Money Management Software.

little_green

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

Do any of you input 100% of your spends in to MS Money? I'm assuming this can be done. If so then how do you do it?


There's things such as direct debits which will be pretty standard but then you're out and about, you do a weekly shop which will come to whatever it does. You're out with a friend and fancy going for a drink, a brew and a cake maybe - impulse purchasing.


How much of your spending do you guys actually log?


Only asking this as i'm genuinely curious what we spend, totally. I've recently ran a tally of 3 months supermarket spending which ended up with some surprising results on how much we spend where we actually don't need to ... and i know that in amongst these 3 months there's been an unknown number of receipts that weren't taken, were thrown out, lost or whatever so the numbers i have will only be a close guide and nothing exact.


Takeaways is another i haven't tracked. We don't have nearly as many as we used to but i'm just talking about literally everything - i wonder how much we spend and what areas we spend it


and from that i wonder how closely you guys actually track your spends using these kinds of software?

hi yes I do.
as willing2learn mentioned about tracking everything is the only way to actually get a real idea of your spending habits.
as you pointed out receipts are easily lost hence I like to something that lets me update anywhere anytime. Personally i use google sheets as i can use it on both phone & laptop/pc. But there are a number of apps you can use if you can't be bothered to make your own spreadsheet. That way it's easily accessible & just a case of tapping in the amount/item basically as soon as you've grabbed you coffee /made your spend.
Get in the habit of updating whatever it is you use (spreadsheet or app) as often/soon as possible. ie if you buy a coffee in the morning put that in then sandwich at lunch put that in. Waiting until say the end of the day & trying to input all your daily expenses at once makes it harder.
Most people have their phones in their hands often enough that doing the above shouldnt be an issue.

failing that good old pen & paper will do the trick until you find time to input the values into sheet/app

JustAnotherSaver

DireEmblem wrote: »

and throw the difference into my pension.

^^ This is the thought process behind my question.


As i said, i've tracked supermarket spends for the past 3 months as best as i can and we're spending a fair amount on that alone on stuff we don't 'need'.
Thing is from that you then need to question what isn't needed and what you can allow yourself as enjoyment (or whichever other phrase you'd prefer to use). You can't go through life constantly denying yourself everything you want and only allowing anything you need but you need a balance.

For example when i was going through the receipts i would factor in things like ice cream, alcohol, chocolate etc as things that are unnecessary spends, even though the ice cream may be 3 lollies which last a week, i may get only a couple 500ml bottles which will be drank on a Saturday & even this isn't every Saturday. So it's not like it's excessive ... but i put it in the unnecessary spend all the same when i was totalling up.


The problem is i would keep receipts but my wife would often leave hers in a bag, not pick one up, leave it in the car, put it in with a pile of something which got thrown out etc so i'd not know any totals. Some were paid by cash as she refuses to pay under a certain amount on card - and then no receipt, so no record. It makes things harder to track.




I'm considering doing a year spend though for various reasons.
1) To know how much we spend
2) To know how much we waste (& therefore could save)
3) To gauge how much we need in order to live which would then hopefully give us some kind of idea of an income we'd need say in retirement (obviously prices would go up between now and then).

lr1277

I get receipts for everything if I can. Also my software has an iOS app where I can enter transactions. These update my software next time I logon.


Incidentally I use Home Accountz. This costs money, including a yearly payment for the ability to upload the iOS app data to the software. But for me it makes it easy to track balances of various credit, savings and current accounts. Also when I have to produce a tax return every year, a few clicks, and I get reports for my money in and out in various categories used on the tax return form.
For those thinking about this, it is a double entry system. So money has to start somewhere and go to somewhere. So for savings interest say, I have a category called "interest earned' which is defined within Home Accounts as an Income category. Money from "interest earned' goes into an entry for one of my savings accounts. Just in case you are wondering, I also have a category for "untaxed interest earned" to take account of interest from ISA's.
I have set the system up for this level of detail because it makes it easier for me;

lr1277

As I am having trouble sleeping, I will give you more details.


My setup mirrors the categories used in the Rich Dad, Poor dad book.
So I have categories for assets, income, liabilities and expenditures.


Asset values can go up and down, think savings accounts, current accounts, cash (in wallet) or shareholding accounts. For shareholding accounts, I track the monetary value, not the shares held. That is done in a different spreadsheet.
Income is just that and you set it up as such in the program. Examples are salary/wages, dividends, interest (taxed and another entry for untaxed) etc.
Liabilities are for credit cards, mortgages etc.
Expenditures are for things like utility bills, groceries, insurance etc. These can go up and down (think or returns or cashback from your supermarket).


So an entry in the transaction window would have the following details (I am not doing a screenshot):
Date
Description e.g. XXX building society
Payee: don't understand this myself
Amount
From account: Interest earned
To account: XXX reg saver


Then on the Accounts, Balances and Budgeting tab, the interest earned value (in the income section) has increased by the amount of interest added. Also the amount in the XXX reg saver (in the assets section) has increased by the same amount.


Another example might be:
Date
Description: name of magazine
Payee
Amount:
From account: bank account personal
To account: the entry magazine (this covers all my magazine purchases whether by bank transfer, subscription or cash).
In this case the amount for my personal bank account (under assets) has decreased and the amount in magazines (under expenditures) has increased.


