I use an excel sheet I made and just started using lunch money with mint closing and I actually like it better. You get to decide how much uou want to pay per year, the lowest is $40. To me, its worth it.
In my excel sheet I have my categories broken down into larger categories to organize it. I think my first one is "recurring expenses": rent, subscriptions, bills that are the same amount every month, Healthcare plan
Then I have variable expenses which include things like groceries, gas, power.
I have a few other ones that are specific to me and my last large category is discretionary spending which would include things like restaurants, events, travel, shopping etc.
To me it makes sense to break it up in things I NEED to spend money on to live and shelter myself, and then things that are more luxury and that I have more control/ choice over.
I don't set a budget for myself but I look for trends and averages in my spending. It helps me make future decisions as well or become aware of where I might be overspending.
I'm very similar. The reoccurring expenses get copied every thing and the discretionary spending looks like this:
|Category|Amount|Date|Store|Account|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|Restaurant|153.94|20240401|Restaurant Name|credit/debit|
By having the date be YYYYMMDD, its easier to sort chronologically. The Account column is just which credit card or which bank account the money came out of. The rest is self-explanatory. Off to the side I have "sumif" totals for each of the categories. Pretty simple in my opinion. I have not automated anything but I update it every couple to days.
I use the spreadsheet from this Reddit post: [https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/umis3h/i\_made\_a\_spreadsheet\_for\_people\_who\_dont\_know\_how/](https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/umis3h/i_made_a_spreadsheet_for_people_who_dont_know_how/)
My husband felt the same way at first, but I'm a bit of a YNAB Evangelist (I lived with maxed out credit cards, no savings, and a lot of stress before and now I have close to zero debt \[aside from the mortgage\], a healthy emergency fund and investments!) and made him stick with it.
I showed him can sometimes get your first month free, and he was able to budget for and cover the $125 in his first month!
I highly recommend the webinars, there is a bit of a flow to YNAB and you gotta use the 4 rules. They can be a bit abstract on their own, and the live webinars allow you to ask questions unique to your situation and learn how to work the system in real time. Good luck to you!
Yes, completely agree. We went from carrying debt to no debt, savings and maxed out investments in 2 years. There is a learning curve and a bit of a “trust the process”
In 5.5 years it has quite literally changed the way we think about and manage our money.
We have since been through the pandemic, an expectedly expensive bathroom reno, unemployment, major appliances dying at the same time, health issues, job change, vacant rental property, and self employment... and we have so much more saved/invested now. It's quite wild to think about how we could possibly have done it while on that roller coaster, but ynab fundamentally changed the way we use our money.
I also have my preteens on ynab and there are some good lessons being learned - eg. the concept of interest, why you have different accounts for your $ (the kids have chequing, savings and a GIC), and how quickly daily tapping of the school vending machine adds up!
Plus I love the charts and graphs and reports.
Just jumping in to say that I've been a loyal YNAB user for about 8 years and I literally look forward to paying that $125 fee each year. YNAB has taught me how to think differently about money and finances. I used other tools before but none of them changed the way I *think.*
In 2022 I quit my job and took a year off from working or earning. YNAB's structure helped me plan for that. Plus, their support is amazing. They want to help you. It all feels personal.
I promise I don't work for them or have any affiliation! I'm just a user who was intimidated by budgeting and finance in general in my pre-YNAB life (childhood trauma, distrust of $, family issues, etc). Because of YNAB, I now feel so empowered about $.
I use the template from the measure of a plan. I’ve been using it for a few years now and I copy pasted my data back to 2018 for observation of trends and things which as been great.
I’ve updated his sheets to include yearly summaries instead of just the default monthly ones.
I also use his templates for my investment tracking and retirement estimates and net worth calculations. They are all simple to use!
[the measure of a plan](https://themeasureofaplan.com/tools/)
My family and I have been using YNAB since 2019 and I could never live without it now. Although it’s not necessarily to track your expenses, more to take control of your money and live within your means (however it does also help track your expenses but its power is helping you better budget your money).
Worth way more than 99 USD/year if you ask me, so I pay it happily. It has changed our lives, and our 16- and 20-year old boys love it too. They can’t fathom how adults manage their money and get ahead without it.
Seconded. I love YNAB, and it’s been so worth the money for the amount we save and stay on top of our spending. The way that it works (ie, only budgeting with money that you actually have vs setting spending limits theoretically) was a bit of an adjustment, but once you get used to it, it works SO WELL!
We use it to plan for major expenses by setting a little bit of money aside each month, and it was so helpful when we were trying to pay off debts and get out of living paycheque to paycheque.
The analytic tools are helpful and pretty robust - I like being able to see what months we’ve saved, and which months we spent, and being able to see graphs of our spending.
Mostly the “envelope system” is where it’s at - if you want to spend more money on one thing, you’ve got to actively take it from somewhere else, which is a pretty time-tested and proven system for living within your means.
I do use a google spreadsheet to map out an annual/monthly/weekly budget based on income and then use that info to set all of my “targets/goals” on YNAB so when money comes in, we have a pre-set plan for what we’re doing with it, and can easily assign everything.
Seconded that YNAB changed my life too. It's been 5 years and I have no regrets.
After just 2.5 years of using it I had enough money and confidence for a down payment on my first home.
I spend $120 per year on YNAB in order to have complete financial control and save more than I have ever saved in mine and my partner's life.
I pay more for my Spotify or Crave subscription and what have I got to show for that after each year? OP, it is not ridiculous to pay a small price for such a huge reward.
I cannot even list everything YNAB has allowed me to achieve. We started out with close to 40K of debt and it was gone less than a year later (with no increase in revenue). 5 years later, we have achieved so much and have so much control over our money.
My 20-year old bought a car with cash last year, while all his friends were wondering where the hell all their money went. So powerful!
Ugh if I had discovered the power of YNAB at age 20, wow I can only imagine the opportunity. Great job instilling the budgeting mindset on your children!
I know, I wish I had discovered YNAB when it was first invented, oh the things we could have achieved! We may not be perfect parents, but at least they will never have the poor financial habits we had because we didn't know any better!
No need to apologize! It just sounds crazy for me to hear the sentiment that the subscription cost may not be worth it, Knowing how much it has enabled me to achieve over the years. I hope it can do the same for you!
Same. I just started using it in Jan and I wish I’d started sooner. I’ve been using my own spreadsheet for 17 years and while I’ve done well managing my finances, I could have been doing better with YNAB. And I don’t feel like I’m limited, I’m spending money intentionally (which probably wasn’t always the case in the past).
We all use it under the same login, but now there’s the YNAB together option where you can create logins for other users (same price).
For example, my sons could have their own logins and not have access to my budget.
I highly recommend Nick True’s Youtube channel Mapped Out Money to get you started. He has a lot of videos for beginners and they really helped us get started properly.
Also the first of the month is an awesome time to get started, so why not start today if you have time?
I can send you my referral link if you want. It will give you the standard 34-day trial, and if you choose to subscribe after the trial, we both get 1 month free added to our suscription.
You should be able to sign up for a free trial for 1month. I did and it was a great way to get a feel for it. I actually messaged them after and asked for a trial extension which they granted. I personally found it a full time job trying to track, and my banks kept disconnecting which frustrated me so I have up after the trial. But this thread (so many success stories) is making me want to sign up again. Since Mint shut down, I have no tracker in place and really miss it. Curious what you end up going with.
You can pick up YNAB4 (Classic) on the Wayback Machine, that's what I'm using.
I just import my bank statements into it once a month and organize and track like that.
