SRS: How do you manage your finances...
 

So I used to be great at budgeting and managing expenses and since I have graduated with a real income I havent been doing much of that.


What programs/websites/etc do you guys use to manage a budget and your spending or do you?

I am looking at Mint.com right now and a bit confused how all of that can be free.


Historically I have used exel to manage it but these automated programs seem like the easiest way to do it. My old system was just a budget and I would look at my spending (not much in college) and I could tweak the numbers to keep where i want. Now with many more expenses, bills, etc this system doesnt work.


Cheers,
Matt

whoops... supposed ot be in insert bs here...

I just use an excel sheet with all my bills, dates their due what date their paid, etc

It's macro based so it creates a new month with a button, and all my past months are saved. It's simple but I love it.

mint plus excel plus bank billpay.

we break our month into chunks by when we get paid. usually the 1st, 10th, and 15th. Then we allot the bills to each chunk by their due date or how big they are. example: the payoff monthly credit card goes after the 10th because it is a bigger paycheck date and smal bills go after the 1st and mortgage after the 15th.

then as I receive ebills or whatever, I schedule the payments on the bank's website for the first business day after the 1st, 10th, or 15th.

the sheet keeps a running balance for each chunk including a carryover amount from the previous chunk. all money moved in or out of the bank account is accounted for and then highlighted in yellow when it clears. tentative values or dates are italicized. once they are firm, they are unitalicized.

the running balance allows you to make larger or smaller payments while still maintaining awareness of future estimated bills (recurring bills are estimated for the full year and updated as necessary). I can scroll ahead a couple weeks and make sure paying off an item wont dip into my checking account reserve.

I also have a separate sheet of all of my accounts with their minimum monthly payment, due date, their typical monthly payment, and previous and current balance (updated sporadically--Mint does this for you). I also include how they are paid (billed to credit card for POINTS or MILES or paid by checking when I can't do cards).

the "budget" comes in the form of using only the best credit card (most points or miles) and tracking it via Mint and trying to stay close to a target value that I put in the tracking sheet for the month.

Mint.com is pretty good.

also check out Yodlee.com (they are the backend mint uses).

Thanks!

I see a lot more people are using Mint than I originally anticipated (posted on several forums).

I just registered there and will set up my accounts as far back as they have information on tonight when my fiance is out. I really would like to save a TON of money in the next year or two so i am able to pay down at least 30% of a home.

Holy crap this Mint.com is awesome...

Mint and a custom sheet.

Excel... I set up a sheet with linked sub-sheets so I can track pretty much everything. I've been using the same one for the last 5 years, so it's really nice for making projections and sticking to some semblance of a budget. I just expand it each year and keep moving.

Same as most on here, a sheet.

Run one for my account, one for our joint account. Allows quick browsing of monetary needs, what's coming in, etc, etc.

I dont need no fancy program.

figure out your monthly expenses (rent, bills, gas).

set a food/groceries budget.

put any extra income into a savings/investment account that you cannot withdraw.

never withdraw cash, never break budget, live like your poor, any excess once bills are paid go into savings.

anything extra is planned and budgeted in advance, typically out of food/groceries budget if possible.

MOTHERFLOSSING THISSS!!!
That is exactly how I do my finances as well. No fancy shmancy anything, its all in my head.

this is why i roll 6 deep.

I've been using mint for several years now. Am I scared of the privacy issues? not too bad, its just so damn easy. If they ever get hacked, my accounts wont be the most attractive targets, lol.
And the app is pretty useful, enter your pin wherever you are and have all your finances at a glance.

Ive been using MINT for a few months. its nice, but I dont listen to half the crap it tells me because it hasnt really been able to get my spending/income correct as far as categorizing it and I am too lazy to go in there manually. For example when I travel on the road for work I throw it on a personal credit card and get an expense check later on. I deposit this large check a few weeks later (usually a few grand) and MINT assumes its my income. It has some great tools to help you pay off loans or save for a house though!

In general I use mint for easy access to all my student loans and stuff, and use an excel sheet for everything else.... well actually Google DOCS so both me and my GF can access it. My gf and I keep a running tab of who pays for what bills and groceries because most of the stuff is in her name. It keeps us both on top of it and happy.

