Ask the Readers: What are your financial tools?
Every Tuesday is Finance & Family Day at Zen Habits.
In my recent personal finance interview, MyMint.com asked me what personal finance tools I use. It was a great question. My answer:
I do all my banking online, and have automated my bills and savings. I use Microsoft Money, only because it came with the computer I bought, but it works fine. I also use a spreadsheet on Google Docs for my spending plan and another for my net worth calculation.
But, in light of yesterday’s awesome comment thread about your favorite GTD tools, I’m truly curious to hear your answers to this question.
So, in the comments, let us know:
What personal finance tools do you use?
I’m dying to hear about them!
See also:
- 10 Habits to Develop for Financial Success
- How I Ended My Affair with the Credit Card
- Monitor Your Impulse Spending Urges
- How I Save Money
- What is truly necessary? A guide to living frugal
- Reward Yourself Without Spending a lot
- How to Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck
- Baby Makes Eight: Raising Six Kids, Part 1 - Finances
- Posted on 2 May 2007 in Finance & Family |
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Comments (33)
toen Says:
May 2nd, 2007, 6:37 am
currently I use excel. But plan to move back to ace money again. I need double posting & that not simple enough in excel :)
Zung! Says:
May 2nd, 2007, 7:42 am
Linux.com did a review of several financial tools for GNU/Linux last November.
I’ve been using GnuCash for the past month, in an attempt to sort out my financial situation, and it seems both powerful and simple anough to use. One of its cool features is auto completion. Together with a comprehensive set of keyboard shortcuts, it realy accelerates manual data entry. It also supports several electronic financial exchange data formats (which I can’t use, unfortunatly).
The most important thing for me, however, was to read the (clearly written) GnuCash concept guide - this is indispensible, if, like me, you’re clueless about accounting in general.
Ben D Says:
May 2nd, 2007, 8:19 am
For a while there I was creating my own booklet using photoshop and a few different pages from hPDA. Then I moved to using PagePacker for the mac. However, I recently got an iPod which syncs with iCal so I don’t need the calendar pages that I had in there and instead I’ve moved over to FILO
Emma Says:
May 2nd, 2007, 8:41 am
I currently use Excel/an envelope system for myself, and Google Spreadsheets to track shared expenses with my boyfriend. I would prefer to use a tool where I could download my account transactions and track them. However, I am currently living in Egypt, which is an all-cash economy (I get paid with an envelope of cash, pay my rent in cash, and plastic (debit or credit) is pretty much impossible to use anywhere except expensive hotels and restaurants and travel agencies). My money is stored (literally) under my mattress. So, I’m not really using my bank accounts, and credit/ debit cards, so another system doesn’t make much sense at the moment. When I move back to the US, I’ll probably look for a different solution, since I much prefer using plastic to paper (for convenience/peace of mind reasons, if I pay credit card, I always pay in full on time).
Peter Says:
May 2nd, 2007, 8:51 am
I have spent a lot of time crafting an Excel workbook that combines budgeting, checking, savings, retirement planning, paycheck estimation, debt reduction, vacation planning, etc. It has worked extremely well for me and I’d be lost without it.
My Credit Union allows me to send anyone a check in any amount for free, so I take care of everything that isn’t point-of-purchase that way.
Brip Says:
May 2nd, 2007, 8:55 am
Do all my banking/credit card stuff online and have now been using http://www.wesabe.com for a few months which has been great. I upload all my transactions from various accounts to Wesabe, then tag them with whatever I want and now can track all my income/outgoings in one place, from any computer.
Loving it (ie. it’s helped me spend less!), you can get tips from other users and the developers are very friendly and responsive to help, fixing bugs and new ideas. Being able to easily summarize on my tags is great.
Also using spreadsheets for planning, but again trying out features in Wesabe to track financial ‘goals’.
Amy Says:
May 2nd, 2007, 9:03 am
I use YNAB You need a budget software…great for budgeting. http://www.youneedabudget.com This is a great tool for creating zero balanced budgets and tracking spending.
ataman Says:
May 2nd, 2007, 9:16 am
YNAB for monthly budgeting/tracking of transactions, and an Excel spread sheet for tracking/projecting debt elimination.
