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asur posted:Can you not get a cheaper apartment? You seem to be making it work, but spending over a third of your income on a 2 bedroom apartment when you live alone seems like a gigantic waste. asur posted:Your combined category of groceries, fuel, and consumables doesn't really make sense. Not sure what you expect under the consumable category, but I would put fuel as a separate category under car. I've included that as a sort of a catchall category for cost of living expenses that aren't known in advance. Happy to review it, but putting fuel under its own category wasn't an initial concern for me because it's an invariably tiny amount - because I take public transport to work and most everything else is close by, I'll tend to fill my car up for ~$40, and then that'll last me anywhere from 1-2 months. I guess my thought process is that it doesn't require its own category and is best rolled up in a separate consumables category along with the rest of the stuff that isn't a known regular expense. asur posted:Not sure if it's intentional, but your conversion from both quarterly and monthly to fortnight aren't correct.
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Mar 6, 2016 22:06
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Does anyone use Quicken? I find the balances mysteriously getting out of sync with the online balance despite only being changed by online sync.
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Mar 6, 2016 22:41
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Breetai posted:Ah. Yes. I deliberately fudged the numbers by assuming exactly 2 fortnights in a month which then affects both monthly and quarterly calculations. This both covers worst-case months with regards to income vs. expenses (i.e. Feb), and means that I'm over rather than potentially underestimating my expenses so that I have a small buffer in those categories.  Car Registration, 26.87/fortnight saved, 701.00 annual expected. The best I can come up with is that you've used days per year: 701/26.87*14=365.2400 days per year. Well, that means you're short most years but will make it up every leap year ($0.076 buffer). Every 100 years you're short again (one cent), but you make it up every 400 years. Does that all seem ridiculous? Well, it is. If you want to "fudge the numbers", use 26 fortnights per annum and you won't have to rely on the 4yr or 100yr plan.Contrast that with Internet, 75/mo, saving 37.50/fortnight. You're spending 900/yr but saving 975/yr (at 26 fortnights, and more if you use days per year). That's quite the buffer in the name of "number fudging", unless you intended to save an extra month by year end. And the quarterly? Yeah that's $1600/yr or 61.54/fortnight, so you have an annual buffer of at least $133. While the long term average number of days per year isn't 365, most years have 365dy or 26.07 fortnights. On the other hand, the average month has 365/12/14=2.1726 fortnights. In the end, you're undersaving in some categories (the big ones) and significantly oversaving in others (the small ones). If you're trying to ensure you have the money when you need it, you're better off starting with a balance large enough to cover your "long month" instead of having all that fortnightly extra that could be put to use someplace else. This arithmetic is covered in the first few pages of the thread. Also, please use a "code" block like a normal person so we can copy/paste.
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Mar 7, 2016 05:12
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What does $texas mean? To me that means everything related to living is cheap as hell (except for Austin).
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Mar 7, 2016 17:12
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spwrozek posted:What does $texas mean? To me that means everything related to living is cheap as hell (except for Austin). Texas is big though. So i guess a big number.
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Mar 7, 2016 17:14
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I thought it was a reference to snl celebrity jeopardy, Texa$. Not really applicable I guess
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Mar 7, 2016 18:01
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Jmcrofts posted:Texas is big though. So i guess a big number. Sadly this. Australian housing prices are in a bubble to the point where a two bedroom unit constructed in the sixties in one of the cheaper major cities is $300k and there are one bedroom apartments in Sydney going for a million plus.
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Mar 7, 2016 22:49
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Breetai posted:Sadly this. Australian housing prices are in a bubble to the point where a two bedroom unit constructed in the sixties in one of the cheaper major cities is $300k and there are one bedroom apartments in Sydney going for a million plus. So the same as every city in America? Got it
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Mar 7, 2016 23:15
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It's definitely a celebrity jeopardy reference 
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Mar 8, 2016 05:16
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Does anyone know if a personal finance program or web app or something exists that has a calendar in it and syncs with my bank, credit card, etc? YNAB is cool and all, but I'd really like to have my budget spread across a calendar so I can visualize how scheduled payments, paychecks etc interact with one another and see what my expected balance would be on an arbitrary date. I'd prefer a web site or desktop program to a phone app. I've checked out dollarbird, but it's very bare bones.
