You Tell Me: How Do You Track Your Money?
Posted by Lynnae on December 7, 2007
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Over the last few years, it seems like there has been an explosion of personal finance products. Whereas Quicken and Microsoft Money used to be the two big competitors for personal finance software, there’s a whole new slew of personal finance software to wade through now.
I always love to play around with new software, looking for the product that does things just a little bit better than the rest. In the past I’ve used both Money and Quicken.
Currently I’m using Mvelopes, which I like a lot, but it’s expensive. It’s also difficult to use when your income isn’t steady, and our income is definitely not steady at the moment. The one thing I do like about Mvelopes, is it shows you exactly how much you have in each budget category at any given time. And I’ve never used this feature, but apparently you can transfer the data to your cell phone, so when you’re out shopping and see a great sale, you can check your budget to see how much money you have available to spend.
Another service I recently signed up for is Mint. I haven’t used it long enough to give you a full rundown of how it works, the pros, and the cons, but it looks promising. It has a beautiful interface, and I like that it shows you different ways that you can save money.
Wesabe is another newer service. While not as beautiful as Mint, the features look promising. One thing I really like about Wesabe is the ability to use custom tags for spending categories. The user groups are also very helpful. After I further evaluate both services, I’ll give you a comparison. That won’t likely be until January though.
So, now you know I love trying new things, and you know I love to use the computer to keep track of my finances. What do you use? Paper and pen? Spreadsheet? One of the services I mentioned? Or something totally different? This is the time to share!
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After trying several versions of Quicken and finding several bugs that told us that we had more or less money than we really did, several times, we moved to Money Matters which had similar issues and did NOT work for us, we FINALLY went to paper and pencil. My husband took over the bills and writes how much down while I writer the checks out. We don’t do a standard budget even though we tried for years–it just doesn’t work for us. We keep a good cushion in the bank to cover extra expenses, pay the bills first, then prayerfully consider all extra purchases. We both know how much money is in the bank and check with each other before we spend more than $20–other than groceries, which we have roughly figured.
https://www.geezeo.com/ is a great site for money management, it is free and easy to use, sort of basic, but really gets the job done! I am a microsoft money user from way back, but i like this new site, it is so simple and great for the beginners out there!
Spreadsheet. I use Mint for a quick glance and to track category level expenditures, but for the down and dirty nitty gritty and budget, I use an Excel spreadsheet.
Still looking for the right solution for me.
@Heather - That’s pretty much our approach right now, as far as budgeting. Someday I’d love to get back on a regular budget, but for now that works for us. I’m definitely more of a technology person, as far as tracking things, though. I make too many mistakes on paper.
@Mommy Gets Paid - Thanks for the link! I’ll definitely be checking that out!
@glblguy - I’m looking for the right solution too. I’m hoping my readers have some insight.
We use Google Spreadseets for our joint account. I have both Money and Quicken . While I will check on them occasionally, Google Docs is easier to use. We have pretty consistent expenses. For my individual accounts, I use Quicken a bit more, as I have some variable expenses and I need some reminders (cap & gown, car tax, etc).
We’ve just been using a spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel although I’m looking to get brave and try something a little fancier.
I just signed up for Mint too.
I have designed an Excel sheet for our use. It covers assets, liabilities, income, and expenses and calculates net worth. We have one sheet per month so we have the illusion of starting fresh every month, even though the balances carry over.
We have broken our expenses into categories and differentiate between mandatory and optional expenses. If you are interested, let me know and I will sanitize it (remove our specific financial information) and send you a copy.
We use something that came with our computer, Microsoft Works. Basically it’s just a budget template in excel. I typed in categories that I wanted and I go from there.
It’s not the most powerful, but it does keep me focused and keeps everything in one place. I need to do some linking from one month to another.
I found YNAB (you need a budget) about two months ago and am just thrilled with it. I’ve used Quicken for years but it never did what I wanted it to do. Which program works best really depends on what you want in a program. For me, I don’t need anything that tracks my balances — my husband balances everything to the penny with pen and paper. And I didn’t need Quicken’s “historical” budget info. I love YNAB because it’s a “live” budget — at any given time you can see exactly where you stand in all of your budget categories. It’s very customizable. I actually have both of my sisters using it now too. The program is so flexible that it works for one sister who’s in debt and barely scraping by, for me who’s living a cautiously comfortably with no consumer debt, and another sister who’s living very large.
I use Quicken as my database. I’ve used it for about 12 years so obviously I am very comfortable with it. I like the fact that I have so much information there, and after the initial time to set it up it only takes a few minutes a day to keep everything current.
I use Excel to make my budget and spending/progress reports. I didn’t find the budgeting tools in Quicken to be very useful and I like to customize things in Excel.
I use Microsoft Money for major things because it is easy to get graphic representations. I thought about Mint but only put one account in there….and then I did not feel comfortable putting that information in there again.
I might give it another try later on.
I’ve been trying to evaluate Quicken and Mint. But my bank isn’t cooperating (it’s a smaller bank, and not very compatible) so I’m using a spreadsheet and waiting until my accounts get changed up.
Right now I use MS Money but it’s not great for budgeting. Although I do like the way it tracks spending. My husband is creating a fancy-schmancy Excel spreadsheet for me with drop down menus and automatic feeds to a summary page. I have an excel spreadsheet that I use now and have been for the past, oh, 15 years. I think it’s time to get updated! I’m not sure I’d be very comfortable with a service like Mint where I put all my personal finance info in one online place.
Net Worth: To see day-to-day and month-to-month changes, we use Fidelity’s Full View.
Budget: We do not worry about the details. When Full View says this month’s credit card balance is getting close to $1000, we stop spending. Period. No need to do any math.
