How do you store/sort your finances

binaryuniverse

At the moment it's a multi-tab spreadsheet, which has worked well for me, over the years.


I'm currently looking at turning that into the basis of an application that will automate a lot more of it, and do forecasting, for me.

Cortinaa_GTR

I run 3 accounts and an interest free credit card

1, Salary / Current Account
2. Bills Account
3. Savings Account
4. 5k limit card (interest free for 27months)

Wages go into account 1. All monthly or quarterly direct debits come out of account 2. However i transfer an extra 10% across into the bills account each month to build up a surplus meaning Xmas bills are covered and I have my full wage to get through the festive period. This works really well and feels pain free. Anything else left over at the end of the month in the current account can go into savings. I have 6 months emergency fund built up in that.

I can't imagine having all my bills coming out of my current account and prefer the separation. Once I've transferred on payday I know what is left in my current account is mine to get through the month.

All recorded in a spreadsheet too working a month in advance and no issues at all.

Herbyme

Parnott that’s really neat. I wish I’d thought of it like that before I swapped my direct debits from one account to another. I may transfer them again as I agree about always knowing what’s left to come out

ClioScott

Another one with spreadsheets in excel, couldn't get into the habit of YNAB it MSMoney.

Using a spreadsheet is alot more flexible in a layout that works for you.

I've had mine for about 4 years now and the actual excel file has sheets setup for everything, from debt to bills and even this year's Xmas lists

enthusiasticsaver

tempus_fugit wrote: »

I had a look at ClearCheckbook and can't see that it does what YNAB does. YNAB is primarily a budgeting tool, using the "budget to zero" methodology. You have to allocate ALL of your available funds to categories, which ensures that you don't spend money that is reserved for another purpose.

ClearCheckbook seems to be like all the others, ie it's primarily a register of transactions, with a basic budgeting tool tagged on. You basically set budgets for various categories and use those as limits on spending or see how much you went over or under in each category. But it doesn't do budgeting to zero as far as I can see, and therefore there is no indication of how much unallocated funds you actually have. This is where YNAB wins for me. Of course YNAB is not free, but it does things in a different way to most other financial software.

You can use clear checkbook in the same way as YNAB by allocating monthly budgets and spending envelopes. The monthly budgets show at any time how much has been spent in that category so I have food, fuel, direct debits, entertainment including meals out and living expenses for the odd purchase. At the end of the month or during the month at any time you can see if you are overspending and when you reconcile when the budgets reset on the 1st month for me you allocate underspends either from another budget or from a spending envelope. It is still giving every dollar a job as YNAB does.

Spending envelopes are virtual pots which rollover rather than being reset so you can use these as spending pots for car, house, holidays, emergency etc. You can also get reports on how much you are spending on each category.

So there definitely is a budgeting to zero function. I admit to only knowing the basics of YNAB though and found it unnecessarily complicated as well as it costing.

I have a spreadsheet alongside which maybe you don't need with ynab.

Every month after our pensions come in I allocate our income after closing off the previous months and allocating any over or underspends. The amount is divided between the monthly budgets as mentioned above and the spending envelopes. So it is zero based.

Linton

I have used Ms Money for managing my cash and investments for the past 20 years and do not remember it ever being able to synch with bank accounts in the UK. I believe the facility was only supported by some US banks. MsMoney can read download files the major banks without any problems, NatWest, Santander, and Barclays all work in my own experience.

It has not been supported by MS since 2005, but has continued to work ever since. There is always a risk that it will stop working in a future release of Windows, but as its facilities seem far more comprehensive than anything currently on the market I feel it is a risk worth taking.

Eco_Miser

I have Open Office Calc (not Excel) spreadsheets that details all Direct Debit payments out, all pension and dividend payments in, all cash or card spending, all standing orders and faster payments (mostly money juggling) and cash withdrawals, as accurate as they can be predicted (and adjusted as needed when they happen) for a rolling year. Everything is categorized and totaled in multiple ways, and there's another spreadsheet to handle most of that..
So I know what's come in. what's gone out and why, and a reasonable prediction of what's going to happen, and when I need to move money to meet forthcoming payments.
Strangely I have found no need to allocate my spending on various categories in advance (although recording all the DDs does much of that), I simply note that annual income exceeds annual expenditure - result happiness.

ETA
Like Terry Towelling above (#3) I have multiple bank accounts with money allocated to them mostly to maximise interest, but also to facilitate making payments as required, without too much back and forth between accounts.

cloud_dog

Linton wrote: »

I have used Ms Money for managing my cash and investments for the past 20 years and do not remember it ever being able to synch with bank accounts in the UK. I believe the facility was only supported by some US banks. MsMoney can read download files the major banks without any problems, NatWest, Santander, and Barclays all work in my own experience.

It used to synch. I used to synch with Santander/Abbey National but often the bank entries would come with additional text in the description and so MS Money was unable to reconcile, meaning I had to manually update/correct.

Linton wrote: »

It has not been supported by MS since 2005, but has continued to work ever since. There is always a risk that it will stop working in a future release of Windows, but as its facilities seem far more comprehensive than anything currently on the market I feel it is a risk worth taking.

Heavens, lets hope not. Perhaps I'll set up a VM with W10 now to safeguard.

Zero_Sum

cloud_dog wrote: »

It used to synch. I used to synch with Santander/Abbey National but often the bank entries would come with additional text in the description and so MS Money was unable to reconcile, meaning I had to manually update/correct.

Heavens, lets hope not. Perhaps I'll set up a VM with W10 now to safeguard.

MS have said Win10 is going to be the final one, then going forward its just going to be constant updates of it

choccyface2006

cloud_dog wrote: »

You can enter as much or as little detail as you like. For example, I might have an account called 'My Savings', and it is pointless entering all the account/organisation information because I may move it frequently depending on who is paying the best interest rate.

You used to be able to synch MS Money with a number of bank accounts, unsure if this is still available (possibly not). Alternatively you should be able to simply download transactions from an online bank account and then import it in to MS Money.

You can password protect MS Money if you wish.

The UI is dated and the UX could well be behind the running but, it does everything I need perfectly with some but little input. I run:

• 5 Bank accounts
• 7 Investment accounts
• 5 Pension accounts
• 4 Savings accounts

Oh, and it is free.

We also manage our household inventory for insurance purposes within it (recording details of valuable items with images etc).

Another vote for MS Money, I've been using it for 14 years and love it, I've never entered accounts numbers either, just account names.