October 2019 15k SPAM Thread

[LyceeFruit PE]

@squaretaper PE 

 

[JayKay PE]

Does anyone here use any budget apps, like Mint (or any others)?

I used Mint, wasn't that big of a fan.  Recently been using You Need a Budget (YNAB) since February?  You can get a 3-4 month trial for free, I think, if you look around.  I really like it because you can only budget money you have (no forecasting) and you can make as many/as little categories as you want.  Also, I feel the c/c payment is the beeeeeeest.  Like, if I have $50 in my restaurant category and something comes in categorized for the restaurant category, YNAB will move that money into the c/c payment field for that specific card and note if I 'over spent' the category using a credit card.  They have importing for most banks, but I manually update and use the importing as a backup.

Really a great budget app and it's made me realize where my money was going (and helped me be more aware of my c/c and debt repayment).

 

[Orchid PE]

Does anyone here use any budget apps, like Mint (or any others)?

I used to, but it didn't ever help me. I ended up just forecasting my expenses in Excel (then transferred to Google Sheets).  Doing that over the past 4+ years has made more of a difference than budgeting ever did. It's a fairly simple idea, but over time the spreadsheet has gotten more complex, but still has a simple interface.

I just list every day of the year in a column, then list expense/income in a column beside each day, then have a running total. It's nice to see stuff like having a mortgage payment come out on a Thursday, but don't get paid until Friday, so I can't spend more than $X.XX until Friday.

In short, if you're already diligent with money I think forecasting is much more insightful than budgeting.

This helps me visualize, for example, how spending money in January affects my available funds in December.

 

[matt267 PE]

so then why do you have some? 

Just a glitch in the system. 

 

[DoctorWho-PE]

Does anyone here use any budget apps, like Mint (or any others)?

I use Mint from time to time.  I'm not great about budgeting, I figure there is always money in the account, so we must be doing ok. But when were were trying to save money to buy a house, I used it to track if we were on schedule.

 

[JayKay PE]

I used to, but it didn't ever help me. I ended up just forecasting my expenses in Excel (then transferred to Google Sheets).  Doing that over the past 4+ years has made more of a difference than budgeting ever did. It's a fairly simple idea, but over time the spreadsheet has gotten more complex, but still has a simple interface.

I just list every day of the year in a column, then list expense/income in a column beside each day, then have a running total. It's nice to see stuff like having a mortgage payment come out on a Thursday, but don't get paid until Friday, so I can't spend more than $X.XX until Friday.

In short, if you're already diligent with money I think forecasting is much more insightful than budgeting.

This helps me visualize, for example, how spending money in January affects my available funds in December.

I used to use excel to do forecasting, but then I found myself getting lost in things I bought, things I wanted to buy in the future, and not keeping track (I'm not the best with my finances).  Also, the excel file was a pain to see on different computers depending on permissions/where I was. Main reason/the only reason I really like YNAB is that it's an app, so I can check on my phone, and it accurately shows how much I can spend per category, how much I have available, and lets me set goals for specific categories (like a quarterly goal for haircuts or a general category balance for an emergency fund).  I'm slooooowly breaking the paycheck to paycheck cycle, hopefully by my mid-30s I'll be totally debt free, but I know I wouldn't get there without something helping me budget.  Forecasting...is not healthy for JK and is why I ended up prob getting in some of my debt, expecting the money to be there and not really preparing for if it wasn't.

*edit* Yaaaaaaaay.  Top is me talking about how I'm horrible at budgeting a one-person income to survive!  T_T

 

[matt267 PE]

snow spam

 

[Orchid PE]

I'm slooooowly breaking the paycheck to paycheck cycle, hopefully by my mid-30s I'll be totally debt free, but I know I wouldn't get there without something helping me budget. 

The forecasting helped me break living paycheck-to-paycheck and got all my debt paid off (except the house). Only took 2 years. I'm not really someone who spends in "categories."

I do have a budget, but it doesn't change. Like, for entertainment, I have Hulu, Netflix, Google Music, etc. and they are fixed. I don't go out to moves or anything like that. My haircuts are every two weeks, so the "budget" for that doesn't change. I've made all my expenses routine so that they can be forecast. My transportation budgets don't change either since car insurance is on a fixed schedule, and I over budget for gas every week just in case I need a second tank for something.

