Questions People Ask
How the free result, personalized plan, manual trial, and paid subscription fit together.
What is my Recovery Number?
Your Recovery Number is the annualized total of transaction-based candidates you review and confirm. Before that review, Liberty shows a scan checklist and labels the amount pending—never $0 and never a guess. Modeled debt interest stays separate.
How does Liberty recommend a plan?
Your goals, debt, income rhythm, budgeting friction, and protected priorities determine the recommended method. Liberty explains why it fits and keeps the alternatives visible. The recommendation is educational budgeting guidance, not financial advice.
Does Liberty use Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps?
Ramsey Solutions' official sequence is: build a $1,000 starter emergency fund; pay non-mortgage debt with the debt snowball; save three to six months of expenses; invest 15% of household income for retirement; save for children's college; pay off the home early; then build wealth and give.
Liberty uses the same broad idea that order matters, but personalizes the path. It first checks for overdue essentials or negative cash flow, sizes the safety target around income stability, and compares snowball, highest-interest, and hybrid debt paths instead of requiring one method.
Liberty Budget is independent and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Dave Ramsey, Ramsey Solutions, or EveryDollar. See the official seven-step summary.
What is included in the free trial?
The free trial requires no payment card and does not convert automatically. It includes your saved personalized plan plus manual transaction entry, CSV imports, budgets, and reports. Automatic bank and credit-card connections are not part of the trial.
What happens when my 30-day trial ends?
The app simply locks until you choose a paid plan. Nothing is charged automatically — we never took a card. Your data stays safe for 90 days, and you can export your transactions as CSV or JSON at any time. Upgrading restores everything exactly as you left it.
How much does it cost after the trial?
The paid plan is $8.99/mo or $74.99/yr (about $6.25/mo billed annually). No card is needed to start the trial — Stripe charges only when you explicitly choose a plan, and initial purchases include a 7-day refund window.
Can Plaid connect credit cards as well as bank accounts?
When production connections are enabled, Plaid can connect many supported checking, savings, and credit-card accounts through the same Link flow. An active paid subscription is required, and coverage varies.
The Connections page shows whether automatic account connections are currently available. Manual entry and CSV are available either way.
What does Liberty Budget collect?
We collect your account details, plan answers, budget categories, savings goal names, and transaction data you enter or import. If automatic connections are available and you choose one, Plaid provides the selected account data needed for it. We do not sell personal data or provide transaction data to advertisers.
Can Liberty Budget ever see my transactions?
Liberty's server must decrypt transaction data for authorized views and processing, so this is not end-to-end encryption. Supported main-ledger fields use wrapped per-account keys; Liberty Gold tokens and provider-synchronization records use separate service-managed encryption. We never store your password in readable form. See the Security page for details.
What happens if I forget my password?
You can reset your password and keep your transaction history. Liberty Budget uses wrapped encryption keys so your data key can be securely re-wrapped to your new password during reset.
Do I have to connect an account?
No. Manual entry and supported CSV imports remain available. The free trial has no bank connection. When automatic connections are enabled, they remain optional and require a paid subscription.
How do I get my transactions in?
Enter them manually or export a supported CSV from your institution and upload it from the Transactions page. When automatic connections are enabled, paid subscribers may instead connect supported bank and credit-card accounts through Plaid for automatic refreshes.
How is transaction data protected?
Production traffic uses HTTPS/TLS. Supported sensitive fields in the main ledger use per-account encryption; Liberty Gold tokens and provider-synchronization records use a separate service-managed key. We do not sell personal data or use transactions for spending-based ads. See the Security page for the exact model.
Can I cancel Liberty Gold anytime?
Yes. Cancel online from your Profile without contacting support and without a cancellation fee. Paid access normally continues through the end of the current billing period.