There are apps that can automatically track in- and outgoing payments for your account, as well as classify them to give you an overview. I use Finanzguru, though I suspect that’s only available in Germany.
If you’re struggling with money, here’s my approach: If it isn’t absolutely necessary to have, sleep on it at least once before buying it, no matter how cheap it is. Works quite well, its weird how much your perspective can often change within a day.
I just go into notes app or pen and paper of choice nothing too fancy
Also take this with a grain of salt as while I’m still living with my parents and don’t really pay
In one section I have subscriptions that cannot exceed like $35 a month and that’s more a list that rarely gets updated
Then as for month to month expenses I divide into money to spend on games and toys/treats for my dogs and taking out the gf and gas and an other category and I allocate money towards those categories
I do it so I don’t over spend in one section like blow all my money on my dogs then have no money to spend for my girlfriend or something
Each month when I “refresh” my monthly budget any unspent money (and minus some to put into savings) rolls over to next months budget
It works wonders and I can move money for spending around easy since it’s all visual
Basically the premise for YNAB. You’re doing good work and have a good habit and mine set. Once you get more cash flow it will be harder to keep track. I use YNAB it may work for you too.
My only budgeting is to earn much more than I spent so I don’t have to think too much about it. That means that I live quite frugal and other than food don’t really buy much on a regular basis.
This works great until you lose half your income and you don’t change your spending habits because your cats are used to a certain standard of living. Hooray for my line of credit!
“Pay yourself first”. My bank has a feature that allows me to setup automated money transfers to and from different accounts based on rules I setup. The most important one is when any deposit is received from my employer, 20% of the amount is automatically transferred from my chequing account to my retirement account. My paycheque is deposited overnight and the money is already “gone” by the time I wake up in the morning. Treat it like another tax on your income that you have no way to avoid paying. Then live off what’s left.
I have accounts for travel, house expenses, utility bills, groceries, car expenses, and fun money. Each of them gets part of my paycheck. Every couple of months I take a look to see if things are getting out of whack.
The best part is that I can be an idiot and overspend with the fun money account. If I spend it all, there’s absolutely no repercussions, since everything important is already safely in different accounts.
Also, when car expenses (or vacations) roll around, I already have money put aside for it.
We have a retroactive Google Sheet which pulled from Reddit years ago where we put our transactions in and categorise them. Lets us see where we spent money
My bank has some neat online banking features that break down where my money comes from and where I spend it on. It also compares my current expenses to my monthly average so I can see if I’m spending more. I’m sure I can do better by doing it on my own, but for someone lazy like me, it’s a good starting point to get an overview of my finances.
YNAB is a web app and mobile app. It’s beauty is that it helps you look FORWARD, instead of tracking your PAST spending.
It’s not much use to see that you spent too much last month, again. Instead, YNAB helps you know what your average expenses are and lets you set aside meaningful amounts for each kind of expense = that’s what we call a BUDGET.
Yes, it has a cost. Yes, it’s ironic to spend money on a tool to save money. But here’s the thing: it really works! For me, it’s easily worth the cost.
I second this. I feel silly paying for it, but if you (and your spouse, if applicable) totally buy into their system, it’s a way of life. The biggest thing is how it sets up purposeful sinking funds (instead of just “savings”) - every dollar has a job. Now when we have major expenses, it’s like - meh! Water heater went out? No sweat, home maintenace got you covered. And if it doesn’t, you roll with the punches and transfer it from some other category.
Using YNAB’s sinking funds helped me get out of my considerable divorce debt. They’re like envelopes you put money into ahead of time, for every single category/thing you want to spend on or save for.
If you need to spend more than is in the envelope, you must transfer from another envelope first
If a bill is higher than expected, transfer money from another envelope
If you want to make an impulse purchase that doesn’t fit an envelope, make mine and transfer money in from an existing one
And so on. It’s a great system, and I continue to use it even though I’m now debt free, except for my monthly bills and car lease payment.
Yup. The ease of use for my wife and us being able to check our own funds real time has made it invaluable. I’m sure! there ways i could do it myself but she’s gotta be able to use it.
Same here. I see a lot of people complaining gabout paying for it, but it’s solid software, and worth the money. It’s helped my wife and I manage our finances and we never argue about money. That’s worth a lot of money IMO.
20% off the paychecks directly to registered retirement account. Use a cashback credit card for everything, pay it off every paycheck, and watch carefully that the balance doesn’t exceed what you can pay off. This is key, never pay card interest. Nice hefty reward from that every year. For things that can’t be charged to the card, annualized payment from a high interest savings account which I replenish every paycheck just enough to ensure all the annual payments can be drawn when the times come, all tracked with a spreadsheet for each bill. Extra goes in there for emergency funds, avoids paying interest when unexpected costs come up.
GnuCash. I’m with Starling Bank. I transfer about £550 to my credit card pot to spend for the month and do my very best not to exceed it. I have an Amex (default) and MasterCard credit cards on which all my day-to-day spending occurs. American Express gives me a balance text every Sunday, but entering purchases in GnuCash makes sure I know what it is roughly.
I have an Excel workbook with three worksheets. One worksheet calculates my paydays out over the next few years, and using Excel formulas a table of paydays per month is calculated. I get paid every two weeks, so some months are 3 pay checks and the rest are 2. If you get paid a fixed amount per month it's easier.
The next sheet has tables for annual, monthly, and weekly expenses. The annual table has a column for month of the year. If I have a quarterly payment, I add it to the annual table four times, each with the correct month.
The final worksheet is a basic revenue less expenses table, one for each calendar year. It lists my income per month for each month, and then lists my monthly expenses, my annual expenses that hit that month, and weekly expenses calculated to reflect the partial weeks. All using formulas do it is easy to extend out to future years.
The worksheet also calculated how much I have left over, and what my savings target is (80% of unbudgeted funds). It's important for the actual costs of each month to be accurate, because averages hide real world things, like in November I have a large amount of renewals including my annual car insurance payment. I will always spend more than I make in November, and knowing that means I'm not panicking with unexpected expenses.
What I've found is that there is an art to budgeting. For example, I budget $100/month for discretionary purchases, plus $20/week to take my kids out for cocoa. You want to be specific enough in the budget that you have fairly few purchases not directly accounted for, with a little bit of latitude that it doesn't become a grind to track purchases.
Over the course of the month any purchase that exceeds the budgeted amount or that doesn't fit a budget category gets tracked on a separate sheet so I can see if I need to rebudget or if there was just a one time thing. Generally speaking, if it is too much work to track your individual purchases, you might be making too many small or impulse purchases that add up.
I also use Excel for my shopping lists to stay focused when I go to the store, and the mobile app easily lets me strike through items as I get them.
Maybe a bit basic but at the beginning of every month I clone this Google Sheets template, set goals in each category, and manually log receipts as I spend. Then at the end of the month, I “audit” my budget against my credit card transactions, pay off credit, and create the next month’s budget with any adjustments learned from the previous one.
For bigger view, long-term, I just linked all my accounts into Quicken and look at it sometimes.
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