“I didn’t know what budgeting was. I never learned about money growing up. I didn’t even know how to read a bank statement.”

That’s where his story began.

Fast-forward to today. Now Chris not only knows how to budget his money (and, yes, read a bank statement), but he’s also kind of a budgeting ninja.

“I saved $30,000,” Chris said. The most impressive part? It only took him one year! And now he’s setting out to break his own record.

Imagine being a newlywed couple, late 20s, completely debt-free, with money in the bank. Too far-fetched, right?

That’s not the case for Emily and Al, a young couple from Minnesota. Just over a year after getting married, they were able to pay off all their debt and completely take control of their money.

Here’s how it happened.

Within their first month of budgeting with EveryDollar, Scott and Joanna F. found an extra $400 to put toward their emergency fund. What they found in money, they lost in stress.

“When EveryDollar came out, we were really trying to finish up our emergency fund—and it just felt like it was taking so much longer than we wanted.” Joanna says. “I think the visual nature of EveryDollar is what really helped us, because we could see the numbers better.”

Little did they know, they were about to unlock a world of freedom with a better budget!

Keeping up with your budget can be a challenge when you’re a busy family. Just ask Jimmy C. and his wife, who live in South Carolina. With two boys and a hectic schedule, they struggled to keep up with their money. In fact, they’d gotten off track with their spending, too.

Then Jimmy found EveryDollar.

“I looked at a couple of other budget tracking apps, but I didn’t find anything like what I wanted. When it [EveryDollar] finally came out, I got it pretty quick,” Jimmy said.

And it was exactly what the couple needed to get back on track. With the app on their phones, they could keep up with their money in real time.

Like many couples, Michael T. and his wife Lisa were on different pages about money. For one thing, they struggled with how to best keep track of their income.

“I had a complicated Excel spreadsheet that I would try to show her and get her to use and follow. And this was before we were married, when we had separate bank accounts. My spreadsheet was formatted in such a way that only made sense to me. For somebody who’s not a budgeting nerd, it was hard for her to follow.”