YNAB is fed by the bank’s website, Excel spreadsheet is fed by lendors’ websites.
Jose Says:
May 2nd, 2007, 9:35 am
Google spreadsheets and Excel. I have not made an honest effort to put something together. I’m still thinking how to tackle this. I’ll continue to do my homework and then decide. Writing things on a piece of paper is doing the trick for me. :)
Ryan Says:
May 2nd, 2007, 10:20 am
Yodlee money center for viewing all of my accounts in one place along with networth calculations and bill notifications.
Manage all of my money online, online savings/checking/investing.
Google Spreadsheet & Moneytrackin’ for budgeting.
HipsterPDA for day to day lists.
Chris Says:
May 2nd, 2007, 10:44 am
I have used Money and Quicken in the past but didn’t like the update path. I dislike posting my financial information online in any form, especially with the various weaknesses that are inherent in websites and databases. I finally ended up with a package called Moneydance. It costs about $30 (not too bad). The big value is that I can download most bank records to it or import .qfx files from other accounts. The program is java based, fast, and pretty easy to customize. I have it installed on a USB drive that allows me to use it on my various home machines. Why bother with a program when free options exist? It is much faster to merely add categories/notes to a transaction and compare to a budget in this program than any other I have found. The programmers have done, and continue to do, a good job in a small package. Anywho, that is my $ fu.
Amy Says:
May 2nd, 2007, 11:46 am
I’ve used Quicken and Money in the past, but I was unhappy with them due to feature bloat, required (paid) upgrades, and the impossibility of exporting all your data if you want to. (When I switched to the Mac is was impossible to move my data from Quicken for Windows to Quicken for Mac — argh!)
I now use MoneyDance, which has the wonderful advantage of working on my Mac and my husband’s PC. And it’s super simple and my data isn’t held hostage.
MoneyDance has a good budget feature, but instead I use a super-simple hack budget consisting of a quick Excel list (to make sure my expenses are in line with my goals) and automatic direct deposits into various accounts (savings, bill-paying, spending, etc.). If there’s money in the spending account, I can buy what I want. If there isn’t, then I don’t eat!
lydgate Says:
May 2nd, 2007, 12:03 pm
Gnucash, since switching to Linux. Not quite as featureful as Quicken, but works for me.
Alec Peden Says:
May 2nd, 2007, 12:05 pm
I use a combination of Wesebe.com to keep track of my spending, mybillq.com to keep track of my Bills and my banks webpage to pay bills.
Vincent Says:
May 2nd, 2007, 13:38 pm
I’m with lydgate. GNUcash doesn’t do quite as much as Quicken, but I actually prefer it over Quicken. We use Quicken at work and it tends to be a huge PITA—crashing, running slowly, and the interface sucks. GNUcash is a more spartan interface compared to other PF programs but it works wonderfully—and I love the double-entry method of accounting. The charts and graphs it produces are also very useful.
Buz Says:
May 2nd, 2007, 14:01 pm
I use Gnucash. Although I still haven’t figured out how to customize the reports. I used Quicken in the 90s, but stopped buying software about 95 when I switched to Linux for my everyday stuff. Now if I could get my GNUcash reports exported into LaTeX……
Dan Says:
May 2nd, 2007, 14:22 pm
I recently began using mvelopes.com, which is a great alternative to Quicken and Money. It is structured around the “envelope system” where you actually allocate your income to each spending category before you spend it. So, rather than just tracking past expenses/transactions as in Quicken, it also helps you restrain your impulse spending. One of its other great attributes is that it seamlessly updates from banking and credit card sites; it has a much more streamlined update procedure than either Quicken or Money. I often never imported with either of those programs in the past because the online update procedure was so convoluted. Although mvelopes.com is a paid service, it is well worth the money.
Leo Says:
May 2nd, 2007, 15:33 pm
I’m really loving this thread! Great tips, guys. Thanks for sharing them with us.
Rajesh Says:
May 2nd, 2007, 15:43 pm
An Excel spreadsheet customized with tabs for basic budgeting and cashflow. Use online services for aggregating my accounts e.g. Fidelity Fullview (Yodlee service). keeps things simpler than using quicken or money. Rather than actually tracking bank account transactions, I just review them online and use the Stackback system for implementing a hands-off budget. I used quicken and money earlier to the point wherein I would track every cent and keep it in sync….to the point that I learnt I have to live as well, so gave it up in favor of the much simpler system that only takes less than 15 mins a month.
