LIFE AT HOME

Credit Where It’s (Honey) Due

Travis and Brianna were $20,000 in debt. Then they downloaded Honeydue.

Honeydue: Couples Finance

Manage your money together

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Generally speaking, couples have their biggest fights over three things:

1. Money
2. Finances
3. How much they’re spending on stuff

The dreaded Budget Discussion is usually one of the least fun parts of a relationship. Inconveniently, it’s also one of the most important.

Countless apps can help you mind your money and serve as a good-hearted nag about saving and spending (OK, mostly spending). But few of them offer a tool for doing so with a partner.

That’s where Honeydue comes in: It allows couples to see the state of their finances—separate or combined—24/7, in real time. Just create a profile and link your bank, credit card, and other accounts—and have your partner do the same.

Honeydue is especially helpful in reminding users about recurring charges.

Then you’ll both be able to see what you’re spending on coffee, both see how much you’re socking away into the Hawaii fund, both determine if you really need that expensive gym membership.

Depending on a couple’s approach to shared finance, the benefits of using Honeydue can fall anywhere from “helped facilitate communication” to “pretty much saved the marriage.”

“Couples who think they’re arguing about money aren’t really arguing about money,” says Eugene Park, who founded Honeydue with Thien Tran in 2017. “They’re arguing about trust, transparency, or autonomy.”

Travis Tester and Brianna Lackey were one of those couples. Members since April 2017, the twentysomething Oklahoma City natives credit Honeydue with helping them reduce their debt from $20,000 to zero in less than two years.

Travis Tester and Brianna Lackey used Honeydue to eliminate $20,000 of debt in two years.

Those impressively fast results took a lot of work. When the couple met six years ago, they quickly found they had differing approaches to budgeting.

“Brianna wasn’t spending money she didn’t have,” Tester says. “But I didn’t have a lot of financial common sense. When we started, I had already racked up $8,000 in credit card debt. I was a musician, so my income was really low. I didn’t have the most reliable car, so I soon had to take out an auto loan. We wanted to get engaged, so I needed a ring.”

Drastic action was needed, not only for the finances but also for their relationship. “We decided that it wasn’t a top priority,” Tester says. “It was the priority.”

Their strategy was combining their finances in Honeydue, everything from rent and utilities to the subscriptions and late fees that had been quietly gnawing away at their progress. “It’s hard to set a budget when you don’t know what you’re spending on random things,” Lackey says. “Honeydue helped us see how much we were doing that.”

It’s hard to set a budget when you don’t know what you’re spending on random things. Honeydue helped us see how much we were doing that.

—Brianna Lackey

Once they got into the app, Tester says, things started “flying.” Soon they were in the habit of monitoring their finances regularly, drawn by watching the needle move in the right direction. “It’s so satisfying to click on your balances and see your debt going down and savings going up,” Lackey says.

Tester found the app’s warning system particularly useful in reminding them of upcoming recurring charges. “If you forget, you overdraft and get hit with an extra $30. That was happening two or three times a month.”

It’s gone so well that Tester says—with no small amount of pride—the truck he purchased with that auto loan was paid off 18 months in advance. The credit card debt is nearly extinct as well.

“There’s just a little bit left on the ring,” he says.