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Apr 29, 2016 16:14
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Watermelon Daiquiri posted:Does anyone know if a personal finance program or web app or something exists that has a calendar in it and syncs with my bank, credit card, etc? YNAB is cool and all, but I'd really like to have my budget spread across a calendar so I can visualize how scheduled payments, paychecks etc interact with one another and see what my expected balance would be on an arbitrary date. I'd prefer a web site or desktop program to a phone app. I've checked out dollarbird, but it's very bare bones.
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Apr 29, 2016 19:50
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Mint has a little calendar that shows you when various bills and payments are occurring, but I don't think it provides an estimated balance at that time. It might be something you can do as an extended function though, it's not something I have tried to get from it.
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Apr 29, 2016 20:01
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If mint does it, I haven't found it. As for quicken, I was hoping to avoid it because of its uncertain future and issues ive read about with syncing but it seems to be my best choice for now. ah well! e: Where is it? All I've found is the month calendar under budget. Also, I'm currently banking with a credit union that has rather decent interest rates, but I was considering switching to ally bank since the experience would be the exact same (I live 1000 miles away from the closest CU branch so I do everything online) and I'd get much better interest rates. Does anyone have any experience with ally bank and switching to it? Watermelon Daiquiri fucked around with this message at 20:07 on Apr 29, 2016 |
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Apr 29, 2016 20:03
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I can't check in on Mint right now, but I believe the little calendar appears in the overview? It's just a little timeline for the next 30 days showing expected transactions with little bars for their relative size. But it doesn't do expected balances as a result, it just lets you know, hey, you have a credit card bill in five days, not what you can expect to have after you pay it. I don't think its going to compare to anything in Quicken, and probably isn't enough for what you want.
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Apr 29, 2016 20:13
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Watermelon Daiquiri posted:If mint does it, I haven't found it. As for quicken, I was hoping to avoid it because of its uncertain future and issues ive read about with syncing but it seems to be my best choice for now. ah well! This is basically what it looks like in Quicken 2015, minimal changes only. 
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Apr 29, 2016 20:21
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SiGmA_X posted:Quicken: Yeah, the future is something I worry about. I've used Quicken since the 90s, and I will greatly miss it if it goes away. You'll get 3ish years of transaction support after they sunset it, but still. Go to the Bills tab and there are 3 places to look: Upcoming sub-tab, Projected Balances sub-tab, and the Manage Reminders screen. In the Manage Reminders screen, you can see the account balance for a given account and see a calendar with highlighted days being transaction days. Upcoming has a Viewew as Calendar option which shows each item and your overall net position on a given day. This was my first time looking at the Upcoming using the Calendar view - You may want to go into Show Full Calendar and then under Options, pick the accounts you want. I only want to see the bill payment account, as that is the only one I have valid recurring expenses on - my checking account just has income setup, no outgo, so it isn't that useful to look at a net cash projection. Oh that's exactly what i'm imagining! I'll just have to bite the bullet and hope a decent replacement comes along before 2019. And does anyone have an opinion on Ally bank? Watermelon Daiquiri fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Apr 29, 2016 |
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Apr 29, 2016 20:28
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Watermelon Daiquiri posted:Does anyone have any experience with ally bank and switching to it? I've been with Ally for 3+ years. Their saving rates are good (well, good for our current rate environment), they refund up to $10 ATM fees a month, their customer service is open 24/7 and seemed competent the 2 times I've had to use it. They're compatible with mint, and have a decent website and app. On the down side, their checking interest rates have been dropping (along with everyone else's), they used to refund unlimited ATM fees, and they're a giant faceless corporation, so if anything does go wrong, you might have trouble talking to anyone important enough to fix it (I haven't had that happen, but it's always a possibility). There's also no way to deposit cash that I know of (maybe you can do it from another bank's ATM, but I've always been told that's sketchy, since you have no record of how much cash you put in the envelope). Switching was very easy, just set up a transfer from my old bank (or you can mail a check), sign a signature card, and they'll send you out a debit card and checkbook. EDIT: Don't do what I did and transfer all your money to the account as your opening deposit right before you go on a trip. The opening deposit takes some amount of time (7 business days I think?) before it's available. After the opening deposit, electronic check deposits clear very quickly, it's just that first one (or maybe first month's?) that's slow. Overall, I'd recommend it. Grumpwagon fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Apr 29, 2016 |
