Budget software?

[dad305]

A couple of years ago, I created my own monthly budget spread sheet, but it's turning into a lot of work.:not:

I keep having to add, delete, revise or move around categories and I'm beggining to dread dealing with it :shit: (I thought I'd never et to use this one)

What do you guys use to keep track of your budget and track expenses? :help:

[Don-Dad]

Your talking chinese to me :) What's this budget you speak of? And keeping it in a software program? :rolleyes:

[troy00690]

If I remeber correctly there is an access database in office 2002 that has a template for a budget. You can even print off checks. There was a lot of features that you can do and you can also set up Macros do other things that you wanted it to do. I looked into using but at that point the wife wasn't good at a computer.

[RefDad]

dad305 - I just use Excel, and create formulas that show monthly expenses and income. Also, annual revenues (since vacation $$ are spent in two or three lump payments).

It is a lot of work - I can track all my credit card expenses (90 percent of all our bils are paid via CC) but that gets tedious. Every now and then I get up REAL early on a Sunday morning and do three months worth of CC tracking, to see if my gas, electricity, etc., averages have changed.

Other than that, adding a car payment, insurance increase or an increase in income is all that really needs tweaking. I don't think there is any easy way - even with software you still have to enter the data.

[KDB.One]

I would have to agree with dad305 I have always had to change and rethink the budgets on a more than regular basis and gave up using a program of any sort and ended up having to just use a spiral notebook and re-tooling it often. This is NOT the way to go and I have been searching ever since for something better.:wall:

[troy00690]

Another way that we like to use is print up 2-3 month calendars off of outlook and write in when our bills our due and when our paydays are. That seems to work the best for us. We don't do much trakcing on what we spend. Now that I am the stay at home parent and we can pay our bills I have been trying to figure out how I want to do it. I have just set everything up on Bill pay also so I only have to hit a few buttons and I don't have to wait for checks to clear.

[CTdadof3]

I use the Microsoft Money program. It was "free" after mail in rebate when purchased with the H&RBlock Tax Cut software. It does take some time and effort to get going. You can make it as basic or involved as you want. I find it really effective for tracking expenses.

[CaninUs]

I bought Quicken a few years back and used it pretty steady for about 6 months. It became tedious entering everything, but then I discovered that you could download transactions from your bank! I did and it wrote over all the previous info I had collected (I am sure I did something wrong). I do need to track our spending now more than ever so maybe I will go back and try it again.
Good luck.

[dad305]

I've been using Excell as well Ref but tedious is an understatement, everytime you add or delete something the formulas has have to be revised :thunder:

I gotta tell you man, if I wait three months to take a look at this thing I'm afraid of what I could run into :shit: (hey! twice in the same thread, we must be talking home finances).

I'll give Money a try and see what happens :priest:

[mnsahd]

Our family has been using Microsoft Money for a few years now and like it very much. We tried Quicken, but Momma liked MS Money better, and because she is an Accountant, her word is golden. (I guess.) ;)

[jeffus]

Quicken since 1992. :yeah:

[woodchuck]

$.79 full size desk calenders to schedule out the bills and a printed schedule from a spreadsheet program for the tracking. For us , the physical paper/pencil budget keeping is a friday night event that involves both of us, so we both are aware of the finances, and when we were both working and getting our income organized towards debts and saving for this second property(this place) we used the tried and true method of an accordian file with labeled pockets and cash.

We cashed our checks and came home, grabbed a cocktail, and sat at the desk together, layed out piles of dough, and started allocating the money to the bills each friday. While this may sound tedious and dreadfully old fashioned it had the desired affect. Where did our money go, not just numbers on a statement.

When you have this big pile of cash in front of you that represents 40-60 hours of your life and you dole out the requirements to your bills, what is left over can be depressing, so it has a bigger impact, and you start taking your lunch from home because you want to see a bigger pile leftover.

That's what has worked for us and those we have counseled for the grand fee of a six-pack and having fun with learning to manage debt and get ahead.

[craigbass76]

I wrote myself a mysql database to keep track of business expenses, then a bunch of shell scripts to enter stuff and run reports. If anyone runs linux, I can give you a hand. You're on your own in Windows though.

[Jackson's Dad]

I wrote myself a mysql database to keep track of business expenses, then a bunch of shell scripts to enter stuff and run reports. If anyone runs linux, I can give you a hand. You're on your own in Windows though.

I did the same (love this free open source software), except I write a PHP/HTML front end for displaying and editing.

Dan

[craigbass76]

I haven't gotten into that. I'm only familiar with mysql because I make linux based Point of Sale stations and use Mysql as a backend. Some of my shell scripts are pretty nifty.

[Alpha-Dad]

I use MS Money for our finances. I have it set-up to automatically connect to our bank and credit card accounts and download all of the new transactions everyday. After a couple months of renaming and categorizing the new transactions that were downloaded it pretty much does it all on its own. I also have it set-up to keep track of our retirement accounts, college savings, and auto loan.

It did take quite a while to get everything set up good but now it's quick and easy to quickly see all of our finances in one spot. It also makes nice organized charts and graphs which I like.

It also has a budget built in but I haven't really messed with it alot. I keep the upcoming bills/deposits page as accurate as possible then use the cash flow forecast on just our checking account so I can make sure we always have enough in it to pay the bills coming up that month and look at the past month's spending category totals to see how much we're spending on stuff to see how we need to adjust.

You can download a free 90 trial from microsoft here: http://www.microsoft.com/money/freetrial_info.mspx

I use the Deluxe version which is $29.99 after a $20 rebate if you download it. I know Costco sometimes has it a bit cheaper though.

[Captain Dad]

o.k. This is pretty old but my old way of hoping we had enough money (being wrong) then charging everything else is not working. I have looked at the different programs available (for mac) and got ibank. I really do not like the standard programs. I spent the last 5 years in the Army basically doing spreadsheets and presentations so I have spent the last week (during nap time) building my own and inputting data from the beginning of the year. Since it has been over a year since I touched a spreadsheet, building them is taking the most time. I like that I can make it give me the info I want, the way I want vs. pre-packaged programs. When I was working we did not spend as much as we made and we had auto deposits to savings so we did not really worry about it too much. It took us at least 6 months after the last double paycheck month to stop spending and about another 6 for me to really try and get a handle on it :morons:.

So who does the good budgets? What do you track? How often?