So I’m considering just using excel to keep track of all my expenses and income, but is there a better solution? What do you use to track how you spend money? I want something from which I can freely export the data if need be so excel is tempting.
You must log in or register to comment.
I use YNAB
So do I, but it’s expensive for what it is. There’s a free version called Actual Budget which can be run off of a computer you control. Great for selfhosting.
Just a spreadsheet, nothing fancy. Right now using Google Docs but it could easily be some other spreadsheet app (LibreOffice, Microsoft Office, etc.).
These sort of things just need to be something you understand and follow for your own use. Way back I started out trying to track finances with Quicken but in the end I found it way too complicated for what I needed and hated the idea of my data being locked in their specific format. And I didn’t even need any of the fancy stuff like syncing with bank accounts/credit cards.
Mine is pretty simple, the main columns represent each month of the year, top group of rows represent different income sources, followed by a group of rows representing non-discretionary expenses, followed by a group of rows representing discretionary expenses. Then totals at the bottom. Works for me.
I’ll second YNAB, been using it for like 6 years and it’s the only thing that’s kept us on track while undercompensated
I have a spreadsheet.
Each month I check the balances of all my accounts (eg: savings, checking, vanguard). If anything looks unusual, I go investigate and make a note of what happened. (Eg: bought expensive boots here, moved money from this account to that account). If I was doing that a lot, I’d probably change something about my routine.
I used to export all the transactions from the bank websites and import them, but I found I wasn’t really using that data.
It helps that I’m naturally very frugal, and don’t have a lot of expenses.
Actual Budget hosted on PikaPods
GnuCash.
Fantastic software. I have every single transaction from the last ~8 years recorded in GnuCash. Highly recommend!
Upvotes and a reply because gnucash does it all.
The one GnuCash weakness is cost basis accounting. I use LibreOffice Calc for that.
Technically it can do some of that but it often not general enough.
I use Bluecoin (Android App) - every time I spend on something I immediately log the transaction in there.
Google sheet. It’s not the most “libre” solution but I can easily add items from my phone, share with my SO, and it is exportable to CSV which I view as the actual archival format.
Been doing this since January (tracking every $ we spend) and towards the end of the year I plan to import into a local DB server so I can run some reports and see where we could improve.
My banking app does it for me. I can click a transaction and see how much this year, and all time, how much I’ve spent on that place. It also tells me how much i need to keep aside for all my bills. it also breaks down how much I’ve saved up for those bills out of my regular pay. It’s pretty good. I’d be lost without it.
Google docs. I made a custom dashboard that I manually enter each transaction with a category for each entry, and it tracks current balance, category budgets, etc. I also have a separate tab for credit card debt, payment dates, previous month spending displayed on graphs, etc. I have tried automated solutions like YNAB, but it always ends up getting desynced from my bank account and becomes inaccurate eventually, leading to require manual updates anyway. This manual system is something I stay on top of every day, and has helped me inform my daily financial decisions pretty well.
Same, but Excel for me.
I haven’t tried automated solutions, only manually putting stuff into a spreadsheet and it works great for me. Lots of automated calculations and such in there though so I can get stats at a glance.
It takes me an hour or so each week, plus an extra hour each month, plus an additional hour each year (since I update certain things monthly and yearly), but it really helps me stay on top of my budget/financial goals etc.
I use an iOS app called Pennyworth and export from that to spreadsheets on my computer (sadly it looks like there’s a half dozen apps with the same name now). It’s relatively convenient to log everything manually in, and it has a few handy data breakdowns, but it all goes into an offline spreadsheet with all the silly calculations my heart desires. It’s not a subscription. It has budgeting features but I don’t use those. I don’t think the UI is particularly intuitive for people who dislike calendar views, but once it clicks it’s pretty logically laid out.
I want to refine the spreadsheet side, and I wanted to post to one of these comms with a similar question recently to see what others are doing, but that’s how I do it. At one point I wanted to move the spreadsheet side to a Google Doc or something similar that I can access from my phone, but I’m less inclined to upload personal information to Google these days. I think I have an encrypted zipped backup of an older version of that spreadsheet backed up there but that’s about it.
My bank doesn’t let me export anything and besides I live in the third world where (for better or for worse) we use cash for almost everything. So it’s no surprise my method is built around something that makes the manual record-keeping process faster and easier.
I track my expenses based on vibes, start cutting low-hanging fruit when my bank balance starts going down.
I was looking at scrooge for a while - but I never got around to actually fixing and putting my expenses properly in 🙈
but it’s most likely what I will be using once I get to fixing finances like that
I use libreoffice calc. I don’t manually enter stuff though, I just export csv from my bank web interface. (I don’t use cash much, so am not worried about tracking those few transactions)
I’d probably be too lazy to use anything that required me to update it for every transaction.
That’s what we do too. Calc works great.