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Apr 29, 2016 20:45
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Grumpwagon posted:I've been with Ally for 3+ years. Their saving rates are good (well, good for our current rate environment), they refund up to $10 ATM fees a month, their customer service is open 24/7 and seemed competent the 2 times I've had to use it. They're compatible with mint, and have a decent website and app. On the down side, their checking interest rates have been dropping (along with everyone else's), they used to refund unlimited ATM fees, and they're a giant faceless corporation, so if anything does go wrong, you might have trouble talking to anyone important enough to fix it (I haven't had that happen, but it's always a possibility). There's also no way to deposit cash that I know of (maybe you can do it from another bank's ATM, but I've always been told that's sketchy, since you have no record of how much cash you put in the envelope). Awesome thanks! With how much I plan on saving, it seems like a no brainer to switch over. I'll probably still keep my CU account open just in case I can do something with it. And of course, I had to have ordered some new checks from my CU... And of course Quicken isn't letting me log in so I literally cannot do anything with the product I just bought... Watermelon Daiquiri fucked around with this message at 21:58 on Apr 29, 2016 |
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Apr 29, 2016 21:17
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Does anybody know if Mint has a way to deal with bills that don't come every month? I pay my car insurance every 6 months but would like to budget 1/6th of that every month instead of having it look like: "0, 0, 0, 500, 0, 0".
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May 6, 2016 01:37
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You can set a budget category to roll over instead of resetting every month. That way you budget $84 a month, and after five months it will have a carried balance of $415, and then when the bill hits you'll be on budget.
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May 6, 2016 02:05
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OctaviusBeaver posted:Does anybody know if Mint has a way to deal with bills that don't come every month? I pay my car insurance every 6 months but would like to budget 1/6th of that every month instead of having it look like: "0, 0, 0, 500, 0, 0". When you set the budget for Car Insurance, you can choose "Every Few Months", then it gives you an option to say how much, how often, and when your next payment is scheduled for.
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May 6, 2016 15:29
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i signed up for mint, imported my accounts, re-classified everything realized i probably qualify for some kind of poverty program, and somehow i look both incredibly frugal and incredibly wasteful e: hahaaaaaa nope on any low income programs 
Lutha Mahtin fucked around with this message at 04:17 on May 10, 2016 |
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May 9, 2016 22:06
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Lutha Mahtin posted:i signed up for mint, imported my accounts, re-classified everything I just need something for "I have a poo poo load of medical bills because healthcare is busted in this country".  I'd be making headway if it wasn't for that.
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May 10, 2016 20:17
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Any suggestions on budgeting for couples living in sin (so, without fully co-mingled finances)? I currently use Mint, but it (and any system that automatically draws information from a bank) seems inadequate for the task. We anticipate using Splitwise to track payments to the joint expenses, but I can't figure out how to make it work. Like, say I spend $100 at the grocery store. Only half of that is my share, but Mint will pick up on the entire purchase and debit it to the grocery shopping account. I could then split the transaction, but how do I categorize the half that will be reimbursed by my SO? Even after I do that, I can't figure out how I'd deal with the settle-up payment. If i did all this by hand, it'd be easy. What's the go-to solution for that these days, since YNAB appears to have fallen out of favor? Or, is the correct solution to just have both of us in the same Mint account? Even without combined bank accounts I suppose we are sharing budgets.