In terms of your entries, you can be as detailed (or not) as you want to be. Depends on your need for information breakdown when reporting.

You can also enter a transaction and then at some time you can tick a box to confirm it is cleared i.e. it appears on a statem,ent. This means the software can give three figures for each transaction type: current balance and statement balance. For credit accounts, it will also give you the available amount if you enter your credit limit.
If memory serves you can also track expenditure by month and target. Say you have a target of £200 for food shopping per month, I believe you can track that. I did that once, but didn't continue.


The software has reporting and export facilities.


The other reason I chose them (and continue with them) is that there is support which is paid for. I haven't bought support every year, but when I do, it has been useful/valuable.



Thats it for the moment. If you want more details, you can look up their website.


HTH

cloud_dog

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

^^ This is the thought process behind my question.

In my opinion this is the wrong way to operate for this particular purpose.

You should focus, prioritise your pension contributions to achieve your goal, the same for any other short/long term savings/investment. You wouldn't operate this way to pay your mortgage or rent so why do it for an investment goal?

Obviously if you are just going to do this to add any additional unused money, then fine it could be a useful tool but, should not be the primary tool for a pension.

JustAnotherSaver

cloud_dog wrote: »

but, should not be the primary tool for a pension.

That's great - good job that i never said it was my primary tool then :beer:

cloud_dog wrote: »

You should focus, prioritise your pension contributions to achieve your goal, the same for any other short/long term savings/investment.

Which is what i currently do, thank you.



I pay in what i can pay in without leaving myself short in other areas.
I'd like to pay in more ... if i can. One way of finding out "if i can" is by seeing where we may waste money. If we can highlight areas through tracking then that could free up money that was once spent in one area which can now be put towards savings / pension / something else.

cloud_dog

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

I pay in what i can pay in without leaving myself short in other areas.
I'd like to pay in more ... if i can. One way of finding out "if i can" is by seeing where we may waste money. If we can highlight areas through tracking then that could free up money that was once spent in one area which can now be put towards savings / pension / something else.

We all have to live based our own choices, so whatever you choose is up to you. In my experience, we (people) tend to live to our means (sometimes beyond, occasionally within) and unless you prioritise saving/investing up front you rarely end up with a meaningful plan. If your plan is to simply identity additional savings then that's great but just be wary of becoming complacent to the psychology of "I'll be fine because I'm paying in on my company scheme and I'm also adding to that each month". WRT pensions I've always worked backwards from what might I need, when, and what will it take to get there.

JustAnotherSaver

cloud_dog wrote: »

We all have to live based our own choices, so whatever you choose is up to you. In my experience, we (people) tend to live to our means (sometimes beyond, occasionally within) and unless you prioritise saving/investing up front you rarely end up with a meaningful plan. If your plan is to simply identity additional savings then that's great but just be wary of becoming complacent to the psychology of "I'll be fine because I'm paying in on my company scheme and I'm also adding to that each month". WRT pensions I've always worked backwards from what might I need, when, and what will it take to get there.

Thank you. Like i say though, i pay in what i can right now without impacting on other areas. This was increased last year some time. My wife got a pay rise so then her contributions were increased.

We'd like to pay in more (because obviously you can never pay in too much) which is why right now we're looking to see whether that is a possibility or not - since it's pointless paying in XYZ if that then leaves you with nothing in the immediate.
So i'd say that we're prioritising it to be honest.

enthusiasticsaver

I use the free version of clear checkbook.

I use it for reporting and budgeting and recording transactions. It works on a category basis and you input all your accounts (cash to investments) and record transactions which you categorise. You can pull up reports telling you how much you are spending and in what area.

The budgeting tools I have only just got to grips with. You can set up monthly budgets for everyday expenses like food, fuel, entertainment etc and allocate money from savings or current accounts into envelopes for other expenses like gifts, holidays, car replacement or running costs. At any one time you can see how much you have left to spend.

In the past I have used MS Money, quicken and personal accountz but so far clear checkbook is my favourite. You can set the currency to sterling and set up reminders and repeating transactions to forecast balances. The paid up version offers even more functions.

enthusiasticsaver

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

Do any of you input 100% of your spends in to MS Money? I'm assuming this can be done. If so then how do you do it?


There's things such as direct debits which will be pretty standard but then you're out and about, you do a weekly shop which will come to whatever it does. You're out with a friend and fancy going for a drink, a brew and a cake maybe - impulse purchasing.


How much of your spending do you guys actually log?


Only asking this as i'm genuinely curious what we spend, totally. I've recently ran a tally of 3 months supermarket spending which ended up with some surprising results on how much we spend where we actually don't need to ... and i know that in amongst these 3 months there's been an unknown number of receipts that weren't taken, were thrown out, lost or whatever so the numbers i have will only be a close guide and nothing exact.


Takeaways is another i haven't tracked. We don't have nearly as many as we used to but i'm just talking about literally everything - i wonder how much we spend and what areas we spend it


and from that i wonder how closely you guys actually track your spends using these kinds of software?

I track all our expenditure on clear checkbook. It does not take as long as you think as you simply input it on a transaction by transaction basis and assign a category to it. The whole point of using the software is to see where my money is going so as far as I can see the only way to use it effectively is to do it daily. Takes a few minutes.