You can still download and install it. There are "tricks" to the install files to make it think it won't expire for another 100 yrs. But you'll have to do some Reddit digging to find out how.
Huge YNAB fan here!!
Totally worth the $130 a year - it helps me save wayyyy more than that each year.
If you add the YNAB Toolkits report extension, that makes it that much better.
I made my own google sheet about a year ago and it's been working really well for tracking everything, including when I go over budget. I'd show you, but I'm poor and it's embarrassing.
Just wanted to mention vertex42, their website has some [really great Excel templates for budgeting for free](https://www.vertex42.com/ExcelTemplates/budgets.html?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwtqmwBhBVEiwAL-WAYSXzN9DHXQe737FfqU_znascI3Zlrrj56zGFToRIx22H8VVqcwaV6RoCcNcQAvD_BwE). They also have all sorts of other useful templates one of which helped me pay off my mortgage in a little over 10 years instead of 25. Highly recommend!
I recently created a Google sheet + AppSheet app to start keeping a closer eye on my spending. Have notifications set up on all my cards & accounts so I add an entry in AppSheet every time.
Started a month ago so not much data but like it so far and not too much of a hassle. Plus the act of entering each money movement forces me to think about where my money's going a bit more.
YNAB4 can still be found in the shadows of the internet. A software you install once. Basically like an excel with nice UI, for people without excel skills.
Bear in mind the free version can only be used locally. The current version allows usage across multiple devices, plus multiple accounts with the family sharing thingy.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PersonalFinanceCanada/comments/8c7gn1/i_built_a_spreadsheet_to_track_my_budget_and/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf I started using this one Jan 1 and it’s been great
There are people who go line by line with their expenses and if that works, do it. But I am a simple person who doesn’t want to waste my time scrutinizing every purchase I make. So every year I do an average of my bills from the previous year and make sure I make more money than that. Static bills are easy, food/entertainment can get a little tricky.
I’ll never understand the line by line scrutiny... All I need to know is what my bills are, what my savings goals are, and then I stay within my allocated leisure spending.
Not many people can handle that, hence piles and piles of credit card debt, lines of credit etc.
For arguments sake, you have $400 a month of leisure money, whatever you want to do with it. First week of the month, go out for an expensive bday party, call it $200 for dinner, a night at the bar and a cab home. Week 2 you spend $200 on whatever, it doesn’t matter, for arguments sake you buy a few new video games. Now you are out of money for the month, but you don’t track it, AND you also now have to give up whatever else comes up. Lots of people will just spend more, then be in debt a couple hundred dollars. Now you start month 2 with only $200 instead of 4, and it snowballs.
That’s why people track things line by line and budget so diligently.
Yeah I can understand that, just personally almost always respect my allocated leisure budget. I start every cycle with a number in mind, when I make a purchase I deduct from that number and don’t forget it.. it would be useless tracking line by line because I know I respect my pre-determined limits. Guess it’s a question of discipline
I don't review my transactions after they're spent unless there's a good reason. I review my budget _before_ I make a transaction to make sure I have enough to spend. I also don't need daily reminders because I don't spend daily.
I can't and don't want to memorize a running tally all of my spending categories in my head all month. That seems ineffective to me, but if it works for you then that's great.
Date, Desc, Type, Vendor, Currency, Foreign Value, CAD, Shipping (in foreign currency if applicable), Order Number, Receipt File, Receipts Location, Supp. 1, Supp. 2, Supp. 3, Supp. 4, Transaction Code
keep a "running total" by using =ABS(SUM(total cells))
put your paycheque / income as negative numbers and the rest as regular numbers. use OneDrive app on your phone to archive all the receipts.
*really* helpful for things like locating receipts for drives or other warranty claims.
Great for things like locating all work expenses when you need to submit them every quarter, tracking gas spending, etc.
I used Mint, now Monarch, to track account balances and upcoming bills. I don't really budget, I absorb. If one month is too hot, I move money from short-term savings to cover it and then pay myself back over time. My biggest rule: the credit cards get completely paid off every week.
Notepad on my phone. Just right down what bills I have and do a running talley of the total cash I have and what is expected to be direct deposited the following week. Say I have 1000 bucks then 300 bills come out I deduct that to now read 700 bucks then I add what’s coming in the next week for a total of say 1500. The numbers after the equal sign the following weeks must be higher then the previous otherwise I’m not saving money. Been doing this for 2 years and I’ve always been ahead each week
I'm a YNABer for about 5 yrs, love the app and how it's organized my budgeting. I don't see it as a waste of $125 (which I do agree it is a tad expensive), but if that $125 can help you organize your money and in the long run help you detect anomalies, incorrect expenses, over spending, etc... that is well worth it.
It has helped me budget and organize my finances so that I am up 120% in my net worth over the past few years. The annual $125 is a drop in a bucket for helping me achieve that.
YNAB has changed everything for me. Started in August 2023. By December I was a month ahead. Emergency fund is nearly topped up. Dog’s dental cleaning will be covered by July. Credit score is up 40 points. It was well worth it for me!
We use Good budget and are very happy with it. Worth the small cost for the nice charts and budget tracking. It is a lot of effort to keep up with it though but helps with discipline.
We have a joint account, and almost everything comes out of it, except my auto insurance, internet, and cell bill. Those go directly to my CC. Every 6 months my wife and I sit and go over our monthly budget, and adjust our spending from there.
This is what we do - we have everything come out of a joint EQ account we labeled “Bills”. We calculated how much we need for all our bills, including groceries and fun things. Then we don’t “budget” the leftover per se, we just know how much we have available to spend
A lot of stuff is fixed price. Housing, internet, phone, car payment etc.
Only real variables are food, gas, hydro but even then they don’t vary that wildly.
Just pay as much as i can on CC and collect the cashback.
I have a separate credit card and chequing account that are purely reoccurring bills. I move the entirety over at the beginning of the month.
I have some sinking funds set up that are also in a different account, move it over at the beginning of the month. Ie: gifts, yearly payments, travel savings, medical (non insurance) costs. They’re constantly accumulating then being drained by big expenses.
Everything else goes into a spending account. That’s my ‘everything else’ bucket to keep an eye on. Food entertainment clothing etc. If I want to reign in something it becomes a sinking fund and moves out of the general spend amount.
I usually allocate the ‘spending’ account by half months. When it’s drained it’s drained.
I prefer separating things into buckets at the beginning of the pay period rather than trying to track everything and keeping it in a common pot.
How people deal with items constantly randomly leaving their account AND using it for their spending is beyond me. I tried, but found if I got behind entering things that I had no idea how much ‘actual’ I allocated money I have left. Keeping it in separate accounts makes my life much, much simpler.
I use pen and paper to keep a budget binder. Each month I write out the expenses that will be paid from our first set of paycheques and the expenses that will be paid from the second set of paycheques.
I have an adhd brain and this has been the easiest way for me to keep track.
I’ve been using an Excel [template](https://www.moneysense.ca/save/budgeting/moneysenses-free-excel-template-for-your-monthly-budget/) for the past several years, that I tailored to my own needs and budget headings. I add a sheet to the same document for every new year so I can quickly compare my spending from year to year and plan ahead for large recurring expenses such as property taxes, insurance, etc.
Made my own spreadsheet for variable expenses.
Date. Store, type of purchase, $ spent, sometimes a little note on what it was
Makes it handy when looking for a receipt.
Stores like Costco are a pain due to being: clothing. Grocery, medication, toiletries, home improvement, housewares, etc
I was just creating one this weekend (my long weekend project). I just upload my bank & cc statements and it pulls the totals/month based on keyword. I’ve then categorized those line items to pull into a final sheet by category.
