Financial tracking

[Irving]

This really should be in the Survival/Preparedness sub-forum (because the first part of being prepared is limiting financial issues), but I want maximum exposure in case there are some users who still exist that don't just click "new posts" like me.

I'm about to go through my 2016 financials by documenting all the spending I did in 2016 by month, hopefully including some graphs or pie charts. The best way to understand ones finances is to see where every single dollar is going. My plan is to use a combination of Mint and either Google Docs and/or Open Office to create the appropriate desired spread sheets. What programs do you use to help track financials?

Mint actually does a great job of tracking everything you allow it access to, as well as providing mostly helpful pie graphs of your spending. At the beginning of this year I decided that I would go through ALL of my spending, each month, and drop it into a monthly spread sheet on Google Docs to see where stuff was going. I was doing it manually and it was a monumental pain in the behind and I did it up until February. Mint will make this easier. I'm reluctant to register with yet another site/app/etc, but would like to see what you guys are using for future reference.

I may end up posting an update when I'm done if there is anything interesting like how much we spent on alcohol in 12 months (I'm guessing over $500 and under $1,000), how much I actually spent on gun related things compared to how much my wife thinks I did, how much I spent on gas (I think around $3,000, but it's been a while since I checked), etc.

Just for additional fun, here is a thread I started in 2013 that I thought was interesting, but ultimately never went anywhere. Perhaps I'll revisit this idea again sometime this year. https://www.ar-15.co/threads/97557-H...+%241%2C000%3F

Here is another thread started by Bailey Guns that needs an update: https://www.ar-15.co/threads/143439-...-Anyone-Invest

[DFBrews]

good timing I am starting my money moustache again and am going to be tracking these things much better instead of checking my account balance and saying eh i have enough

[Jeff350]

I am a YNAB (You Need A Budget) user. Been using it consistently for 3 years now. YNAB is really like a digital "envelope system", meaning you have X amount of money, how are you going to spend it? Groceries, Gas, saving for a car/vacation, paying off debt, etc. Every dollar gets a job, before the month begins. I budget the previous months income for the current months spending, which makes the budgeting process easier.

All that said, it wouldn't be good for looking back at the years spending. Mint might be the best for that. If you are diligent with YNAB, at the end of the year you can run plenty of reports to see where your money has gone.

FYI I use the YNAB classic version, which was a 1 time purchase and you own the software for life. They have gone to a monthly subscription model now, but with automatic imports from your bank. I believe someone has taken the YNAB classic model and is selling it now, but I can't recall the name right now.

[Irving]

I've definitely heard of YNAB. Would you say that it's had a positive affect on how you spend/save your money?

[Rumline]

I've definitely heard of YNAB. Would you say that it's had a positive affect on how you spend/save your money?

I'm another YNAB user and yes it has. I've also used Mint and Quicken (over five years ago) and those didn't seem like anything other than an expense categorization engine. Maybe that's all you're looking for and those would be fine. But YNAB had a different philosophy to it which changed the way I looked at money. This philosophy is baked into how you use it, so it took some getting used to and several hours reading their blog posts and watching YouTube videos. But once I got it, I broke my paycheck-to-paycheck living within two months and never looked back. It encourages you to "spend last month's money" so you're always riding on at least a 30 day cushion. That fact is what was so liberating: with minimal weekly maintenance I don't worry about money anymore; my bills are all on autopay and I don't have to worry about not having enough money to cover it. Plus by checking in at least weekly I make sure I'm staying aligned with my budget and savings goals, but that is not a feature unique to YNAB.

Another part of what I like about YNAB is they know that s*** happens, and the program is written to be flexible when you need to move money between pots or modify your budget etc. Also they make it easy to plan for those yearly recurring expenses like car insurance, Amazon Prime, etc and budget for them monthly so that when the next renewal rolls around you already have the money saved up and don't have to scramble.

[Gman]

My wife is really good with Excel. She has our budget going out for about 5 years. I'm much more vague about my financials. I know where I want to go and work toward it without being fixated on when life happens.

[Skip]

My wife is really good with Excel. She has our budget going out for about 5 years. I'm much more vague about my financials. I know where I want to go and work toward it without being fixated on when life happens.

I use Excel for monthly budget/actuals too.

Every bank service I've used is inaccurate and fails to properly categorize including one time expenses that I want isolated.

With Excel the data is mine. Each month I have to close our accounts and categorize by lines. Probably 30 minutes of work.

[Irving]

I use Excel for monthly budget/actuals too.

Every bank service I've used is inaccurate and fails to properly categorize including one time expenses that I want isolated.

With Excel the data is mine. Each month I have to close our accounts and categorize by lines. Probably 30 minutes of work.

The plan is to use Mint to see all transactions from all sources from each month, in one place, to then take that data and drop into an Excel spread sheet. The problem will remembering what certain uncategorized, or miscategorized transactions were from a year ago. Since it's just person data for my own interests and future planning, an unknown transaction here and there won't be a big deal.

[Skip]

The plan is to use Mint to see all transactions from all sources from each month, in one place, to then take that data and drop into an Excel spread sheet. The problem will remembering what certain uncategorized, or miscategorized transactions were from a year ago. Since it's just person data for my own interests and future planning, an unknown transaction here and there won't be a big deal.

That's not a bad plan.

My "one time" line is for those unknowns that don't fit anywhere else. I add a comment in Excel to indicate what it was.

For example... "AR15 build" How many times does that happen?

[Irving]

So just this year (from the last week of February) I spent $3,462.28 on gas. That's just for my work vehicle. I haven't run the numbers yet, but I'm thinking that is 95% (likely even higher) for work travel, which means I can write most of that off.
At that amount, it's almost, per month, what our health insurance will cost for 2017. I do this stuff for fun, and because I find it is interesting to put things into perspective. If I included the few tanks I ran that were not work related, and all of my wife's gas which is much, much, much less, then I bet we that money spent on gas is about the same as what health insurance will cost.