Financial spreadsheer?

[shannon006]

I am looking into a using a financial spreadsheet for our household expenses. I was wondering what others on this board use?

Thank you

 

[JillyBean1899]

I use Quicken. It automatically updates from my bank account, and reminds me of upcoming bills that are due each month (which reminds me, my car insurance is due in 2 days lol).

Plus if I keep my entries logged correctly, it automatically imports info into Turbo Tax, so it makes tax time a lot less stressful.

 

[tinkerone]

i'm simpler. i use a binder to record EVERY item in categories. food, misc., gifts, mortgage, hydro, cable, etc. at the end of each month i input the total for each into an excel sheet which will add up the totals for the 12 months. at the end of the year i print out the excel sheet and place it in that years binder.
i also keep track of 'take home' pay so i can compare it to our expenses. it only takes me 5 minutes a day and maybe 10 minutes at the end of each month. excel does all the adding for me so i don't have to do that.
its old school but works well for me. the trick was getting dh to remember to put his receipts into the jar i have in one of my kitchen cabinets.

eta- i used quicken years ago but it don't work for us. we would take $20 cash out of the bank but would never know where it went. now i can tell that that $20 went to parking meters or coffee or what ever because even the little things get recorded. its a true record.

 

[texasroni75]

I use a regular Excel-type spreadsheet I made up myself. In addition to listing all expenses as we pay them, I use other tabs for certain types of expenses I'm working on paring down. (Examples: Groceries, Utilities, Gas ). I keep receipts for everything in a binder.

Sometimes it's hard to get DH to remember to save his receipts, especially when it's something he sees as a "petty expense", like stopping for coffee and a bagel/donut on the way to work. But, after saving all his receipts for one month, I showed him that was adding up to about $95/month - and it convinced him to make time for breakfast at home more often.

This also helps when we have to break down certain expenses at the end of the year for tax purposes.

 

[tinkerone]

I use a regular Excel-type spreadsheet I made up myself. In addition to listing all expenses as we pay them, I use other tabs for certain types of expenses I'm working on paring down. (Examples: Groceries, Utilities, Gas ). I keep receipts for everything in a binder.

Sometimes it's hard to get DH to remember to save his receipts, especially when it's something he sees as a "petty expense", like stopping for coffee and a bagel/donut on the way to work. But, after saving all his receipts for one month, I showed him that was adding up to about $95/month - and it convinced him to make time for breakfast at home more often.

This also helps when we have to break down certain expenses at the end of the year for tax purposes.

true words!!

 

[JillyBean1899]

eta- i used quicken years ago but it don't work for us. we would take $20 cash out of the bank but would never know where it went. now i can tell that that $20 went to parking meters or coffee or what ever because even the little things get recorded. its a true record.

I've got a separate "Petty Cash" account set up for that. Instead of marking a withdrawal, I make a transfer from the checking account to the petty cash account, then keep track of what I spent it on. There's an app for my phone so it makes it really easy to track stuff.

 

[ArmchairDetective]

We use YNAB and have been for about a year.

It's amazing software! https://www.youneedabudget.com/

 

[tinkerone]

We use YNAB and have been for about a year.

It's amazing software! https://www.youneedabudget.com/

that looks interesting. can you print out the totals at, say, year end? also, if you use it on your phone can you make memo notes?

 

[KennesawNemo]

I use Mint.com.

It'll be a lot work if I try to keep up with everything myself in Excel.

 

[buzz5985]

I am another Quicken user.

eta- i used quicken years ago but it don't work for us. we would take $20 cash out of the bank but would never know where it went. now i can tell that that $20 went to parking meters or coffee or what ever because even the little things get recorded. its a true record.

I don't know about older versions of Quicken - I was a Microsoft Money user (which I liked a lot better than Quicken). But the recent version you can split your cash transactions or any transaction for that matter, into different categories as needed.

Janis

 

[disneymagicgirl]

that looks interesting. can you print out the totals at, say, year end? also, if you use it on your phone can you make memo notes?

We started this in no and I LOVE it! Not sure about printing out at he end of the year, but it is saved in the program so not sure why you' dawn tot print.

Yes, in side the app you can make notes regarding the transactions. For example, I plug in a gas transaction and annotate it as mine or DH's, etc.

Eta: do the free 30 day trial

 

[GAGirlInVA]

I made my own. More work, but it works exactly as I set it up and now I just use the same one every year and tweak it a bit.

I have all the way through December planned already.

 

[ArmchairDetective]

that looks interesting. can you print out the totals at, say, year end? also, if you use it on your phone can you make memo notes?

Yes you can print out at year's end and add notes to transactions and categories.

YNAB has amazing reporting features: http://www.youneedabudget.com/support/article/reports

 

[wiigirl]

We use YNAB and have been for about a year.

It's amazing software! https://www.youneedabudget.com/

 

[pryncess527]

We use YNAB and have been for about a year.

It's amazing software! https://www.youneedabudget.com/

Ditto. I can not over-estimate the positive impact YNAB has had on our family finances and on our clarity of conversations about money/goals/etc.

Zero-based budgeting is very powerful, I recommend everyone give it a try.

 

[Ariel484]

We use the Smart Budget App for the iPad:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/smart-budget/id405750770?mt=8

 

[NovaLady]

I use my own spreadsheet and uploaded it to my Google Docs drive so I can access it anywhere.

I track incoming and outgoing expenses for weekly periods and have automatic calculations. It works pretty well for us.

I think most people have their own way to track budget so it's a matter of finding what works for you. I downloaded tons of apps and known have them were as useful (to me) as my spreadsheet.

 

[NovaLady]

Just looked at the YNAB software and it looks good!

 

[mrodgers]

I am another Quicken user.



I don't know about older versions of Quicken - I was a Microsoft Money user (which I liked a lot better than Quicken). But the recent version you can split your cash transactions or any transaction for that matter, into different categories as needed.

Janis

You've been able to do this since the first time I used Quicken, Quicken 6 which is from 1996.

I balance the checkbook with Quicken manually with bank statements (I don't like auto downloading stuff, I want to verify everything which is easier balancing it than just scanning through on a computer screen.)

I use my own spreadsheet and uploaded it to my Google Docs drive so I can access it anywhere.

I track incoming and outgoing expenses for weekly periods and have automatic calculations. It works pretty well for us.

Oh yeah, and I do the same except with Dropbox. I can pull it up on any computer that has an internet connection.

Mine is also per week because my wife and I get paid on different weeks. I pay the bills with my paycheck and her paycheck since she is part time is only gas and groceries for that week. It is stretched out from January to December and a new year is just simply a copy/paste of the tab with some minor tweaks.

I have an Excel spreadsheet I use for a budget that I created myself. It is very elaborate and I couldn't possibly explain it and all it's custom forumulas.