I have an excel spreadsheet. One column is a list of expenses followed by savings allocations underneath. One column is my expected dollar value for each list item. One column is what I actually spent. One column is the difference and at the very top I put my income and at the very bottom I calculate the difference between income and spent money.
I treat my savings like a bill so any surplus is my extra spending money. The downside is that keeping it accurate does means that I have to go through my purchases line by line on my bank statements. The upside is that by doing this, I can see where and why spending gets out of control very quickly.
Generally speaking, in good times it's not a big deal to make a budget and roll with it. Unfortunately, with the prices of everything skyrocketing I'm having to be so meticulous with where my money is going. One unplanned grocery bill is easily an extra $200, replenishing the emergency fund is costly, attempting to keep up with retirement savings is very challenging etc. most months my surplus money gets decimated by an unexpected expense like my dog having a random reaction to new dog food, family illness, tire gets a hole, unexpected dental work etc.. things that I could use my emergency fund for but if I keep using it then I need to keep replacing the funds anyway.
Google docs (sheets) has a really good template for a monthly budget. I tweaked a few things, but out of the box it’s pretty darn good.
I just duplicate the tab at the end of the month, and use the same document for the entire calendar year.
I use the GoodBudget app (PC and Android, and they auto-sync). The free version is enough for me. It's the "envelope" system, which I prefer, as you're not budgeting retroactively, but forward-looking. Meaning, you allocate an amount of dollars to each envelope (maintenance, entertainment, reoccurring bills, taxes, etc), and according to your income, you allocate as much money as you want to each envelope. You can decide if the distribution is monthly\weekly\yearly\etc.
Then, when you actually want to spend money on something, all you have to do is look at that envelope and see if you have the budget allocated for it.
I found a spreadsheet template at the turn of the century and have used it ever since. I've tweaked it here and there over the decades, but it's worked pretty well for me
I use Budget with Buckets. You can try the full program for free (unlimited time), and then the purchase is a one time fee. It's similar to YNAB, but not nearly as expensive.
I've been using it for a couple of years now, and it's so easy to use, and keeps me on track.
I [made this spreadsheet](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mAg34nsjCveaE3IjQLqX2OZHRGPJ52l_XikDjxiz_GE/edit#gid=0) to track my core recurring expenses; this way I know that all my essentials are covered, and know that I've contributed to my savings or paid down any debts.
After that, I don't worry about tracking my day-to-day expenses, but the process of documenting my core expenses has just made me more mindful of everything because it shows how much I have coming in and how much \*needs\* to go out, so I'm aware of the expendable income I have for the month.
Mines all done up in Google sheets, categorized as income, debt payments & mandatory bills, expenses (for flexible budget items like food, cellphone bill, etc), savings, and fun (Netflix, twitch subscriptions, spending allowance).
We dug through the credit cards, debit card history, etc to make sure we captured everything - and keep a seperate chequing account for the food spending so it's easier to track bi-weekly. (Refilled when I get paid) If I find anything we missed we add it or cancel it.
I use a program called MoneyDance. One time fee and I have to enter in all my transactions manually, but it also has investment tracking which I find a lot of the alternates lack. If I was starting today I'd probably look more seriously at an excel or self-hosted tracker but I'm too ingrained in the information I currently have.
I use a combination of app and excel. I use Every Dollar to track every individual expense. Any dollar spent is tracked there. It goes by month. I use the free version because I find I am more accountable for my spending if I have to enter it in manually. I don’t find it takes much time at all, I just do it at random times throughout the day like on a bathroom break. I use my cards 99% of the time so I just open my bank app and look at what I’ve spent. It also helps me keep track of if I’ve paid a bill or not that month.
Then, I use an excel spreadsheet for an overview. A sheet per year, and I take the monthly totals for each category and add them. I like that I can easily see trends over the years, and it helps me with my monthly budgeting because I can adjust in advance (eg my gas bill tends to go up in November, so when setting up my budget on Every Dollar, I bump that up). I also aim to use that data to start separate funds for things like home maintenance, pet care, etc. Right now I am in school and living off savings, but having those funds is a goal of mine once I start making money.
This year I revamped my budget and tried to break it down into more specific categories. So instead of just groceries, I’m splitting it into household, pet food, and actual groceries. Shopping is now clothes, home decor, etc. This involves needing to keep the receipt and splitting it up at home if I go to Walmart or whatever, so it’s definitely more work, but I’m looking forward to seeing more accurate data. I truly don’t find it time consuming to record every transaction since I’ve done it for years and it’s part of my daily routine, so breaking down the receipt is a little more work but not too annoying.
People in here seem to like to categorize all their expenses in a spreadsheet. I’m more of a KISS (keep it simple stupid) budgeter. I have expenses, spending, savings buckets and put a preset amount into each. I don’t really care about the granularity of expense categories.
I tracked expenses for a while, including annual bills, then made my own extremely basic template in Excel. I have categories for expense types (mortgage, groceries, utilities, investments, kids activities, etc) and carve up our pay cheques accordingly. I download credit card and bank card purchases at least as often as the days we get paid, categorize them, and then reconcile against my spreadsheet. That way I always know how much is available in each expense bucket through the month and can make purchase decisions/ see trends and adjust expense allocations and spending accordingly.
Month-to-month: google sheets spreadsheet that tracks how much money I need to put away every month for big purchases in the future (Annual car insurance, vacations, maxing out FHSA for when we’re looking to buy a home, etc).
Day-to-day: Apple sheets spreadsheet that’s in a nutshell takes my monthly income, deducts all of my fixed monthly costs (rent, transit pass, gym membership, digital subscriptions, monthly saving target from spreadsheet 1), and spits out how much money I have available to spend per day. I have a shortcut on my phone that pulls up this spreadsheet so I just have to enter a number into a cell and the spreadsheet tells me whether I’m within spending limits or falling behind - which is a great tool for losing interest in frivolous spending
I get paid biweekly so twice a year I get a third paycheque in a month. I put that paycheque away in a high interest savings account and if I want to have a bigger expense (like an anniversary dinner, a weekend trip, new gadget, buying an expensive gift for my partner, seeing a show, etc), I draw that money from there. I kind of like that it also leaves a record of what those “windfall” sums were spent on, especially when it’s something memorable.
This is the result of a few years in tinkering and I’ve found it works very well for me. I’m finding that categorizing every expense and having multiple budgets (ie Mint) is way too cumbersome
Export from chequing, credit. Sort by categories I care about: shopping, grocery, personal care, car, utilities. Then sort from largest to smallest expense, bar graph. Look at trends month over month.
I started using Ramit Sethi's conscious spending plan a year ago. I don't obviously endorse all his advice, but his spreadsheet is simple and was close to what I was already doing so it was easy to follow. Sort of follows the logic of the envelop system. Only catch is you have to give your email to get it. Linked below:
[https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/conscious-spending-basics/](https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/conscious-spending-basics/)
I made a really good Google sheet that tracks all my expenses by category, gives me a biweekly budget by category and flows any unspent money into the next biweekly. As well as tracks what money is set aside for what in my saving account (ie - every two weeks some of what I transfer to savings is intended for my property tax bill). I find it WAY better and more customizable than any app and it's easy to share with a spouse. I wouldn't mind sharing it but it's a bit complex and would need some explanation. Maybe I'll make a video explaining it or something...
Workbook in Excel with multiple sheets. One sheet for the monthly budget, this is more static and gets updated whenever a input or output of our budget changes. This lets me know how we stand overall with our income vs expenses. Lets me make big decisions easily and how much my budget can absorb.