I keep all of my cash in duffle bags and when they empty I just re-up.

I have mint but I stopped using it after awhile. It wasn't necessarily bad, I just didnt really need it. I keep track of everything mentally on a daily basis. I check my accounts every morning and always keep track of every dollar in and out. Usually once a week I sit down and write it out on paper. Helps me remember it better.

I've also had quickbooks for my business for awhile now, but my gf's been doing it for me. This year I really want to take over doing it and get setup to start printing checks from it.

My monthly expenses are usually always the same so its easy enough for me to keep track. I try and spend my money on what I want, without going overboard. No point in living like a bum if I could die tomorrow. At the same time though, I'm trying to make more and more each week and build up the bank account. Kinda being responsible but enjoying myself a little bit at the same time. :)

I'd never heard of MINT until now. Looks like it could be awesome for a household sharing accounts. However; why is it free or better put who pays for it? Just curious because it doesn't look ad supported. Are they selling our purchase history vs household income to marketers? If say I had $5000 in savings would I get cruise ship tour ads in my email?

Mint was/ is affiliated with quicken. I am not sure the history exactly, but I know quicken offered a very very similar product as part of one of my credit card or banking websites. They most likely make their money based on all the adds. Half the page is telling you that you could have a better rate if you had "xyz's" loan. ADDS ADDS ADDS.

Ah makes more sense. I'd upload it but my laptop fried soooo untill I get a new one. And I'm lazy right now.

We use mint, and online billpay from the bank. Y8s will cut that sheet out of the middle once he and the missus have children :) There's just no time for that.

i go to the bar and spend money on alcohol. when i come home i pay my bills.
i end most pay periods with 2.65 in my bank account and then i fukk the world.

I just buy whatever the i want and pay off cc at the end of the month. Dont spend more than i make and thats about it. Its not rocket surgery.

Yea I put everything on my credit card (literally everything), and pay it off whenever I need to.

no savings for Fae?

I have been doing that too. I dont want to anymore heh.

Good knowing what you homos use.


How many of you forecast what you anticipate to have in your account in say 3 months, 6 months, a year, etc?

Credit score: 837 out of 850

It was because of my amazing credit score I was able to sell my house.

This.

I'm not really into computers, gadgets, clothes, cameras or other expensive hobbies, so there really isn't any money drain except regular bills which makes it pretty easy to save money. I also find it easy to stop buying things for the Miata now that I consider it a long term project.

I also don't smoke or drink, other than stocking up on liquor from the USA to put on the shelf to pretend that I do.

Damn, my life sounds so boring now.

In my wallet I currently have.......0 credit cards. I might get another one just to use for gas and shitz, but otherwise I havent used one in a couple years. I had a tendency to get a little out of control with them.

My credit score is in the good range, but on the lower side. Both times I broke my hands I got behind on a few bills once or twice and it was enough to hurt my score pretty good. The past 2 years I've been solid though, so I'm hoping it keeps slowly climbing.

I am another Excel guy. We generally use it more for projections and estimations than for actually tracking every dollar spent. I have a "household budget" tab that gets updated every few months or if something significant changes. It is fairly detailed in the estimations for recurring variable costs. For example, if there is something that happens once a quarter, we annualize the amount and then divide by 12 to give it a monthly figure.

I use fuel estimations for each vehicle and generally have been pretty accurate in forward projections. We calculate food costs, including lunch out and groceries but not dinners out (which we don't eat a lot of and often have gift cards for).

I generally take the lesser of mean or median income because ours can vary quite a bit as we are not on fixed salaries and try to err on the side of caution there. That's pulled from a separate tab that tracks income on a per-paycheck basis, incorporating gross, Fed taxable and net figures.

We have another tab that tracks retirement savings across all accounts, including employer sponsored plans like profit sharing, 401k, ESOP, etc. In addition to the balances, I track amounts contributed to make sure we try to do more each year.

I kind of like that process better than using a Mint.com style aggregator. Because it's more manual, I feel like it forces me to pay closer attention to the different elements. :)

Nice! :winner:

For better or worse, I tend to think of my credit score like I think of the APR on my credit cards - I rarely actually use either so I don't pay much attention to them.

The first part is a goal, not a budget. it isn't how everyone wants to live or needs to live.