Long Term Net Worth: The data from Full View goes onto a plain-old spreadsheet once a year. I have a seven year record of my net worth. Very simple, one-page spreadsheet to see all that we have accomplished!
Online banking through our bank. I don’t have to enter receipts because it balances everything for me, even a projected balance for bills to be paid. And there are budget categories you just assign to whatever you buy and voila, it all gets added up for me automatically. I love it, and it requires about 5 minutes a week to keep track of everything.
I use Buxfer (http://www.buxfer.com) for managing my money matters. It automatically pulls data from my bank and CC, and provides a lot of analytics on how I spend my money.
I use google spreadsheets, too. Additionally Bank of America has something called My Portfolio, which uses Yodlee to pull account information. My Portfolio is more powerful than Mint because it pulls investment account info, too. So I don’t really pay for a product to track my money because I am cheap.
I’m seeing a lot of you use spreadsheets. Perhaps I need to get over my fear of Excel. Additionally I will look into YNAB and Buxfer. I’ve just recently heard of YNAB, and this is the first time I’ve heard of Buxfer.
I use Quickbooks for both our personal and business. I also use a budget sheet I got from Dave Ramsey’s website. I could probably do it on Quickbooks also but it only takes me about 15 minutes once per month to do it this way. I just run my P & L statement and then plug in the numbers on my budget.
Thanks for all the good info. on what’s out there.
I use PearBudget, which I know ou’ve tried Lynnae but I guess it didn’t work for you
I actually am going to try out YNAB in the near future and compare it to PearBudget and see if I want to change what I do.
I use Quickbooks Simple Start (bought a new, unopened copy of 2006 on Ebay at the beginning of 2007 for only $30.) for my businesses. But, for our own budget, I just use a budget spreadsheet template that I was able to download for MS Excel right through Excel. I was just able to search for it somewhere on the right side of the screen. I really like it. I get a good visual of our money — what we have budgeted and what we have spent (and what’s left in each category), and it was free!
@ E.D. - I’d be interested in getting a sanitized version of that spreadsheet. I currently use Excel, but it’s in a very basic form. You can send it to brewabel at g mail dot com
I searched for an online solution and settled with clearcheckbook.com and love it. I like the fact that I can send a text or instant message from my cell plus the ease and simplicity.
I had no idea there were so many different solutions!
I use Quickbooks simple start for business, and I like it OK. I think for my personal accounts I’d probably prefer an online solution. I often switch back and forth between computers, and I like access to my program, from both computers.
I use Money, two separate files one for my accounts and one of the joint accounts my husband and I share. I recently started using Mint as a backup so that if we need a quick glance of where our finances are, we can check it at work. I like Mint but the category assignment is a bit off. And my biggest gripe with both of the programs is that hand written checks come in as “Check 1001″ so you have to look up what the check. Of course, I could actually manually enter the checks before I do an electronic update but half of the reason I use Money is so that I can just download the information from my institutions directly.
I use a simple version of excel. Basically I use to track all my payments and run a simple planner (income less bills type of thing for the next two months). I’ve add a chart to track how much my shopping is each week as well. I like it because I can make it as complicated or as simple as I want. Note I’m not a geek so it’s really really simple.
From a budgeting point of view I’m trying to implement an idea my Dad has done for years. Simply he keeps two accounts, one for regular occurring bills, he sets the same amount in each month and simply notes when a bill has been paid. Secondly I set my discretionary budget (shopping gas spending etc) in a separate account. At a glance I can tell how much money I have left for the month. It’s a super simple system that ensures you always have something left over each month. The main problem that my wife and I have had over the years have been cash flow crisis. All of sudden your skipping payments taking cash advances, payday loans and your most carefully laid plans are mincemeat.
This is where I’ve been focusing most of my effort reducing and then eliminateing cash flow crises.
Typically I use Excel and for logging daily spend my spendingdiary site.
I use MYOB (Mind Your Own Business - yes that’s the name of the software). I used it in my job and liked it so much I started using it for personal use.
I like it because I can break down my money into the different categories of my budget. So all I have to do is open my file and I can see exactly how much I have in entertainment, grocery, housing ext. I can also include all of my various checking accounts in there and savings accounts as well and keep track of each individual balance and my cash on hand total as well.
I can also do a monthly profit/loss statement and see where all my money is going. It’s really easy to use. I LOVE IT!!!
I’m sold on MVelopes too. If you pay for 2 years in advance it’s much cheaper.
For figuring a budget, I use pen and paper.
For everyday tracking of the checkbook and other accounts, I am using Quicken, but the Mac version is not ideal and so I am considering iBank (it is good for personal accounts and for small businesses).
Here is what I do to manage cash flow: I keep some extra money in checkbook for irregular expenses - I enter it as a transaction called “irregular fund” in Quicken and set the date to the date before my next paycheck. If I need money for something that comes up, I deduct it from the “irregular” entry and then enter a separate transaction for the expense. At any given time, the “irregular fund” is between $50 and $150, and so far this has been enough to cover most things that crop up, and I have not yet had to touch my emergency savings account.
When I receive the next paycheck, I designate part of it for irregular expenses and add that to the amount in the “irregular” entry, then redate the “irregular” entry so that it moves to the date before the following paycheck. Takes a minute but it keeps me covered. You could essentially do the same thing by setting up “irregular” as a separate account, but then it would not be as easy to balance the checkbook each month.
I also put a budgeted amount for gas & groceries & misc. items each week. As I enter each transaction, Quicken shows me the amount remaining, and so I know how much I have left for the week.
I also use an Excel spreadsheet — but mainly for long-term planning.
Wow, I love this blog post. I found the site the other night and I’m just loving it. Did I say I totally love it?
I’ve RSS-ed this into my iGoogle.