I need one of these. I want to better track how much we're making per month, how much we're saving, and what our expenses are for gas, food, etc.
Since we're saving for a house it would be nice to know that if made an offer today how much we'd have in the accounts at closing.
Which is the best budget tracker out there right now?
I started with Mint. I'm now using excel.
I'm interested in trying this one:
In reply to mtn: Are you using a specific template in Excel?
I use Mint.
Pro's - automatic tracking (I don't have to do much work), the net worth feature is very good (adds up all your assets and liabilities and graphs over time). Reports are cool, like "how much did I spend at starbucks last year?".
Con's - it can double count stuff and therefore its 'minor' categories can get off. (example: if I pay my CC bill, it sees the the transaction in my checking account and since it is negative it counts it as spending, while the positive transaction in my CC account is not grouped under spending since it is a positive transaction. Therefore the CC payment does not get netted out like it should in the spending category, artificially inflating the spending category by quite a bit). It takes a lot of work to review all the transactions and get it perfect.
Robbie wrote: I use Mint. Pro's - automatic tracking (I don't have to do much work), the net worth feature is very good (adds up all your assets and liabilities and graphs over time). Reports are cool, like "how much did I spend at starbucks last year?". Con's - it can double count stuff and therefore its 'minor' categories can get off. (example: if I pay my CC bill, it sees the the transaction in my checking account and since it is negative it counts it as spending, while the positive transaction in my CC account is not grouped under spending since it is a positive transaction. Therefore the CC payment does not get netted out like it should in the spending category, artificially inflating the spending category by quite a bit). It takes a lot of work to review all the transactions and get it perfect.
Sounds like the same issues I'm having with iBank.
I like Personal Capital - I use the app to track spending and to watch our debt (slowly) go down.
To get a true reflection of your net worth, you need to add EVERYTHING to it - savings accounts, retirement accounts, credit cards, PayPal, etc. I haven't gone that far - I'm still lacking one car loan, and my mortgage, because lazy.
They also offer investment advice, but it's more in attempt to have you use their services, so take that into consideration.
trigun7469 wrote: In reply to mtn: Are you using a specific template in Excel?
No, I made one. I try to buy everything on credit card so that I only have to track one thing really.
My template basically looks like this: Date----Category----Expense----Amount----Account
It gets bigger and bigger every month; I also have a pivot table for it that summarizes things nice and clear.
Personal Capital works like a champ for everything but my mortgage. The only one I could find that would work with my employer 401k.
I also like the MadFientist FI tracker. But that serves a different purpose.
Robbie wrote: I use Mint. Pro's - automatic tracking (I don't have to do much work), the net worth feature is very good (adds up all your assets and liabilities and graphs over time). Reports are cool, like "how much did I spend at starbucks last year?". Con's - it can double count stuff and therefore its 'minor' categories can get off. (example: if I pay my CC bill, it sees the the transaction in my checking account and since it is negative it counts it as spending, while the positive transaction in my CC account is not grouped under spending since it is a positive transaction. Therefore the CC payment does not get netted out like it should in the spending category, artificially inflating the spending category by quite a bit). It takes a lot of work to review all the transactions and get it perfect.
You could create another account line and simply put an equal negative amount against it. Then when you place a payment subtract that amount off to even it out.
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