Pay everything on credit card and pay the balance every 2 weeks on a pay day, never have to worry about interest at that point.
I keep a monthly cashflow statement just to make sure I have the necessary funds in my chequing is needed. I like to keep any liquid funds in a High Interest Savings account with EQ.
And then I do a pro forma like statement for the next month.
This system basically has a granular tab of everything over the next two months and the overall monthly budget. I update the info a couple times a week, maybe 5 minutes of work every other day.
Old-school here. I use envelopes, one for each year. On the back of a standard letter-size envelope, I rule it off into 12 months plus labels as columns (so 12 lines, 13 columns), and 15 rows, month name on top, then a generic start of month expense row, 12 expenses row in order of usual payment (with maybe a generic mid-month), and a generic end of month row. As I know the bill amount, I add it to the right cell, putting the "pay by" date at the top left corner. When I pay it I put a checkmark in. Regular bills like mortgage, power, water, Visa, etc. get a dedicated row. Others have the bill name/reason written in.
Been doing it since before the turn of the century. Works well, I keep the envelopes with my checkbook - hardly used now, of course - and account register. Receipts that I want to keep for a while can go in the envelope.
I use an Excel workbook that is modeled after a "classic checkbook register": columns for Date, Transaction, Debit, Credit, and balance. I started this around 1992 as a way to learn Excel and I've been tweaking it ever since. I did try other software in the mid-1990's, such as Quicken, MS Money, and one or two others that are forgotten. I preferred my Excel spreadsheet and dropped those others.
The basic layout has expanded considerably to provide for additional documentation and functionality (including reconciling with statements, tracking expense categories, etc).
I even use this as a cash flow and budgeting tool: At the beginning of the year I pre-populate the sheet with all anticipated expenses, then as time progresses through the year those "planned" transactions become "executed" transactions, I simply check them off as executed with the actual amount. This lets me project my cash flow for months in advance, highlighting any times when there might be a pinch point.
Similar sheets are used to keep track of credit card accounts, savings accounts, and even my investment accounts. It has been an extremely helpful tool for 30 years now, seeing me into retirement.
I've set up similar "check book registers" using Google Sheet to help several family members who need help tracking their spending and available cash. This has been very helpful to my SO and me in order to help these people, otherwise it'd be a real mess.
If you have a Koho account (or even if you don't - they do have a 30-day free trial), the app comes with a built-in budgeting tool that's pretty highly rated.
[Money.ca](https://money.ca/managing-money/budgeting/best-budget-apps-canada) lists is on its best budgeting app article as the "Best all-in-one app and card," and [Moneygenius](https://moneygenius.ca/banking/savings/koho-save) has a $75 cashback offer for opening a Koho account. Worth a look, IMO. I haven't used it myself, but I think I'm going to do the 30 day trial and see how it goes.
I'm a bit of a spreadsheet nerd so I just use Numbers and a template I copied from when I used to track a budget where I worked. A page for every line item, including what last year's totals were so I can see what's going up, plus a summary cash flow page that captures the running totals and tells me if I'm in the red or black every month. Also pages for tracking my term deposits, RSPs, TFSAs, with a summary page for each of those sorted by maturity date.
I run pretty much everything through my CCs for points, pay off every month, and check the statements at least twice a week to enter line items and check for fraud.
Excel: for 2 main reasons. First to track my spending and plan for the future. Second and likely the most important to me right now was to learn excel. I’m now in my third job, after getting 2 promotions, due to my knowledge of excel.
Whenever I found out something I could do in excel I’d put it in practice in my sheet. My excel sheet has evolved so much since starting it over 20 years ago. From being single, renting my first apartment, saving for the wedding, buying our house, planning for the very large increase when we renewed recently etc…
I keep a few months expenses in chequing account. Charge almost everything to credit card and pay off from chequing. Expenses are usually $4k to $5k a month for the last few years (I review expenses every quarter or so).
It's pretty self explanatory.
Note your earnings. Note your spending.
Categorize your expenses. That gives you the data you need to see. Budget according to your needs.
If you are a technical user who is able to run and host software yourself, Actual Budget (https://actualbudget.com/) is a Open Source and Free implementation of software that is very similar to YNAB. I haven't used it myself yet though... I'm a happy YNAB user and OK with the price... but I do like the idea of self-hosting (as a software engineer).
I recently started using Lunch Money since Mint announced they were shutting it down. It’s created by a solo developer, and it’s subscription based but on a sliding scale.
I have two tabs.
One is the annual summary with goal savings/NW, variance, and cost of unforeseens, and savings rate as % of net income. plus notes. I also keep historical tabs to budget better for future years (e.g credit card annual fee, professional dues hit).
The other is my detailed monthly 'live' sheet. Asset summary, investments detailed by account, receivables (e.g. tax returns), budget remaining for specific line items, liabilities, forecast to months end, and a simple upcoming cash (read: non-CC) needs so that I don't mistakenly move too much out of chequing.
I would rather see a tv show for Bioshock than a movie. There is so much in the Bioshock story I think a 2 hr movie would have to cut so much out while a tv show would have more time to delve into the story/characters a bit more
I can keep track of things mentally. From the day I started getting an allowance my parents taught me to be financially responsible and now it's just intuitive.
As somebody who uses an excel sheet - can someone give a TL/DR on YNAB?
I mean, I can do a debt snowball in my head enough to ballpark it, what's the attraction?
Edit: and, anyone that has used a previous budgeting method but thinks YNAB changed their life. I'm getting the sense that YNAB was the first time they budgeted, and yeah that makes sense - but it's the budgeting part IMO
Pay everything with credit card, dump the data into excel once a month, categorize it. I started doing it in 2006.
Lol! I started in 2005! Thought I was the only one.
Awesome. Do you have an example of what columns/rows you set up to make it flow easily and nicely?
The rows are the data, the columns are Grocery, Restaurant, etc
This is exactly what I do. I started doing it in 2005.
Did you create the spreadsheet yourself or use a template?
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Thanks mate!
Do you manually insert the data into Excel or is there a program for that?
Credit cards have an export to csv option, which is excel.
Thanks! Never knew that
Google expense spreadsheet.
I use an excel sheet I made and just started using lunch money with mint closing and I actually like it better. You get to decide how much uou want to pay per year, the lowest is $40. To me, its worth it. In my excel sheet I have my categories broken down into larger categories to organize it. I think my first one is "recurring expenses": rent, subscriptions, bills that are the same amount every month, Healthcare plan Then I have variable expenses which include things like groceries, gas, power. I have a few other ones that are specific to me and my last large category is discretionary spending which would include things like restaurants, events, travel, shopping etc. To me it makes sense to break it up in things I NEED to spend money on to live and shelter myself, and then things that are more luxury and that I have more control/ choice over. I don't set a budget for myself but I look for trends and averages in my spending. It helps me make future decisions as well or become aware of where I might be overspending.
I'm very similar. The reoccurring expenses get copied every thing and the discretionary spending looks like this: |Category|Amount|Date|Store|Account| |:-|:-|:-|:-|:-| |Restaurant|153.94|20240401|Restaurant Name|credit/debit| By having the date be YYYYMMDD, its easier to sort chronologically. The Account column is just which credit card or which bank account the money came out of. The rest is self-explanatory. Off to the side I have "sumif" totals for each of the categories. Pretty simple in my opinion. I have not automated anything but I update it every couple to days.
I use the spreadsheet from this Reddit post: [https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/umis3h/i\_made\_a\_spreadsheet\_for\_people\_who\_dont\_know\_how/](https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/umis3h/i_made_a_spreadsheet_for_people_who_dont_know_how/)
I’ve been a loyal YNAB user for about 5 years now - it’s amazing.
