Budgeting Tools online?

sarahtrg · January 2014

Hi all! I'm looking for some budget tracking tools to help me create a better spending plan and monthly budget. I've heard good and bad things about Mint.com (some people swear by it, some people find it more hassle than help...) and I didn't know of any other resources or sites that might be helpful. Does anyone here have an opinion about Mint? Are there any other sites you would recommend?

hoffse · January 2014

I hate mint. It double counts a lot of transactions, and I can't figure out how to change it. So it's always telling me I'm spending hundreds of dollars over my budget even when I'm not. It also routinely miscategorizes things, and even when I change it to the correct category it will sometimes not save the changes. Again, I can't figure out how to fix it.

Honestly, I just spent some time creating a really detailed excel sheet for myself. I keep it on google docs so I can update it at work and at home, and so my H can see it too. I have it down to one sheet per month, and I just enter all my transactions manually. It's sort of a pain, but it gives me the best picture. I think most posters on MM just use excel.

Next million dollar idea: a budgeting app that actually works and is highly customizable. I would totally pay $5 for that.

sarahtrg · January 2014

Thanks for the info...Are there any tips and/or tutorials for creating excel spreadsheets for budgets that you know of? I'm not that experienced with Excel...

hoffse · January 2014

I should add: if you use credit cards with any regularity, you really want to just budget manually (unless you send payments to your card every time you use it). I just pay mine off once a month, and that screws with the timing of most budgeting tools. Pretty much every budgeting tool "counts" a transaction in the month in which you swipe your card. But if you don't pay that card off until the next month, it's really a false categorization since the cash doesn't come out of your account until the following month. I actually think that a lot of people mess up budgets when they don't consider how the timing works with their income. It causes people to overspend accidentally.

I haven't found any tool that lets you customize things like closing dates, billing dates, due dates, etc. so that your budget matches your actual cash flow against when you are paying for those credit card swipes. That's why I finally just decided to do it manually.

I hope that made sense...

Apollo11235 · January 2014

I use mint, but it's not very customizable and is rather buggy. It's the best free service I know of, and I love playing with the charts in the "trends" section.

I haven't used it, but my parents have always sworn by Quicken. It's a paid, downloadable program that's on sale for $30 right now. You might ask around about that and look for reviews if you're willing to spend some money on budgeting software.

hoffse · January 2014

OP, you can just google budget excel sheets and plenty will pop up that you can download. I just did my own - I don't know how to make it do all the functions that some people can do, but at least it has the categories I want and no categories I don't.

vlagrl29 · January 2014

I'm total old school and just use an excel template and do the budget on it for every month. I save all my receipts for the month and at the end of the month I add it all up.

Budgeting Tools online?

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