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May 20, 2016 23:03
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We opened up one joint account at a local bank and had a set portion of our paychecks direct deposit to it each month to cover joint expenses. Our grocery budget was $300/mo, so each of us would put in $150 and we used the debit card we got from the account for buying food. But for rent we would just switch back and forth who paid it each month (I don't remember why, but it worked) It opens you up to a little bit of risk to have a joint account, but for us it was a great trial run for eventually combining everything. We did this because I was pulling my hair out with the same issue you're asking about, so I guess this isn't really the answer you're looking for.
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May 21, 2016 23:08
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Boxman posted:Any suggestions on budgeting for couples... without fully co-mingled finances)? I currently use Mint,... If you use "your card" for $100 of groceries, and you're owed $50 from the Boxman+One joint account, then your account is the creditor and the joint account is the debitor. Either it pays you the $50, or it registers that it owes you $50 (just as you would owe a CC company $50). Reconcile later, or use tricks like you owing it money at a later date to keep things in balance. If Mint can handle these types of pseudo-accounts, then it's silly. But you've hit the square nail squarely on the head: Mint and YNAB serve specific and very limited circumstances. You basically need three copies of them going because you have three accounts. Trying to overload them is going to lead to grief followed by a ream of paper to fix the problems. Use spreadsheets and paper now to save on that noise.
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May 22, 2016 02:53
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I've had a really lovely time trying to combine finances on Mint - specifically, having two Vanguard accounts for my husband and me. It always remarks them as duplicate accounts and then marks them as closed, and I've emailed twice to try and get it fixed, but they can't do much it seems.
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May 22, 2016 20:50
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I started using Mint a few weeks ago, and it suits my needs for now. I only have a few simple accounts though, and I'm just using it to teach myself the discipline and thought process of basic monthly budgeting. I tried using GnuCash before that, and once I have a better handle on short/medium term planning I see myself going back to a tool more like that, where I can actually name things how I want and make the money flow around in ways that make sense (disclaimer: I have zero training in accounting). It's nice that Mint is free, but the bad UI and general bugginess are very off-putting.
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May 23, 2016 19:36
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Gnucash uses double entry, which is the only sensible way to manage accounts. Stuff like Mint, MS Money, Quicken all get hosed up too easily because money can appear from nowhere and disappear to nowhere. The tradeoff is that Gnucash is clunky and potentially kind of harder to understand at first.
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May 23, 2016 22:54
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I'm trying to fix my Mint account. I have a 401k where I have all the transactions listed under "Investments" --> "Retirement". But I don't even see the "Investments" tab anywhere for my other accounts. So when I deposited $8,000 into a post-tax Vanguard account, the "Investments" options for category isn't even there. Has anyone else noticed this? For example: -$8,000 (from my bank account), cannot even see the "Investments" folder for labeling +$8,000 (from my Vanguard account), properly labeled as "Investments" --> "Taxable Investments", a category I created Blinky2099 fucked around with this message at 21:49 on May 27, 2016 |
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May 27, 2016 21:41
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slap me silly posted:Gnucash uses double entry, which is the only sensible way to manage accounts. Stuff like Mint, MS Money, Quicken all get hosed up too easily because money can appear from nowhere and disappear to nowhere. The tradeoff is that Gnucash is clunky and potentially kind of harder to understand at first. The thing that annoys me is that Mint probably wouldn't be harder to understand if it did things a little more "properly", such as using double-entry. They've obviously spent a lot of time and money polishing the user experience of certain components of their product, like the ledger system, that might be more improved if they had spent that effort on the component's underlying mechanics instead. The fact that my bank accounts and credit card are fundamentally different beasts than my expense category accounts, and interact with each other in ways that I don't really understand, is way more confusing than the ideas I learned using Gnucash about how different account types work. I think anyone who knows basic math has some intuitive sense of how accounting principles