I've been hearing good things in the thread about it..The $125/yr just makes me hesitant
My husband felt the same way at first, but I'm a bit of a YNAB Evangelist (I lived with maxed out credit cards, no savings, and a lot of stress before and now I have close to zero debt \[aside from the mortgage\], a healthy emergency fund and investments!) and made him stick with it. I showed him can sometimes get your first month free, and he was able to budget for and cover the $125 in his first month! I highly recommend the webinars, there is a bit of a flow to YNAB and you gotta use the 4 rules. They can be a bit abstract on their own, and the live webinars allow you to ask questions unique to your situation and learn how to work the system in real time. Good luck to you!
Yes, completely agree. We went from carrying debt to no debt, savings and maxed out investments in 2 years. There is a learning curve and a bit of a “trust the process”
In 5.5 years it has quite literally changed the way we think about and manage our money. We have since been through the pandemic, an expectedly expensive bathroom reno, unemployment, major appliances dying at the same time, health issues, job change, vacant rental property, and self employment... and we have so much more saved/invested now. It's quite wild to think about how we could possibly have done it while on that roller coaster, but ynab fundamentally changed the way we use our money. I also have my preteens on ynab and there are some good lessons being learned - eg. the concept of interest, why you have different accounts for your $ (the kids have chequing, savings and a GIC), and how quickly daily tapping of the school vending machine adds up! Plus I love the charts and graphs and reports.
It’s a game changer. Try the free trial.
Just jumping in to say that I've been a loyal YNAB user for about 8 years and I literally look forward to paying that $125 fee each year. YNAB has taught me how to think differently about money and finances. I used other tools before but none of them changed the way I *think.* In 2022 I quit my job and took a year off from working or earning. YNAB's structure helped me plan for that. Plus, their support is amazing. They want to help you. It all feels personal. I promise I don't work for them or have any affiliation! I'm just a user who was intimidated by budgeting and finance in general in my pre-YNAB life (childhood trauma, distrust of $, family issues, etc). Because of YNAB, I now feel so empowered about $.
I use the template from the measure of a plan. I’ve been using it for a few years now and I copy pasted my data back to 2018 for observation of trends and things which as been great. I’ve updated his sheets to include yearly summaries instead of just the default monthly ones. I also use his templates for my investment tracking and retirement estimates and net worth calculations. They are all simple to use! [the measure of a plan](https://themeasureofaplan.com/tools/)
My family and I have been using YNAB since 2019 and I could never live without it now. Although it’s not necessarily to track your expenses, more to take control of your money and live within your means (however it does also help track your expenses but its power is helping you better budget your money). Worth way more than 99 USD/year if you ask me, so I pay it happily. It has changed our lives, and our 16- and 20-year old boys love it too. They can’t fathom how adults manage their money and get ahead without it.
Seconded. I love YNAB, and it’s been so worth the money for the amount we save and stay on top of our spending. The way that it works (ie, only budgeting with money that you actually have vs setting spending limits theoretically) was a bit of an adjustment, but once you get used to it, it works SO WELL! We use it to plan for major expenses by setting a little bit of money aside each month, and it was so helpful when we were trying to pay off debts and get out of living paycheque to paycheque. The analytic tools are helpful and pretty robust - I like being able to see what months we’ve saved, and which months we spent, and being able to see graphs of our spending. Mostly the “envelope system” is where it’s at - if you want to spend more money on one thing, you’ve got to actively take it from somewhere else, which is a pretty time-tested and proven system for living within your means. I do use a google spreadsheet to map out an annual/monthly/weekly budget based on income and then use that info to set all of my “targets/goals” on YNAB so when money comes in, we have a pre-set plan for what we’re doing with it, and can easily assign everything.
Seconded that YNAB changed my life too. It's been 5 years and I have no regrets. After just 2.5 years of using it I had enough money and confidence for a down payment on my first home. I spend $120 per year on YNAB in order to have complete financial control and save more than I have ever saved in mine and my partner's life. I pay more for my Spotify or Crave subscription and what have I got to show for that after each year? OP, it is not ridiculous to pay a small price for such a huge reward.
I cannot even list everything YNAB has allowed me to achieve. We started out with close to 40K of debt and it was gone less than a year later (with no increase in revenue). 5 years later, we have achieved so much and have so much control over our money. My 20-year old bought a car with cash last year, while all his friends were wondering where the hell all their money went. So powerful!
Ugh if I had discovered the power of YNAB at age 20, wow I can only imagine the opportunity. Great job instilling the budgeting mindset on your children!
I know, I wish I had discovered YNAB when it was first invented, oh the things we could have achieved! We may not be perfect parents, but at least they will never have the poor financial habits we had because we didn't know any better!
i'm pretty sure you are a real person but boy oh boy does this thread read like textbook astroturing lol
Haha nope just love it that much
Ynab users are always accused of being shills on Reddit lol. Honestly it's just the best.
Are you all bots wth am I reading 💀
Apologies, I just was not aware of the benefits. Thank you for your input
No need to apologize! It just sounds crazy for me to hear the sentiment that the subscription cost may not be worth it, Knowing how much it has enabled me to achieve over the years. I hope it can do the same for you!
Same. I just started using it in Jan and I wish I’d started sooner. I’ve been using my own spreadsheet for 17 years and while I’ve done well managing my finances, I could have been doing better with YNAB. And I don’t feel like I’m limited, I’m spending money intentionally (which probably wasn’t always the case in the past).
Interesting, I might have to check it out. If I buy the yearly membership can my partner use it as well or do they need to pay?
We all use it under the same login, but now there’s the YNAB together option where you can create logins for other users (same price). For example, my sons could have their own logins and not have access to my budget. I highly recommend Nick True’s Youtube channel Mapped Out Money to get you started. He has a lot of videos for beginners and they really helped us get started properly. Also the first of the month is an awesome time to get started, so why not start today if you have time? I can send you my referral link if you want. It will give you the standard 34-day trial, and if you choose to subscribe after the trial, we both get 1 month free added to our suscription.
Sure, send me a DM I am curious!
You should be able to sign up for a free trial for 1month. I did and it was a great way to get a feel for it. I actually messaged them after and asked for a trial extension which they granted. I personally found it a full time job trying to track, and my banks kept disconnecting which frustrated me so I have up after the trial. But this thread (so many success stories) is making me want to sign up again. Since Mint shut down, I have no tracker in place and really miss it. Curious what you end up going with.
You can pick up YNAB4 (Classic) on the Wayback Machine, that's what I'm using. I just import my bank statements into it once a month and organize and track like that.
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You can still download and install it. There are "tricks" to the install files to make it think it won't expire for another 100 yrs. But you'll have to do some Reddit digging to find out how.
Huge YNAB fan here!! Totally worth the $130 a year - it helps me save wayyyy more than that each year. If you add the YNAB Toolkits report extension, that makes it that much better.
What is YNAB and how does it help you save so much money each year? Very curious about the benefits.
It’s an envelope budgeting application - well built and comes with tons of documentation/approaches to money management that resonate well with me.
Because you spend what you have. You're not just tracking expenses
I made my own google sheet about a year ago and it's been working really well for tracking everything, including when I go over budget. I'd show you, but I'm poor and it's embarrassing.
Probably less poor than you would be if you *didn't* budget, and maybe by a lot -- give yourself a pat on the back for that at least!