My spreadsheet is dynamic with monthly, weekly, bi-weekly odd, bi-weekly even, and daily expense blocks that I input (I rarely change them now). I like to think what I've developed is a great combination of budgeting/forecasting. I put it in Google Sheets just so I had the ability to access is on personal computer, work computer, cell phone, tablet, friends phone, etc.

 

[LyceeFruit PE]

it's snowing here too! 

 

[matt267 PE]

damn global warming. 

 

[Orchid PE]

I did try YNAB for a little while and didn't like it. I haven't used a budgeting app that I thought actually worked well.

 

[Orchid PE]

The forecasting helped me break living paycheck-to-paycheck and got all my debt paid off (except the house). Only took 2 years. I'm not really someone who spends in "categories."

I do have a budget, but it doesn't change. Like, for entertainment, I have Hulu, Netflix, Google Music, etc. and they are fixed. I don't go out to moves or anything like that. My haircuts are every two weeks, so the "budget" for that doesn't change. I've made all my expenses routine so that they can be forecast. My transportation budgets don't change either since car insurance is on a fixed schedule, and I over budget for gas every week just in case I need a second tank for something.

My spreadsheet is dynamic with monthly, weekly, bi-weekly odd, bi-weekly even, and daily expense blocks that I input (I rarely change them now). I like to think what I've developed is a great combination of budgeting/forecasting. I put it in Google Sheets just so I had the ability to access is on personal computer, work computer, cell phone, tablet, friends phone, etc.

And it has graphs, which I like.

 

[squaretaper LIT AF PE]

@squaretaper PE 

*snort* So I have 28" monitors and this looks ridiculous, I was literally laughing out loud. You made my day.

 

[JayKay PE]

The forecasting helped me break living paycheck-to-paycheck and got all my debt paid off (except the house). Only took 2 years. I'm not really someone who spends in "categories."

I do have a budget, but it doesn't change. Like, for entertainment, I have Hulu, Netflix, Google Music, etc. and they are fixed. I don't go out to moves or anything like that. My haircuts are every two weeks, so the "budget" for that doesn't change. I've made all my expenses routine so that they can be forecast. My transportation budgets don't change either since car insurance is on a fixed schedule, and I over budget for gas every week just in case I need a second tank for something.

My spreadsheet is dynamic with monthly, weekly, bi-weekly odd, bi-weekly even, and daily expense blocks that I input (I rarely change them now). I like to think what I've developed is a great combination of budgeting/forecasting. I put it in Google Sheets just so I had the ability to access is on personal computer, work computer, cell phone, tablet, friends phone, etc.

See, I have a budget that changes a lot so I need to be a bit more fluid on that and forecasting only got me in trouble, like previously stated.  I like keeping things in categories so I can lump together expenses, like groceries or gifts or whatever and then I can see how that expense changed over time.  I used to use an excel and it did work, but the real reason I like the app (for now) is that it's easy for me to put in multiple transactions and they'll be automatically categorized.  I'm sure I could create an excel for what it's doing right now, and I might next year, but right now I'm using it as a tool to just make me more aware of what exactly I'm doing with my money (both spending, saving, and tracking).

 

[leggo PE]

I think I'm more like you, @JayKay PE. I have many payments that never change (rent, subscriptions, car insurance), but I don't pay the greatest attention to what the rest of my money goes to, and it can vary quite a lot. I'm very aware that I probably spend too much money at Amazon in any given month. I haven't had much success with forecasting in the past. I'm checking out YNAB and doing two months free with them. I like the hands on approach, and will give it a try to see if I like it enough to stick with it and pay the subscription fee.

 

[Orchid PE]

See, I have a budget that changes a lot so I need to be a bit more fluid on that and forecasting only got me in trouble, like previously stated.  I like keeping things in categories so I can lump together expenses, like groceries or gifts or whatever and then I can see how that expense changed over time.  I used to use an excel and it did work, but the real reason I like the app (for now) is that it's easy for me to put in multiple transactions and they'll be automatically categorized.  I'm sure I could create an excel for what it's doing right now, and I might next year, but right now I'm using it as a tool to just make me more aware of what exactly I'm doing with my money (both spending, saving, and tracking).

