What does Veeky Forums use for personal budgeting? I have this excel spreadsheet I've been building over the last ten years which can answer all sorts of neat questions like "how much am I spending per week on X vs how much I've budgeted", "if I stop spending now how long until I'm on track again", "how much slack do I have *today* to spend on X", etc, and generally gives me specific guidance on how I need to change my spending habits.
I like this, but one thing it can't do is show me what my finances look like at some point in the past. I'd have to change the "today" cell, which is easy, but also delete a bunch of transactions from my expense and income sheets, which is a PITA.
I'm already typing every single transaction into this thing, I don't mind that inconvenience...does anyone have suggestions for something else to use?
Blake Barnes
Mint is pretty good. You don't have to type in every single transaction, just the ones you do in cash. It automatically tracks your spending with credit cards, and you can also link bank accounts and retirement accounts to roughly calculate your net worth at any given time. Once I started getting into the habit of spending approximately the same amount of money week in, week out, I started to drift into inactivity on Mint, but it's pretty useful if you want to understand and control where your money goes.
Brody Myers
Care to email me that spreadsheet?
@ctstate101@aol.com
Thanks.
Hudson Lee
I tried this software You Need a Budget 4 the other week, I didn't see the point. You enter all your regular expenses, and you find what you have left each month. What's the point? Should I then not buy what I want to buy? Money isn't real if it doesn't roll.
Caleb Bell
Excel sheet with my checking info and quicken for everything else.
Blake Reed
could you upload that excel spreadsheet user?
Cameron Flores
I'm old school when it comes to budgeting. I use pen and paper
I put the numbers into GNU Cash for monthly and annual reports which I staple to the front of the pen and paper budget
When I want to see what things were like at some point in the past I just pull whatever month or year out of my filing cabinet
Logan Richardson
Yoooo Can I get a copy?
Jace Ortiz
I don't put much effort into budgeting - one of the perks of having a reasonably high income.
Half my paycheck goes into savings, a quarter of it goes into an expenses account, and the remaining quarter goes into a spending account. I also have a cash buffer account. If I have to dip into the buffer to cover overspending or anything similar I write an IOU note on my wall and I don't allow myself any unnecessary purchases until I've refilled the buffer. Each quarter I see if I've accumulated any surplus in my expenses/spending accounts and, if so, I split the surplus between my savings and buffer, then adjust my savings rate to hopefully avoid a surplus in future.