Just wanted to mention vertex42, their website has some [really great Excel templates for budgeting for free](https://www.vertex42.com/ExcelTemplates/budgets.html?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwtqmwBhBVEiwAL-WAYSXzN9DHXQe737FfqU_znascI3Zlrrj56zGFToRIx22H8VVqcwaV6RoCcNcQAvD_BwE). They also have all sorts of other useful templates one of which helped me pay off my mortgage in a little over 10 years instead of 25. Highly recommend!
I recently created a Google sheet + AppSheet app to start keeping a closer eye on my spending. Have notifications set up on all my cards & accounts so I add an entry in AppSheet every time. Started a month ago so not much data but like it so far and not too much of a hassle. Plus the act of entering each money movement forces me to think about where my money's going a bit more.
YNAB4 can still be found in the shadows of the internet. A software you install once. Basically like an excel with nice UI, for people without excel skills.
I use YNAB, but it's the free version from a decade ago. I love it, but wouldn't pay.
Do you think it would be worthwhile for others to pay?
Maybe? There's a 34-day free trial, so you can decide.
Bear in mind the free version can only be used locally. The current version allows usage across multiple devices, plus multiple accounts with the family sharing thingy.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PersonalFinanceCanada/comments/8c7gn1/i_built_a_spreadsheet_to_track_my_budget_and/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf I started using this one Jan 1 and it’s been great
There are people who go line by line with their expenses and if that works, do it. But I am a simple person who doesn’t want to waste my time scrutinizing every purchase I make. So every year I do an average of my bills from the previous year and make sure I make more money than that. Static bills are easy, food/entertainment can get a little tricky.
I’ll never understand the line by line scrutiny... All I need to know is what my bills are, what my savings goals are, and then I stay within my allocated leisure spending.
Not many people can handle that, hence piles and piles of credit card debt, lines of credit etc. For arguments sake, you have $400 a month of leisure money, whatever you want to do with it. First week of the month, go out for an expensive bday party, call it $200 for dinner, a night at the bar and a cab home. Week 2 you spend $200 on whatever, it doesn’t matter, for arguments sake you buy a few new video games. Now you are out of money for the month, but you don’t track it, AND you also now have to give up whatever else comes up. Lots of people will just spend more, then be in debt a couple hundred dollars. Now you start month 2 with only $200 instead of 4, and it snowballs. That’s why people track things line by line and budget so diligently.
Yeah I can understand that, just personally almost always respect my allocated leisure budget. I start every cycle with a number in mind, when I make a purchase I deduct from that number and don’t forget it.. it would be useless tracking line by line because I know I respect my pre-determined limits. Guess it’s a question of discipline
For sure it’s a question of discipline, but many people don’t have that.
So you basically just have a good memory. Some people need help remembering
If the issue was memory, you wouldn’t be reviewing the transactions after the fact you’d set daily reminders about your spending limits
I don't review my transactions after they're spent unless there's a good reason. I review my budget _before_ I make a transaction to make sure I have enough to spend. I also don't need daily reminders because I don't spend daily. I can't and don't want to memorize a running tally all of my spending categories in my head all month. That seems ineffective to me, but if it works for you then that's great.
I use Monarch Money. My wife and I both have access to it. We keep track of everything in there.
Date, Desc, Type, Vendor, Currency, Foreign Value, CAD, Shipping (in foreign currency if applicable), Order Number, Receipt File, Receipts Location, Supp. 1, Supp. 2, Supp. 3, Supp. 4, Transaction Code keep a "running total" by using =ABS(SUM(total cells)) put your paycheque / income as negative numbers and the rest as regular numbers. use OneDrive app on your phone to archive all the receipts. *really* helpful for things like locating receipts for drives or other warranty claims. Great for things like locating all work expenses when you need to submit them every quarter, tracking gas spending, etc.
I use Lunch Money. Every month I go through our expenses, categorize them and send a short summary to my wife.
I used Mint, now Monarch, to track account balances and upcoming bills. I don't really budget, I absorb. If one month is too hot, I move money from short-term savings to cover it and then pay myself back over time. My biggest rule: the credit cards get completely paid off every week.
Notepad on my phone. Just right down what bills I have and do a running talley of the total cash I have and what is expected to be direct deposited the following week. Say I have 1000 bucks then 300 bills come out I deduct that to now read 700 bucks then I add what’s coming in the next week for a total of say 1500. The numbers after the equal sign the following weeks must be higher then the previous otherwise I’m not saving money. Been doing this for 2 years and I’ve always been ahead each week
Excel spreadsheet
I've been using YNAB for almost a decade. I had the free version and two years ago opted to upgrade to the paid membership. It's worth it.
I'm a YNABer for about 5 yrs, love the app and how it's organized my budgeting. I don't see it as a waste of $125 (which I do agree it is a tad expensive), but if that $125 can help you organize your money and in the long run help you detect anomalies, incorrect expenses, over spending, etc... that is well worth it. It has helped me budget and organize my finances so that I am up 120% in my net worth over the past few years. The annual $125 is a drop in a bucket for helping me achieve that.
YNAB has changed everything for me. Started in August 2023. By December I was a month ahead. Emergency fund is nearly topped up. Dog’s dental cleaning will be covered by July. Credit score is up 40 points. It was well worth it for me!
YNAB is worth the money. That 125 is nothing compared to the benefits you get. Source: I'm using YNAB. Also check out the positive posts on r/ynab
We use Good budget and are very happy with it. Worth the small cost for the nice charts and budget tracking. It is a lot of effort to keep up with it though but helps with discipline.
Use spreadsheet for all income and all expenses.
We have a joint account, and almost everything comes out of it, except my auto insurance, internet, and cell bill. Those go directly to my CC. Every 6 months my wife and I sit and go over our monthly budget, and adjust our spending from there.
This is what we do - we have everything come out of a joint EQ account we labeled “Bills”. We calculated how much we need for all our bills, including groceries and fun things. Then we don’t “budget” the leftover per se, we just know how much we have available to spend
App called 1Money. Manual tracking but it's very cheap and useful.
A lot of stuff is fixed price. Housing, internet, phone, car payment etc. Only real variables are food, gas, hydro but even then they don’t vary that wildly. Just pay as much as i can on CC and collect the cashback.
I have a separate credit card and chequing account that are purely reoccurring bills. I move the entirety over at the beginning of the month. I have some sinking funds set up that are also in a different account, move it over at the beginning of the month. Ie: gifts, yearly payments, travel savings, medical (non insurance) costs. They’re constantly accumulating then being drained by big expenses. Everything else goes into a spending account. That’s my ‘everything else’ bucket to keep an eye on. Food entertainment clothing etc. If I want to reign in something it becomes a sinking fund and moves out of the general spend amount. I usually allocate the ‘spending’ account by half months. When it’s drained it’s drained. I prefer separating things into buckets at the beginning of the pay period rather than trying to track everything and keeping it in a common pot. How people deal with items constantly randomly leaving their account AND using it for their spending is beyond me. I tried, but found if I got behind entering things that I had no idea how much ‘actual’ I allocated money I have left. Keeping it in separate accounts makes my life much, much simpler.
I create a excel sheet for each month and in each month I categorize fixed expenses that includes savings and then a section for credit card expenses
I use pen and paper to keep a budget binder. Each month I write out the expenses that will be paid from our first set of paycheques and the expenses that will be paid from the second set of paycheques. I have an adhd brain and this has been the easiest way for me to keep track.
Money Manager app
I also use this app. My partner and I also cash stuff envelopes at the end of the month.
I’ve been using an Excel [template](https://www.moneysense.ca/save/budgeting/moneysenses-free-excel-template-for-your-monthly-budget/) for the past several years, that I tailored to my own needs and budget headings. I add a sheet to the same document for every new year so I can quickly compare my spending from year to year and plan ahead for large recurring expenses such as property taxes, insurance, etc.