What I could never get to work was the automatic categorizing. Idk if it was the app or just the way my bank reported the transaction, but things like gas would show up as groceries (because I guess gas stations sell groceries?) and other stuff would be off. So then I would have to spend time going through a majority of the transactions correcting everything. I just got tired of it and figured out something that fit me better.

I think it's good initially for those people that have absolutely no idea where their money goes. I think that's just a stage everyone goes through, and most people never take the time to get their money under control.

 

[LyceeFruit PE]

What I could never get to work was the automatic categorizing. Idk if it was the app or just the way my bank reported the transaction, but things like gas would show up as groceries (because I guess gas stations sell groceries?) and other stuff would be off. So then I would have to spend time going through a majority of the transactions correcting everything. I just got tired of it and figured out something that fit me better.

I think it's good initially for those people that have absolutely no idea where their money goes. I think that's just a stage everyone goes through, and most people never take the time to get their money under control.

That's my beef with Mint. Big Apple Gas was always under electronics because of Apple -___-

 

[Orchid PE]

I almost forgot one other thing I did, which was probably the most important. I created a second checking account with my bank. I created a "budget," but instead of creating "micro" categories I created ones like housing, transportation, debt, utilities, etc. I calculated how much money I needed each month for those "big rocks." Then I calculated how much I wanted to save each month. Then I calculated how much spending money I wanted. Spending money was for haircuts, eating out, etc. anything extra that was not a necessity.

Then I updated my work direct deposit to deposit the amount I wanted to save into savings, then deposit the amount for spending into the second checking, then deposit the rest into the main checking. I put all my expenses on auto pay and connected them to my main checking. Then for spending, I only used the second account.

I then didn't pay any attention to how much money was in my main checking, and I new that if I spent all my spending money I would still have all the bills and savings covered. After a while, with having limited spending money, my spending habits changed. If I only gave myself like $50 for the week for spending, I got into to habit of not just purchasing whatever I wanted off Amazon. I had to be intentional with my spending money. After a while I looked and noticed extra money was building up in my main checking account, so I moved it to savings.

After a while of living like this, I ended up saving enough to pay off debt and developed better spending habits. I eventually went back to one checking account but kept everything on auto pay. Then I got into forecasting, and that's where I have been for the last 4+ years or so. To keep my spending in check, I have a "base" amount I want to keep in my checking account, so whenever I get close to the base amount, I stop spending.

 

[JayKay PE]

What I could never get to work was the automatic categorizing. Idk if it was the app or just the way my bank reported the transaction, but things like gas would show up as groceries (because I guess gas stations sell groceries?) and other stuff would be off. So then I would have to spend time going through a majority of the transactions correcting everything. I just got tired of it and figured out something that fit me better.

I think it's good initially for those people that have absolutely no idea where their money goes. I think that's just a stage everyone goes through, and most people never take the time to get their money under control.

Yeah, I don't know how recently you've looked at the app, but they def have improved the categorizing and everything (I use a weird mish-mosh of the app and the website version).  I mean, you have to 'approve' each transaction that comes through, and now you can 'change the name' of a vendor to what you want and it'll link/change the name through all your reports and everything.  It's gotten good enough that it can tell the difference between my Costco and Costco gas category AND I love the split category they have now, which lets me break my Costco purchase down even further into groceries, home goods, or banana stand money (because sometimes I need to buy something and it's like, $10?).

It was rough the first month, since I was learning a new system and importing/manually inputting everything, but right now it's working really well for me.  I like that I can go back a month and see if I had any c/c float, or if I paid everything off.  

@leggo PE That's me!!!  I'd have set items that came out of my paycheck, and then I'd like "Oh, I can spend this much this month!" and then it'd be like, "Oh no, my money is gone!".  YNAB works because I'd look and be like, "****, I overspent using my c/c in my blank category.  I can cover it from my take out category, and that would make me sad, but technically I won't go any further into debt, which would make me happy!"

 

[civilrobot PE etc etc]

totally just commented in EB Mafia thinking it was the right thread.  

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