you’ll know exactly how much you have for groceries, dining out, or even that dream vacation you’ve been planning. It’s that easy.