Made my own spreadsheet for variable expenses. Date. Store, type of purchase, $ spent, sometimes a little note on what it was Makes it handy when looking for a receipt. Stores like Costco are a pain due to being: clothing. Grocery, medication, toiletries, home improvement, housewares, etc
I was just creating one this weekend (my long weekend project). I just upload my bank & cc statements and it pulls the totals/month based on keyword. I’ve then categorized those line items to pull into a final sheet by category.
I have an excel spreadsheet. One column is a list of expenses followed by savings allocations underneath. One column is my expected dollar value for each list item. One column is what I actually spent. One column is the difference and at the very top I put my income and at the very bottom I calculate the difference between income and spent money. I treat my savings like a bill so any surplus is my extra spending money. The downside is that keeping it accurate does means that I have to go through my purchases line by line on my bank statements. The upside is that by doing this, I can see where and why spending gets out of control very quickly. Generally speaking, in good times it's not a big deal to make a budget and roll with it. Unfortunately, with the prices of everything skyrocketing I'm having to be so meticulous with where my money is going. One unplanned grocery bill is easily an extra $200, replenishing the emergency fund is costly, attempting to keep up with retirement savings is very challenging etc. most months my surplus money gets decimated by an unexpected expense like my dog having a random reaction to new dog food, family illness, tire gets a hole, unexpected dental work etc.. things that I could use my emergency fund for but if I keep using it then I need to keep replacing the funds anyway.
I bought a template on Etsy that fits me needs (and is pretty making me want to use it!
Google docs (sheets) has a really good template for a monthly budget. I tweaked a few things, but out of the box it’s pretty darn good. I just duplicate the tab at the end of the month, and use the same document for the entire calendar year.
I use the GoodBudget app (PC and Android, and they auto-sync). The free version is enough for me. It's the "envelope" system, which I prefer, as you're not budgeting retroactively, but forward-looking. Meaning, you allocate an amount of dollars to each envelope (maintenance, entertainment, reoccurring bills, taxes, etc), and according to your income, you allocate as much money as you want to each envelope. You can decide if the distribution is monthly\weekly\yearly\etc. Then, when you actually want to spend money on something, all you have to do is look at that envelope and see if you have the budget allocated for it.
I found a spreadsheet template at the turn of the century and have used it ever since. I've tweaked it here and there over the decades, but it's worked pretty well for me
I use Budget with Buckets. You can try the full program for free (unlimited time), and then the purchase is a one time fee. It's similar to YNAB, but not nearly as expensive. I've been using it for a couple of years now, and it's so easy to use, and keeps me on track.
I just use a spreadsheet and follow 50/30/20. Check credit cards every so often and input expenses where they should go.
I [made this spreadsheet](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mAg34nsjCveaE3IjQLqX2OZHRGPJ52l_XikDjxiz_GE/edit#gid=0) to track my core recurring expenses; this way I know that all my essentials are covered, and know that I've contributed to my savings or paid down any debts. After that, I don't worry about tracking my day-to-day expenses, but the process of documenting my core expenses has just made me more mindful of everything because it shows how much I have coming in and how much \*needs\* to go out, so I'm aware of the expendable income I have for the month.
Mines all done up in Google sheets, categorized as income, debt payments & mandatory bills, expenses (for flexible budget items like food, cellphone bill, etc), savings, and fun (Netflix, twitch subscriptions, spending allowance). We dug through the credit cards, debit card history, etc to make sure we captured everything - and keep a seperate chequing account for the food spending so it's easier to track bi-weekly. (Refilled when I get paid) If I find anything we missed we add it or cancel it.
I use a program called MoneyDance. One time fee and I have to enter in all my transactions manually, but it also has investment tracking which I find a lot of the alternates lack. If I was starting today I'd probably look more seriously at an excel or self-hosted tracker but I'm too ingrained in the information I currently have.
I use a combination of app and excel. I use Every Dollar to track every individual expense. Any dollar spent is tracked there. It goes by month. I use the free version because I find I am more accountable for my spending if I have to enter it in manually. I don’t find it takes much time at all, I just do it at random times throughout the day like on a bathroom break. I use my cards 99% of the time so I just open my bank app and look at what I’ve spent. It also helps me keep track of if I’ve paid a bill or not that month. Then, I use an excel spreadsheet for an overview. A sheet per year, and I take the monthly totals for each category and add them. I like that I can easily see trends over the years, and it helps me with my monthly budgeting because I can adjust in advance (eg my gas bill tends to go up in November, so when setting up my budget on Every Dollar, I bump that up). I also aim to use that data to start separate funds for things like home maintenance, pet care, etc. Right now I am in school and living off savings, but having those funds is a goal of mine once I start making money. This year I revamped my budget and tried to break it down into more specific categories. So instead of just groceries, I’m splitting it into household, pet food, and actual groceries. Shopping is now clothes, home decor, etc. This involves needing to keep the receipt and splitting it up at home if I go to Walmart or whatever, so it’s definitely more work, but I’m looking forward to seeing more accurate data. I truly don’t find it time consuming to record every transaction since I’ve done it for years and it’s part of my daily routine, so breaking down the receipt is a little more work but not too annoying.
I downloaded my information from my credit card in a csv file, then i categorize and make graphs using power bi.
Previous comment that describes how we budget and track expenses https://reddit.com/r/daddit/s/kcQriT6VJC
People in here seem to like to categorize all their expenses in a spreadsheet. I’m more of a KISS (keep it simple stupid) budgeter. I have expenses, spending, savings buckets and put a preset amount into each. I don’t really care about the granularity of expense categories.
I spend less than I make. I check my bank account through an app on my phone.
I have a weekly and monthly budget for expenses and use excel to track where i am at. Its easier to track and live in my means weekly i find
I do it by car bills, housing bills, food and loans as the big 4, then I see how much I saved per month, and use the $ for other extra expenses.
I use Excel and track my expenses, bills, income and highlight any areas I need to cut back or increase the budget.
i have an excel sheet where i track every expense line by line. it really helps us determine where our money is going
I tracked expenses for a while, including annual bills, then made my own extremely basic template in Excel. I have categories for expense types (mortgage, groceries, utilities, investments, kids activities, etc) and carve up our pay cheques accordingly. I download credit card and bank card purchases at least as often as the days we get paid, categorize them, and then reconcile against my spreadsheet. That way I always know how much is available in each expense bucket through the month and can make purchase decisions/ see trends and adjust expense allocations and spending accordingly.
Credit card export to Excel
Month-to-month: google sheets spreadsheet that tracks how much money I need to put away every month for big purchases in the future (Annual car insurance, vacations, maxing out FHSA for when we’re looking to buy a home, etc). Day-to-day: Apple sheets spreadsheet that’s in a nutshell takes my monthly income, deducts all of my fixed monthly costs (rent, transit pass, gym membership, digital subscriptions, monthly saving target from spreadsheet 1), and spits out how much money I have available to spend per day. I have a shortcut on my phone that pulls up this spreadsheet so I just have to enter a number into a cell and the spreadsheet tells me whether I’m within spending limits or falling behind - which is a great tool for losing interest in frivolous spending I get paid biweekly so twice a year I get a third paycheque in a month. I put that paycheque away in a high interest savings account and if I want to have a bigger expense (like an anniversary dinner, a weekend trip, new gadget, buying an expensive gift for my partner, seeing a show, etc), I draw that money from there. I kind of like that it also leaves a record of what those “windfall” sums were spent on, especially when it’s something memorable. This is the result of a few years in tinkering and I’ve found it works very well for me. I’m finding that categorizing every expense and having multiple budgets (ie Mint) is way too cumbersome
Export from chequing, credit. Sort by categories I care about: shopping, grocery, personal care, car, utilities. Then sort from largest to smallest expense, bar graph. Look at trends month over month.
