Budgeting spreadsheet vs alternative

Nat190

Hi all,

Just a general question:

I have had a Google sheets budgeting spreadsheet that I have created and updated for the last 7-10 years or so.

It works really well, I have credit card balance, savings (myself and my family), upcoming birthdays and events, Christmas, salary sacrifice which can toggled on or off, joint account budgeting etc etc all tracked. its quite a mammoth spreadsheet, but it has been incredibly helpful over the years, and really allowed us to plan (for example my wife is on maternity leave now and we can easily check how much it would affect things going back part time at a later date).

I don't find it too much but I am aware at some point there will be a tool to do all of this making the spreadsheet redundant, but since It covers so many accounts, credit card, and other info (birthdays etc), I cannot see any tools out there that come anywhere close to this.

So has anyone found any useful apps, websites or anything else that you use that may be able to track all of this?

Nathan 

sausage_time

There are few threads here on this.  This could be a good starting point:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6507587/personal-finance-software

Exodi

I don't think you'd find one replacement since your uses are multifaceted, however for events then you could just use the Calendar function (e.g. Google Calendar if you're using Google already, or Outlook has a Calendar, etc.

You can set these up, share with other people and get notified on your phone. Makes it easy and seamless to track things, such as if I book an MOT appointment for my wife, theoretically I wouldn't even need to tell her since it would appear in her calendar and she'd get a reminder on the lead up.

I personally don't think you should replace the budget/cashflow spreadsheet if it's set up well, I think most people that are recommended software alternatives don't have the excel know-how to replicate (and improve) their own personal one.

That said, my budget spreadsheet is relatively simple, it only needs a tab that is effectively a statement of affairs (which can include things account balances).

My investment/retirement spreadsheet however is a monster, and even still would be certainly better replaced by software (particularly for stress testing instead of linear assumptions).

Nat190

Exodi said:

I don't think you'd find one replacement since your uses are multifaceted, however for events then you could just use the Calendar function (e.g. Google Calendar if you're using Google already, or Outlook has a Calendar, etc.

You can set these up, share with other people and get notified on your phone. Makes it easy and seamless to track things, such as if I book an MOT appointment for my wife, theoretically I wouldn't even need to tell her since it would appear in her calendar and she'd get a reminder on the lead up.

I personally don't think you should replace the budget/cashflow spreadsheet if it's set up well, I think most people that are recommended software alternatives don't have the excel know-how to replicate (and improve) their own personal one.

That said, my budget spreadsheet is relatively simple, it only needs a tab that is effectively a statement of affairs (which can include things account balances).

My investment/retirement spreadsheet however is a monster, and even still would be certainly better replaced by software (particularly for stress testing instead of linear assumptions).

Thanks for your reply, just to clarify I already use Google calendar for this. By events I mean more that I have a tab with everyone's birth month (or event month) and how much I want to spend on them, it will automatically take this from that month's budget.

The investment / retirement sheet sounds very similar !