Spreadsheet ideas?

zippygeorgeandben

I have one where the DDs are in column a (my need column), my monthly savings in column b and my everyday spending, regardless of cost in column c (my wants). Works for me

Intoodeep

I have a basic spreadsheet with my 3 Bank Accounts on one tab (which I also have planned 6 months in advance at all times), a cash sheet which documents every penny of cash I spend, overall balance sheet, another tab with pensions etc, and a tab with my debts etc been doing this for 15+ years

joedenise

8ofspades wrote: »

That's not a bad idea! I actually have YNAB 4 (not sure how it compares to the new subscription one) and that is probably the biggest thing that helped me get out of debt 3/4 years ago, but once I was out of debt I slowly stopped using it and the budget became too out-of-date to deal with. I might start a new budget through it and see if I can make it work for me again, it'd certainly be easier than programming a spreadsheet

I'm still using YNAB4. It works for me and I can't see any reason to move to an ongoing paid for online version.

Denise

xebruary

I use a couple to track my debt-free wannabee adventures. One I update each month around statement time with any payments made and the outstanding balances on my debts, as well as any credit balances in current accounts. It thus tells me my "net worth". This projects into the future and I model my expectations for payments I will make in following months to see how my debt situation will develop. I can predict a "break-even" date and so on (though I actually broke even this month!).

I also use one for my credit cards where I have broken the balance down into the individual transactions that created the debt. I have a list of the payments made and their dates, and conditional formulae that tell me as a result whether a particular item has been paid off or not. For those that have not been paid off, I wrote a formula that projects when it will be paid off based on whether I make repayments at the same rate as I have done over the past 1, 3, 6, or 12 months. For the item currently being paid off, I display how long I have been paying for this particular item and what proportion of it I have paid off. I have three credit cards and I sum up the unpaid items on a fourth sheet to display a pie chart of my debt categorised by the year it was incurred.

getmore4less

MSMoney(FREE) has just about everything you ever need built in for personal money management.
(Quicken was very close as well)

One main reason it stopped is they could not think of any thing to add to get people to PAY to upgrade


Even if you decide not to use it is a very good tool for ideas if you want to cobble up your own spreadsheets.

IF they resurrected it, added an real time app interface and cloud storage it would blow everything else out of the ball park.


The thing MSmoney handles very well is split transactions.

You can have a single entry on a bank/CC like a Tesco bill.

behind that you can split the total into multiple bits to represent your actual categories in the total, if you set up cash accounts you can also manage cashback on the same transaction.


The built in budget tool links to the daily tracking which includes cashflow forecasting based on predicted cashflows along with masses of reporting options it is not really worth the effort to go spreadsheet.

trailingspouse

I put together my own spreadsheet.

There's a totals sheet at the front, showing the 'broad brush', what I've earned/spent this year figures. Then behind that there are sheets for each category of 'income' (salary, expenses, refunds, interest etc), and each category of outgoing (house, car, utilities, travel, entertainment, gifts etc etc etc). Then each sheet is broken down where appropriate (eg 'car' breaks down into - loan repayments, fuel, consumables, repairs, insurance and so on).


Yes, it was a bit of a pain putting it all together - but that exercise in itself was useful in making it clear in my head how much I was spending and where I could make savings. I'd struggled to find budgeting software that met my needs (I've been doing it like this for 3 years now - I think the software has improved, but don't really want to start from scratch now!!).

evenasus

getmore4less wrote: »

MSMoney(FREE) has just about everything you ever need built in for personal money management.
(Quicken was very close as well)

A vote for Quicken here. I've been using it for many years.
I'm still using quicken 2001 and it does everything I need to keep track of all my banking/saving accounts. I really couldn't manage without it.

db2016

i use a mobile app, mobilis, it also has a online interface, but when i spend to whip phone out and update is easy! tracks spends well.



it costs per year, but it's saved me that cost easily.


and can run reports / graphs on all the data etc, eg, i can run a report on "ebay" and it will show me the 1, 3, 6, 12 or whatever i've earned or spent (i have two ebay, one income, one spent).



used it since 2018. works well. always updated regularly if they find bugs / launch new features.


there will be others out there of course.

JessyM

I have a very simple spreadsheet developed over many years. It might not work for everyone especially if you have a variable income, which I do not.

The first tab is the quarterly forward look. I can have an orange section where all the known and confident forecast income is input, next section is for all the known financial commitments are including the date and including the allowance made for spending. I can then make sure that I have funds in the bank at the right time to ensure that there is no refused DD. I can also look forward to the next three months to plan for insurance, MOT, Servicing Costs and such like.

The next tab is the Savings Plan - here I have a virtual red money box, the kind that has the individual little compartments. The Savings Plan forecasts how much is needed for servicing, tyres, MOT, Insurance, Weddings, Clothes, Shoes and Boots and Christmas. I have divided my Savings Allowance into two - Long Term/Short Term and work out what is need by when and make sure that I put an allowance against the requirement. Long Term savings is a high interest but no access account, short term is low interest but accessible so I always have access to some emergency funds.

My third tab is my Retirement Plan. It counts down to my earliest, most likely and latest retirements dates, calculates my pension - and when a little box turns green I know to submit my application to retire. It is my favourite sheet!!

This simple spreadsheet has been developed over the last 5 years or so and works for me as I only update probably twice per mont (beginning of the month to confirm the "opening balance" and to complete the forward look) and then again to check spending. If I spend outside my allowance, the sheet enables me to consider the impact over the next quarter. If I have a bad day at work - I check to see how long is left. 998 calendar days and counting.

It works for me