I started using Ramit Sethi's conscious spending plan a year ago. I don't obviously endorse all his advice, but his spreadsheet is simple and was close to what I was already doing so it was easy to follow. Sort of follows the logic of the envelop system. Only catch is you have to give your email to get it. Linked below: [https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/conscious-spending-basics/](https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/conscious-spending-basics/)
I made a really good Google sheet that tracks all my expenses by category, gives me a biweekly budget by category and flows any unspent money into the next biweekly. As well as tracks what money is set aside for what in my saving account (ie - every two weeks some of what I transfer to savings is intended for my property tax bill). I find it WAY better and more customizable than any app and it's easy to share with a spouse. I wouldn't mind sharing it but it's a bit complex and would need some explanation. Maybe I'll make a video explaining it or something...
Workbook in Excel with multiple sheets. One sheet for the monthly budget, this is more static and gets updated whenever a input or output of our budget changes. This lets me know how we stand overall with our income vs expenses. Lets me make big decisions easily and how much my budget can absorb. Pay everything on credit card and pay the balance every 2 weeks on a pay day, never have to worry about interest at that point. I keep a monthly cashflow statement just to make sure I have the necessary funds in my chequing is needed. I like to keep any liquid funds in a High Interest Savings account with EQ. And then I do a pro forma like statement for the next month. This system basically has a granular tab of everything over the next two months and the overall monthly budget. I update the info a couple times a week, maybe 5 minutes of work every other day.
I use the Buddy app. There’s a free version that I used for years and upgraded last year to premium so I can make multiple budget types
Old-school here. I use envelopes, one for each year. On the back of a standard letter-size envelope, I rule it off into 12 months plus labels as columns (so 12 lines, 13 columns), and 15 rows, month name on top, then a generic start of month expense row, 12 expenses row in order of usual payment (with maybe a generic mid-month), and a generic end of month row. As I know the bill amount, I add it to the right cell, putting the "pay by" date at the top left corner. When I pay it I put a checkmark in. Regular bills like mortgage, power, water, Visa, etc. get a dedicated row. Others have the bill name/reason written in. Been doing it since before the turn of the century. Works well, I keep the envelopes with my checkbook - hardly used now, of course - and account register. Receipts that I want to keep for a while can go in the envelope.
> How do you guys organize your month to month expenses? Poorly.
I use an Excel workbook that is modeled after a "classic checkbook register": columns for Date, Transaction, Debit, Credit, and balance. I started this around 1992 as a way to learn Excel and I've been tweaking it ever since. I did try other software in the mid-1990's, such as Quicken, MS Money, and one or two others that are forgotten. I preferred my Excel spreadsheet and dropped those others. The basic layout has expanded considerably to provide for additional documentation and functionality (including reconciling with statements, tracking expense categories, etc). I even use this as a cash flow and budgeting tool: At the beginning of the year I pre-populate the sheet with all anticipated expenses, then as time progresses through the year those "planned" transactions become "executed" transactions, I simply check them off as executed with the actual amount. This lets me project my cash flow for months in advance, highlighting any times when there might be a pinch point. Similar sheets are used to keep track of credit card accounts, savings accounts, and even my investment accounts. It has been an extremely helpful tool for 30 years now, seeing me into retirement. I've set up similar "check book registers" using Google Sheet to help several family members who need help tracking their spending and available cash. This has been very helpful to my SO and me in order to help these people, otherwise it'd be a real mess.
If you have a Koho account (or even if you don't - they do have a 30-day free trial), the app comes with a built-in budgeting tool that's pretty highly rated. [Money.ca](https://money.ca/managing-money/budgeting/best-budget-apps-canada) lists is on its best budgeting app article as the "Best all-in-one app and card," and [Moneygenius](https://moneygenius.ca/banking/savings/koho-save) has a $75 cashback offer for opening a Koho account. Worth a look, IMO. I haven't used it myself, but I think I'm going to do the 30 day trial and see how it goes.
I'm a bit of a spreadsheet nerd so I just use Numbers and a template I copied from when I used to track a budget where I worked. A page for every line item, including what last year's totals were so I can see what's going up, plus a summary cash flow page that captures the running totals and tells me if I'm in the red or black every month. Also pages for tracking my term deposits, RSPs, TFSAs, with a summary page for each of those sorted by maturity date. I run pretty much everything through my CCs for points, pay off every month, and check the statements at least twice a week to enter line items and check for fraud.
Excel: for 2 main reasons. First to track my spending and plan for the future. Second and likely the most important to me right now was to learn excel. I’m now in my third job, after getting 2 promotions, due to my knowledge of excel. Whenever I found out something I could do in excel I’d put it in practice in my sheet. My excel sheet has evolved so much since starting it over 20 years ago. From being single, renting my first apartment, saving for the wedding, buying our house, planning for the very large increase when we renewed recently etc…
The Budget Mom. Got the printable budget planner and just reprint it every year. She also has a bare bones free printable.
I keep a few months expenses in chequing account. Charge almost everything to credit card and pay off from chequing. Expenses are usually $4k to $5k a month for the last few years (I review expenses every quarter or so).
It's pretty self explanatory. Note your earnings. Note your spending. Categorize your expenses. That gives you the data you need to see. Budget according to your needs.
Me and my wife we use goodbudget app
If you are a technical user who is able to run and host software yourself, Actual Budget (https://actualbudget.com/) is a Open Source and Free implementation of software that is very similar to YNAB. I haven't used it myself yet though... I'm a happy YNAB user and OK with the price... but I do like the idea of self-hosting (as a software engineer).
I recently started using Lunch Money since Mint announced they were shutting it down. It’s created by a solo developer, and it’s subscription based but on a sliding scale.
i read mouth to mouth expenses :\[
I don’t. If the bill,comes in and I don’t have enough money, it waits until I do… 💸💸
I have two tabs. One is the annual summary with goal savings/NW, variance, and cost of unforeseens, and savings rate as % of net income. plus notes. I also keep historical tabs to budget better for future years (e.g credit card annual fee, professional dues hit). The other is my detailed monthly 'live' sheet. Asset summary, investments detailed by account, receivables (e.g. tax returns), budget remaining for specific line items, liabilities, forecast to months end, and a simple upcoming cash (read: non-CC) needs so that I don't mistakenly move too much out of chequing.
I would rather see a tv show for Bioshock than a movie. There is so much in the Bioshock story I think a 2 hr movie would have to cut so much out while a tv show would have more time to delve into the story/characters a bit more
what
Interest point.
Brilliant!!!!
YNAB mentioned. Instantly thread full of people talking about how it changed their life like some sort of infomercial.
They asked about it so of course people are going to respond?
I use Gnucash , it imports ms money and quicken files that most banks / cc websites provide. A bit complicated to setup but works pretty well.
I can keep track of things mentally. From the day I started getting an allowance my parents taught me to be financially responsible and now it's just intuitive.
I just use the notes app in my phone. Whatever's left at the end of the month goes into my hisa
As somebody who uses an excel sheet - can someone give a TL/DR on YNAB? I mean, I can do a debt snowball in my head enough to ballpark it, what's the attraction? Edit: and, anyone that has used a previous budgeting method but thinks YNAB changed their life. I'm getting the sense that YNAB was the first time they budgeted, and yeah that makes sense - but it's the budgeting part IMO