work, like the difference between me putting an extra part of my paycheck into my savings account (asset) versus putting that same extra amount toward paying off a loan (liability). I'm still glad it exists, though, because sometimes I feel like the design of Gnucash assumes that you already know what you are doing. I am proud to say that using just Gnucash and Google searches, I went from knowing nothing about accounting, to understanding some very useful concepts, like the five main account types (asset, expense, etc.). But within 30 minutes of signing up for Mint, I had this caveman epiphany, one of those moments where a really simple concept finally becomes clear in your mind. This happened with Mint's feature that basically says "hmm you seem to have the most spending activity in these categories, maybe try tracking these every month". Pretty simple, right? But it was the mental nudge that finally helped me go from understanding budgets conceptually, to being able to think about my income and expenses on a day-to-day level. In a few days it will be the end of my first month with a real, categorized budget, and honestly it feels really good. The initial shock of fully understanding my financial situation was tough. I'm in a pretty low-wage job, and I don't have much discretionary spending. But as the month has gone on, I have noticed feeling a lot more relaxed and confident about my finances, just from being able to make decisions based on realistic estimates of my income and expenses. It's kind of cheesy, but I've honestly had a few moments where I think to myself "wow, you're getting pretty good at this whole being an adult thing". And some of the credit definitely goes to BFC and all the goons who have given time and effort to helping people understand all this stuff. So thanks 
Lutha Mahtin fucked around with this message at 18:11 on May 28, 2016 |
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May 28, 2016 18:08
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Perhaps it would help drive home the point that planning and reviewing is important if we renamed the thread from "how to track expenses" to "how to create a budget".
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May 29, 2016 05:40
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Mint is like putting a bandaid on a tumor
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May 29, 2016 20:52
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Mint is a very useful tool, but it is not a budgeting tool
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May 30, 2016 16:12
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PhantomOfTheCopier posted:Perhaps it would help drive home the point that planning and reviewing is important if we renamed the thread from "how to track expenses" to "how to create a budget". Done
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May 30, 2016 16:29
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And another round of good planning pays off!
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May 30, 2016 17:02
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Let's say I have $600 to budget. $300 goes to bills. $100 goes to Groceries. I have categories for Clothing and Spending Money and Household Goods. Would you distribute equally or use a different method? All 3 of those are pretty variable from month to month so there's not a lot of hard data on those. 
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May 31, 2016 21:49
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How much do you plan to spend on each per year?
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May 31, 2016 23:36
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PhantomOfTheCopier posted:How much do you plan to spend on each per year? I honestly couldn't say. I've never planned for clothes or stuff I need around the house. I get it as it becomes necessary. Would it be better to assign it to spending money and move it if I do need something until I've got a relative average?
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Jun 1, 2016 12:55
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Remember that budgets aren't supposed to be ironclad. Give it a solid guess but don't feel too guilty if you're off. In a few months, re-evaluate your spending to see where your money is going. If you don't have the ability to wing it a bit longer (either due to finance or bad spending habits), take the time to go through your bank statements and try to categorize spending that way. If you use mostly cash transactions...I got nothin. EDIT: the post after mine is a subtle rebuttal to what I wrote and it's a way better approach, both pragmatically and in terms of budget philosophy. I'll leave what I wrote for posterity but take it with a pound of salt. Also, when you say household goods, do you mean consumable goods like cleaning supplies? Unless your shopping habits vary drastically from mine, consider lumping those in with groceries. It's almost always the same trip anyway (I think of the grocery store to buy windex). There's a cost to extremely narrow categories in difficulty to track. Boxman fucked around with this message at 15:10 on Jun 1, 2016 |
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Jun 1, 2016 13:57
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