Rebecca Sowden

I’ve seen many and tried a handful of mindful money apps and budgeting apps in my pursuit of overcoming my chronic overspending and budget confusion. Eventually I gave up and made my own system using multiple bank accounts and Banks– this has served me well for over a year now! However, the existence of this banking/money tool app hybrid was recently brought to my attention thanks to a comment on one of my TikTok videos, and I am cautiously optimistic about its potential to actually organize money in a way my brain will accept. Here’s where I let you know this is not an ad, paid promotion, sponsorship, or partnership. (Though if they send me a referral link I will be sharing it). I’m presently waiting to be approved for an account.

Qube is a bank you pay to have an account with, because their method of dividing up your money and promoting mindful spending will arguably help you spend less and follow your budget. Which, in the long run, could save you hundreds depending on how bad you are at following a budget (all the love). As someone who has severely struggled to follow their own spending well enough to stick to a budget, Qube definitely piqued my interest.

“The easiest way to stick to a budget is to spend from it” (Qube Homepage)

It looks like you apply to get One account and with this account you get One debit card. You break this One account, into multiple “qubes” and this is how you create your digital cash-envelopes. Once you’ve labelled and allocated funds to your qube you are ready to go!

Something I found really innovative about the Qube card is the way you make purchases with it. Your card will automatically have a balance of $0 until you choose a qube to pull money from before making your purchase. As it nears your time to buy, open the Qube app and choose which qube you would like the money to pull from. Once your transaction is finished, your Qube card will go back to having a $0 balance. If the purchase is more than is in that qube, the transaction will be denied due to there being purposefully no overdrafts. This step of choosing a qube to pull from forces whoever is using the card to at least be baseline mindful about the purchase and their budget. Additionally, it is another layer of protection against theft.

As I mentioned before, this app is not free, so here are their current options and my thoughts on them as a Recovering Super Spender:

Lite (Starter) $0/mo – You are allowed a Maximum of 3 qubes for your account with this package. The 3 qubes I would have: Weekly Allowance, Allowance Refill, and Discretionary Fund. If you’re curious about Qube and you already budget the way I do, this is the only level we actually need.

Premium $12/mo or $108/year – Unlimited Qubes, Manage Subscriptions (actually love that), ATM reimbursement up to $10/mo, “Joint” account option (still just One Account though), Partner alerts for when either of you uses the card. If you regularly use ATM’s this might be the package for you solely based on the fee reimbursement. I also think this is fabulous for Couples who want full transparency regarding all of their purchases. If you are a serial subscriber I would recommend this package solely to be able to easily deny further charges for certain vendors; sometimes you sign up for things and they’re harder to get out of than you’d think.

Family $19/mo or $180/yr – Unlimited Qubes, Manage Subscriptions, ATM reimbursement up to $10/mo, Joint Account option, Partner Notifications, Up to 5 Authorized Users (in addition to 2 Joint owners), Kid & Teen card designs, and Parent View. Note, the authorized users will only be able to see their own account and qubes– ideal for kids, grandparents, babysitters… anyone you regularly supply funds to. This option seems very clearly for families or individuals who have a lot of dependents and would like more control and visibility on where money is going/what the balances are at. It is unclear if the Joint owners can see the authorized users transactions, but if yes I think that could be an overstep and a violation of trust in many cases. If I were a parent and I could see all of the transactions my child was making, I think I would keep that to myself. (Reminder: I do not have kids, and do not know if I will.)

If you take their “What’s your money personality?” Quiz they will offer you 2 months free of the Premium package. I did this, but ended up being unable to redeem the free two months? I don’t know when it was supposed to be applied, but I tried several times to “redeem” the offer and it simply was not happening. So, I did just pay for Premium $12/mo to give it a try. Getting approved for an account can take 1-2 business days, slower than most other banks I’ve tried.

I will let you know how it goes in detail on this website, and will give quicker more frequent updates on TikTok.

Let me know if you have tried Qube or if you are giving it a chance like me! Reminder, this is not an ad, paid promotion, or partnership. (Though if they send me a referral link I will be sharing it)