Best money tracking/saving apps and websites

The_Fella_London

Like a lot of people, I just don't know where a lot of my money goes. I look at my fixed outgoings, and my monthly salary should easily cover these and give me a nice chunk left over to spend on non-essentials, yet every month I seem to be more and more in debt, bigger overdraft, etc. I really need to track my money more closely, identify monthly outgoings I can reduce (subscriptions, dd's I no longer need, etc.), and reduce my bills. My bank alerts me every time I take money out or spend it, but this is not helping. I seem to be spending more and more, and yet I don't believe I live a particularly extravagant lifestyle! I wonder if there are one or two apps that could identify and help me reduce expenditure as well as keep better track on things? I have heard a lot about YNAB, but I this has a monthly subscription, and I know there are a lot of free apps around at the moment that claim to do the same or a similar job. Any help or suggestions would be greatly received.

EssexHebridean

My personal view is that unless you have the knowledge behind you about budgeting, using apps can be harmful as you simply won't recognise if things are going wrong. You need to first learn the discipline behind budgeting, and only then, when you fully understand what goes out when, how much money needs to be available in your account at any given point in the month, and how much you have available for discretionary spending in certain areas, should you consider trying to massively automate things. 

First step I would suggest is to put together your SOA (Statement of Affairs) and post in here - we may well be able to help you to identify where things are going wrong. You might also start a spending diary - quite simply a good old paper notebook where you note EVERYTHING  you spend - whether that is 99p on a cuppa or £58 on a tank of fuel for the car. That then helps you to see where you might be overspending in your various budgeted areas. 

For the SOA, get all your bank & card statements in one place, that will help you to fill it in accurately - and remember that some things might go out monthly, others quarterly, and still others annually - you need to make sure where things aren't a regular monthly payment you are still budgeting AND SETTING THE MONEY ASIDE EACH MONTH to pay for those when they come due. 

The_Fella_London

Thank you so much for your response. That does seem to make perfect sense. I have read that there are apps/resources that can identify things going out of one's account that may not be relevant anymore - for example the three month free trial of something that is no longer free, but you forgot to cancel after the free period. I assume going through all bank/card statements for a yearly period would flag these sorts of things up? Without wanting to ask a stupid question, but I assume the SOA calculator at the bottom of your post is what I would need to fill in order to get to an understanding of where all this money is going?

Soundgirlrocks

I use Emma, it syncs using open banking with your accounts and you can manually add offline accounts too. It has budget's and I find it works well for me and its free for the basic version

kimwp

I just use a spreadsheet. Setting it up and manually filling it in will help you understand the numbers better. If you find there are areas where you consistently go over, sort out a pot system (could be envelopes with cash, could be a budgeting tool like fudget) so you can see what you have left for that area as you are spending. 

rugbymadfamily

I also just use a spreadsheet. I budget every pound to have a job, some of which is building cash up for annual spends (eg insurance). Hace to figure out what your priorities are, for example we spend very little on new clothes but have a larger entertainment budget. Got to find what works best for you, but a budget is the way forward and hold yourself accountable.

EssexHebridean

The_Fella_London said:

Thank you so much for your response. That does seem to make perfect sense. I have read that there are apps/resources that can identify things going out of one's account that may not be relevant anymore - for example the three month free trial of something that is no longer free, but you forgot to cancel after the free period. I assume going through all bank/card statements for a yearly period would flag these sorts of things up? Without wanting to ask a stupid question, but I assume the SOA calculator at the bottom of your post is what I would need to fill in order to get to an understanding of where all this money is going?

Yes - when going through the statements take each item at a time and make sure you know what it is before moving on. Some will be easy - others less so! A good trick with unknown payment references is to check your own emails first, (do a search based on the details you have, or even the payment amount ) and if that doesn’t work a Google search often turns something up. 

The link in my signature is indeed one of the SOA calculator options we recommend - there is a second option in the “sticky” post at the top of the board too. 

(Oh, and there’s no such thing as a stupid question on the DFW board - don’t worry about that!) 

The_Fella_London

Again, thanks for all the responses and help. I assume there will be spreadsheet templates online I can use to start my own spreadsheet? I know a lot of what is online is US based, which is not necessarily an issue, but I think I would prefer to have something easier to relate to, i.e. UK based. I suppose I just need to get on with it and start filling in the document.

kimwp

Probably. But you could just use a sheet that has a heading for each group of spending and sum up what you spend on that group each month, that's what I used for years. I've made it a bit more fancy now, with comparisons with the target limits for each group for each month and year, showing what remains in each imaginary pot of money, but it's not necessary unless you are really driving to a budget.

The advantage of doing it yourself is you can make the groups. So I don't bother adding the monthly bills because they stay the same and I have reminders set to change provider AND I'm not working to a tight monthly budget. And I group costs I can't do much about: car costs, petrol, pet care, prescriptions separately to groups I have more control of eg food, clothes, socialising, dance classes, so I can focus on keeping these to sensible amounts and just glance at the others to make sure there's nothing I need to shuffle money around for.
Other people may prefer to look at everything every time and order their spreadsheets in a different way or enter every spend including the bills. And others like to plan for every pound (I think this is what ynab does). I'd advise you at least start with a column or line for everything (or something like ynab) until you've got a good understanding of everything that is going out and then decide if you are safe to dial back the effort.

Naomim

I found the budget planner here on MSE really helped me. It's spreadsheet format and it was comprehensive enough to get me started.