Looking for a monthly Budget Planner

beadysam

Hiya all,
I'm looking for a budget planner. It has to work on a monthly basis, but be customisable a bit. I'm not brill with Excel but could get by at a push. Hubby gets paid on 23rd of month, I get income every 2 weeks and we need to put it all together and sort out a budget for our lives. We've always had seperate accounts with a joint account for bills. The joint account works ok but our personal finances less so and we need to gather all our resources to get out of overdraught and debt madness. I've downloaded the one on this site, but its too big and unwieldy. It gives a great view over the year, and is fantastic for a bigger picture but I need something more viewable on one page that is simple and nothing fancy. Can anyone suggest a solution? Thanks in advance:)


Edited to add: It would be fab if I could download online banking into a spreadsheet or something, is this possible - is it easy?

bigpat

Hi,

Can you send me a private message with your email address? I've got something...somewhere...on a memory stick or somewhere... that might fit the bill.

I did one for myself a few years ago. It is in Excel but I did it primarily for my sister (who won't mind my saying she's useless at IT) so I made it reasonably idiot-proof.

I'm not sure you'd say it's customisable, but it would certainly let you change the headings etc. and it works out monthly things and weekly things.

I should be able to dig it out tomorrow afternoon sometime. (Off to bed now!!)

RuthnJasper

Hi beadysam,

I'm with NatWest and there's a button you can click (once logged in) to download your statement in Excel - it's very easy. Other banks might offer the same thing; otherwise you can do a copy and paste from the online statement onscreen into Excel. Happy to help you with that if needs be (I'm quite whizzy with IT and always very happy to lend a helping hand). Just let me know.

Try this as well for a handy downloadable budget - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/results.aspx?qu=personal+budget&origin=CT001226191#ai:TC030004775|.

Best wishes to you!
x

Cmdr_Bond

Well I am have opened accounts with Lloyds now (like their online banking pretty much, better than Santander anyway), and apart from the favct you can download your statements in CSV (Comma Separated Value) which are readable by Excel or any other Spreadsheet or Database program, they also have their money manager. It's not necessarily a budget planner, but it does help. the categorising is OK, but the main feature I use is the payment calendar that shows regular payments in and out. It will set most of them up automatically (if your wages vary each week like mine do, it may struggle with them), then you can set up manual entries as well and see at a glance when the major chunks of money is coming and going.

isuzu_2

Hello
yoiu can try the Money Advice Service or the National Debtline's websites- both have debt advice, budget planners which
both accept weekly, fortnightly, mnthly etc payments figures...
and there is a lot more good help at hand on both sites- free, impartial advice from trusted national charities...
good luck and hope it helps

pinkfluffysheep

Give HomeBank a try. You can download it for free from - homebank.free.fr

If you like it (and when you are in good financial situation) then have the option to make a donation to the software developer via the Donation button on the website.

I use it. It's nothing fancy, but does the basics. Monthly tracking with categories. You can set up a budget and see how you are doing against it. You can import standard bank files. It creates pretty graphs showing your bank balance over time.

It is Open Source software. I originally found it listed on the Free Software Directory list under Accounting software - directory.fsf.org

david_hellier

Hi,
I have an excel sheet which is very easy to use. It also has apending diary on it to keep track of spending. PM me with an email address if you want it.

Cheers