Comments on: Day 3) The Only Way to Discover What Will Work For You

By: Slinky

Slinky — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 23:18:10 +0000

I’ve also used YNAB, but I find it’s budgeting somewhat lacking. It works fine as long as you’re only budgeting for the next month. Otherwise, it’s rather slow and awkward if you want to scroll back and forth between months. It also lacks the ability to simply tab across the months of your budget like a spreadsheet. I do use it for tracking my transactions though. At the time I bought it, I think it was only $10, so it was an easy solution to manual tracking. For me, it’s also only a stopgap measure until I finish writing my own program to handle my finances. It will, of course, be much less high handed about how you want to budget.

By: Reviewing You Need a Budget

Reviewing You Need a Budget — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 12:00:58 +0000

[...] a Budget for a while now. It’s been recommended to me by readers, fellow bloggers, and even friends. So this month, I’m using it in tandem with my 2009 Budget Spreadsheet. I’m sure [...]

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:19:38 +0000

Mint is okay, but I prefer yodlee for account aggregation. Mint seems to have more flash and supports fewer sites.

I haven’t really been keeping a budget, but I have an idea of where everything goes. This month I’m trying it with a spreadsheet and I’m sure the results will be shocking/insightful. Yodlee never seemed to be much help in tracking where and how much I spent because its coding is usually way wrong and I never manually adjusted it. In the last year it has 61% listed as uncategorized and that doesn’t make it easy to see where your money is going…

By: MoneyLady

MoneyLady — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 05:00:03 +0000

You should think again about Mint. I know it is a lot to trust, but really it is as safe as doing online banking. The tools are really awesome. You can easily create and track your budget. You can even set up alerts – so they’ll email or text you if you overspend, your checking account is running low, or your credit card payment is due.

I’m a huge fan. Mint is making budget management so much easier for me.

By: ronnie

ronnie — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 22:30:48 +0000

It’s interesting that two comments above are what I tried to address in the exspense tracker product I’ve written called cashwaltz.

First and foremost, I did not want to rely on the bank to provide the transactions that I would then later have to categories. Second, I needed a solution that I and my wife could use without one of us having to sit down and fat finger all the receipts in a batch.

So, to improve our communications about our current budget, I wrote a web based program which we could text in our expenses from our cell phone as we spent money, and it would send back our available cash and remaining budget for what we just spent money on.

I’m always looking to improve the product, and would be happy to hear your suggestions. The program does cost $29.95 per year to use, but the first month is free without requirering a credit card to evaluate it.

I love’d the post, and look forward to the next entry.

Ronnie

By: Aleriel

Aleriel — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:35:39 +0000

I’ve always had trouble with automatic tracking of accounts. Partly because some of the banks I have accounts at export their statements as a plain CSV file instead of a common format like OFX, and parly because of having to tag and re-tag imported data.

I hope to get to the point where I’m a month ahead of my expenses, but until then… I have a paper calendar book (one of those monthly planner things) where I write down every bill on the day I need to pay it (rather than the day it’s due). Then I have a spreadsheet for recording daily expenses and a budget spreadsheet that accounts for all my bills and debt payments.

There’s a lot of manual work involved in maintaining it all, but that just ensures that I don’t go on autopilot and let finances (mis)manage themselves. Needing to update my records is what keeps me on track and feeling like I’m making progress.

By: mrsmicah

mrsmicah — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:36:30 +0000

@Diane, I hope Jon will drop by to answer, but I believe that he uses YNAB to track every expense (which isn’t too hard because one can use it to import bank statements).

By: Diane

Diane — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:32:47 +0000

Are you using these tools to track every expense every month under normal circumstances?

I use an excel spreadsheet I designed to track my regular monthly expenses – mortgage, utilities, credit card payments. It is divided into sections for the 1st & 15th to mark each payment as it is made. I’m never late with a payment, and it gives me a good handle on where my money goes within the major categories.

BUT I have never broken down my credit card statements, or Wal-Mart receipts into categories, which is why I’m trying this challenge. This does not constitute the major part of my budget, but it is the only possibly discretionary spending that I could control.

I’m just wondering if you’re using these tools to categorize ALL spending every month.

By: mrsmicah

mrsmicah — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:23:21 +0000

Miranda, that’s a great idea. Quicken and I always have arguments over what transactions should be recorded as what. If I entered things myself and unsynched it with my bank accounts, then perhaps it would less stressful for me to use.

By: Miranda

Miranda — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 13:57:32 +0000

I actually keep track using Quicken. But instead of using the stuff automatically filled in, I enter by hand. I like that better, since it allows me to put things as they happen, and get a better picture of what’s really available (and what I’m spending) rather than waiting for the transaction to show up at the bank and then be synched with the program. I’ve found that putting it in myself also forces me to focus on where the money is going.