The second part is good and will keep people out of trouble. also budget for emergencies.

I am sure I can find 15 minutes to do it at work in a month. :)

Just use Excel over here. 2011 budget = $35000. Actual spent = $31500. Majority of difference was the 8% medical (not sure why we put $2400 in the budget but we only spent $187).

I use excel here too..

I have a worksheet that balances my checkbook and also so I know exactly what I have to spend and what I can save, a worksheet to predict my net worth on a monthly basis for a few years, a worksheet that tracks what my monthly food expense is so I can try to ween it down, a worksheet with all my student loans amortized so I can calculate how much an extra payment on any given month will reduce my overall interest expense and loan length, a worksheet for a mortgage calculation and associated amortization table and depreciation schedule (helpful for house hunting), worksheets that track gas mileage, and some other random stuff.

To be honest, this stuff really helps. It gives me a clear defined view of what I can spend and what I can save, and I can look at it, see where I want to be in 3, 6, 12 months, and make changes in my life to get there. And it's been fairly accurate. The only time it was thrown off was when I was under agreement for a house (once in june-ish, once in november) when I was hemorrhaging money on inspections and other stuff.

I guess this is perks of being an accountant/cpa lol

787 out of 830 as of 2008 (not sure what it is now). Paid off all $125,000 in credit card debt in one day and amazingly the credit card offers stopped coming in. In the past 13 years I bet I haven't gotten 10 total.

I use a version of rmcelwee's excel sheet

Track every single penny, each card swipe/bill pay is a line item. I also use a Subara Chase Mastercard so I get 3% Subarubucks on everything.

Tracking every single purchase sounds like a lot of work but once you get started it's just like 3 minutes of updating every day.

I would freak out if I spent $1.50 on a soda at the gas station and forgot to write it down.

Actually, bad example because there is no way in hell I buy something from a gas station (or a vending machine, etc). That ---- adds up fast!

Lol, that's probably why you guys were under budget for 2011 and we were over...

Buying sh*t at gas stations I mean, not not tracking every $0.01 spent at said convenience store.

I dont think that I am a person to track literally every penny. I could see how it is benefital but tracking this between myself and the fiance could prove to be difficult.

I like the MINT.com setup because I try not to spend cash. Either debit or my travel rewards VISA (which I dont carry a balance on) so I can view all of my expenses as opposed to seeing CASH withdrawl on my statement but not how the monies were spent.


I talked with a friend on friday about some strategies on how to allocate some savings. Now I think that I have some obtainable goals to strive for.


How do you guys who are married/engaged/been with someone for a while manage the money between you and your signifigant other?

Build megasquirts so she doesn't know what crap you spend your money on?

I was a small business advisor so she leaves it all to me. :bigtu:

We basically follow the same approach as Brain and when I decided to go back to school for engineering we had 2 years tuition and books saved. We bought our first place on $30k income and made it work eating pasta most nights that and paying off bad debt instantly and avoiding interest like the plague. I keep a separate account that the bill $'s go into and the bills come out of we buy meat and other foods on sale. Extra money goes into a high interest account, we usually save 20-30% of gross. We're in our mid 20's with 3 vehicles paid for, a house paid for (partially inheritance), both our degrees paid for and I'm not incurring debt being back at school.

Fill your spare time with work and projects and you benefit with nice stuff cheaply, sometimes make money and you learn, we were redoing a small house over my xmas break.

Since you're in Canada do you take advantage of PC banking? I was with RBC but always kept accounts with PC since it's free and chequeing accounts pay interest. IDK if PC does it but RBC had a tool that gave you a pie graph of your spending as it categorized debits including bills to tell where your spending was by dollar and %.

I use TD banking. My account costs me $3 a month and I never go over my transactions because I use my credit for everything besides rent and insurance. three transactions cover my monthly expenses and i use 2-4 transactions additionally per month to move money around into savings and such.

I'm not married yet, but may as well be. lol

My bills are my bills and her bills are hers. The bills we have together we split right down the middle (groceries, oil, rent, utilities, etc). We have some stocks that are in a joint account, as well as our own separate accounts. No joint bank accounts though.

Whenever she needs cash I give it to her, but she doesn't ask much cause she has her own money. She has a good steady income but has some debt, while I'm up and down income wise but have no debt. For now the way we're doing it works for the both of us.