Nneka Says:
May 3rd, 2007, 10:39 am
Excel turns out to be the only tool I can stick too. My income expense statement and balance sheets are in there. The others just become cumbersome after some time. Although, that neat little interaction between Turbo Tax and Quicken comes in handy at tax time.
Cheers,
Nneka
Nneka Says:
May 3rd, 2007, 11:00 am
Oh, and I also simplyfied the system by taking money out at the top of the week for food and entertainment. That way I track the lumpsum in Excel not the individual purchases. That was a big hassle with the debit card.
I use more of a holistic approach to budgeting - budgeting by buckets I call it - than a line item approach.
Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You to Be Rich does a good job of explaining the 2 and giving you the advantages and disadvantages of them.
http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/conscious-spending-how-my-friend-spends-21000year-on-going-out
Nneka
Jess Robinson Says:
May 4th, 2007, 2:28 am
I use an app I wrote myself, which gives monthly budgets for me, him, both and essential, which is currently everything else. Everything bought goes in there, then we know how much more we can spend each month. Works fairly well so far.
Jess
Miracle Says:
May 4th, 2007, 13:41 pm
I’m not that big of a finance junky and basically just keep track of my stuff so I don’t overspend. I recently found the site clearcheckbook.com on either this blog or another one and am loving it. Its very simple and is basically all I’m looking for.
Kate Davis Says:
May 7th, 2007, 10:48 am
I use MS Money and have done since I got it free with MS Works on my first computer. I’ve just upgraded to 2005 version, my third upgrade in 12 twelve years. I am good at balancing my accounts monthly, but I’m not so good at tracking daily finances. I will reinstall the ultrasoft money software on to my palm again soon which should make the process easier.
Todd Says:
May 7th, 2007, 23:28 pm
It takes 2
1. Quicken to download a file from my bank - I use it for register only
2. Google Spreadsheets for budget - I used Excel before, but like portability of GS better. Quicken’s budget tool is too complex.
Isarian Says:
May 8th, 2007, 16:12 pm
I use Quicken 2007, and have all my accounts set up with US Bank so that I can use PFM and download all my transactions into Quicken nightly. I use the 60% solution for budgeting, and Quicken keep me sane because I always know exactly how much money I have, and where.
star Says:
May 10th, 2007, 6:29 am
Yodlee. There really is nothing better. Nothing to upload or maintain. It does all the work for you.
Hammurabi Says:
May 10th, 2007, 13:15 pm
Star is correct - the absolute best tool is Yodlee. All of the major banks and programs such as MS Money USE Yodlee to obtain and categorize the remote banking info.
Basically it automatically downloads all your web-enabled bank accounts transactions, categorizes them (manual is option) and creates reports based on the info. You can set budgets as well, so when your Dining/Restaurant expense reaches $200 for the month it will send you and email. It has tons of features, and puts my old Wesabe to SHAME.
Can’t recommend it enough.
Yodlee is ridiculously free - go to http://corporate.yodlee.com and sign up (bottom of the page).
jasmine Says:
May 10th, 2007, 17:37 pm
I’ve been using ACEMONEY for over 2 years now and I love it. Use it to track E*TRADE, personal and joint checking accounts, savings account, and credit card. Plus setting up a budget workseet. There’s a free version on the site, but I shelled out the $25 or so to buy it.
The only way it could be improved was if there was a button that would automatically download each account’s data. Right now I go to each site, download a .QIF statement and import it. It’s seamless importing, but that extra step could be solved.
I am waiting for MyMint to come out and see what it can do.
Jason Thane Says:
May 23rd, 2007, 15:43 pm
I wrote Bankarama so I could keep track of my day-to-day finances on my Windows Mobile phone. It’s become pretty popular, probably because it’s pretty damn handy.
artie11 Says:
December 4th, 2007, 22:50 pm
i’m actually writing a budgeting and bill tracking site
If you’ve got any ideas of other features to add let me know, In the future it will have account reconciliation as well, but for now, bill tracking and budgeting are the main features