Ha, I tried that for a while. good luck.

Which part? lol

when she borrows more and more because she's a little short. then you find out when you buy nothing extra but maybe some food and she spends it all on clothes and doesnt have any savings or enough to pay her share...

Scotts a sugardaddy.

So...Brain,

What do you do now?

This.

I already pretty much posted what I do: don't spend money.

Ever single penny we take in is accounted for and budgeted; nothing extra is ever bought that isn't budgeted for/justified. (i.e., the same amount of money must always go into savings each week/month)

Since we know what our weekly take is, what our bills/gas always cost, and since we have a grocery budget and weekly food/cash budget--if anything extra is required, it comes out of that food, gas, petty cash budget.

We make special trips to walmart/bed bath and beyond for cheaper toiletries, we shop at multiple grocery stores for sale items, we make one night's dinner stretch for two nights. We are very careful with what we do spend...

Without looking, we probably have a 60-70% savings rate. But our goal is to save for a big garage (with a house attached), so my lifestyle might not work for you.

I meant how do you and your wife/fiance manage spending between the two of you?

I mean more basic things like how you share living costs. I understand that not spending on optional things is doable and thats what I have commenced doing.

our paychecks go into one account. Most, less budgeted bills/food, is transfered then to a savings accout that we "cannot" draw against.

then we move cash into an account our debit cards are linked to, this is purely for food/gas.

There's really no extra money to buy anything. I never buy anything on a whim, the other day I bought shoes, made sure to use a 20% coupon with free shipping, and I cleared it with the wife--I put it on my CC and we allocated the funds for it this pay period so that extra $30 went to the CC bill instead of our savings account.

Honestly, we live like simple people...

this was after like a 3 month campaign of petitioning her to buy new shoes...

^ It's much easier when you're both on the same page about spending. My dad was always bad about having to have fancy everything, case in point he drives a 5 yr old Caddy STS and has a loaded Goldwing the same age and my mom drives a 14yr old Protege (which she got new).

You should be accountable to each other, like business partners, but like business partners it often works best that one is primarily 'in charge' of finances, for various reasons.

This is the key to an enjoyable life.

Going into debt to buy a Porsche 911 is not enjoyable. Driving a Geo Metro and not owing a single dime to anyone is. I don't make much money and my wife hasn't worked for years (1989?). We max out both our Roths, a 401K and still invest more in another acct. House, cars, everything is paid for. Getting ready to pay cash to build a 20'x26' "workshop" because we enjoy building stuff. We paid off our house at 43 years old and will retire at 55 years old if I want to (vs working until 65 because I need to). I wear jeans, t-shirt, and tennis shoes I bought on the discount rack (bought 8 pairs of them about 5 years ago) every single day and don't try to impress anyone. I very much enjoy being "the millionaire next door" that no one notices.

BTW, I'll pay for my 911 with cash when I retire because I spent decades NOT buying DVDs, IPhones, TVs, new cars, etc. Like Dave Ramsey says, "Live like no one else so later in life you can live like no one else".

Will suck when you die from butthole cancer at 51...

my shoes are pretty baus though...anyone care to see a pic?

if he's content, why?

That's the key. If someone is content with the more "spartan" lifestyle today and the extra freedom later in life will be a nice bonus: that's great. For someone who sacrifices all their life hoping to reap the reward later, dieing early would be a bit unfortunate.

It's all about opportunity cost and balance. "Save a little more than you think you comfortably can" is generally good advice for most people.

Brainy, rmcelwee and others like them would be exceptional.

My grandfather will be 99 this year. My dad is 70 and gets around better than most do at 50. I will be cursed with a long life...

Spending money is fun. Do you really want to wait until you are 60 to enjoy life?

It really puzzles me to think that people are not happy unless they are spending money they do not have. Perhaps this is why the country is so screwed up and people are so desperate. There was a clerical error with our paychecks the other day at work (first check of the year). I must have had 10 people call me asking me if I had gotten my check and complaining about how screwed up they were that they didn't get paid. I think I could probably go 6 months or so without getting paid and wouldn't even break a sweat. Yep, I'm really missing out - not enjoying life at all...

we did the math, we save closer to 75%...