I have a Numbers spreadsheet that I made when I wanted to figure out if I could retire. I am too lazy to re-do it, but it is not perfect. I have about 7 years of data now. I was really impressed when I heard how many years of data various MMM folks had!
I keep tracking post-retirement because I retired based on less than 1 year of data. That was a bit nerve wracking - but I am old with pretty well defined spending habits.
How does my 24-year history stack up?
Majorly impressive!
I track my receipts in categories so when the end of the year comes up I can say “so that’s where it all went”. I have expanded categories to get better ideas on spend amounts.
Also I would be happy to share an anonymized version of this if anyone wants to see it. Forgot to mention that part.
Dang. golf clap
I had a computer die and lose a few years of Quicken but even that wouldn’t have gone earlier than …2005? At most? And probably not even that far. Current tracking goes back to 2016ish, aka after I finally got my head above water after Kiddo was born and I realized I didn’t want to be at work any more and how could I make the money do magic things so I wouldn’t have to do work any more. First round of budgeting found $800 in the “Shopping” category for the past year that I to this day have no idea what we spent that money on, and that’s a lot of money to just disappear into the ether.
I used the original YNAB for years and really liked it. In 2019 or so I was at a point financially where I wasn’t drowning and constantly having to watch my pennies super carefully, so experimented first with making my categories more vague, and then not tracking at all. It worked much better than I thought it would, and it’s pretty amazing not ever looking at my spending and feeling like I “shouldn’t” have spent money on xyz.
I have a google sheets template I played with for a while but I will probably mock up something in Excel.
Any tips for shared finance tracking? Mint was working well for me until I started to merge some things with fiancé. I don’t want to have to go in and manually “halve” so many entries. Maybe time for a tricked out spreadsheet?
Are all your finances shared, or do you just split the costs of certain things? My partner and I use Splitwise for tracking and then I just input the numbers from Splitwise into my spreadsheet. When I used Mint, I would basically take the transaction that was my partner paying me back from Splitwise and just subcategorize that as needed. (Mint’s such a pain if you need to touch transactions at all though.)
Also, here as moral support for the tracking.
My expense tracking worksheet is in a workbook that also has a NW (excluding house) tracking sheet. That one has been way more fun the last several years.
I tried Personal Capital, but hit a time where the links to my accounts kept breaking, and then one account just couldn’t be linked again. But I already had my spreadsheet and hadn’t given it up. I don’t think PC was built for budgeting/ expense tracking (it’s been a long time since I have used it), but I think you could categorize some expenses. Almost all my bill paying it automated, so no good way for any software to automatically pick that up.
I’ve been using YNAB fairly religiously for the past couple of years, but I could/should update it more frequently, sometimes I let things go for a week or two at a time before updating (I manually enter), which does lead to overspending and needing to move money around.
Following for inspiration. I track through mint, and have for a long time. But lately I’ve been a little lazy with categorizing. Especially since moving somewhere where most of my grocery shopping is happening at generic stores like Fred Meyer and target where I might be getting other things as well. And then of course, my husband have to to order a ton of things for work through Amazon, and we also order stuff through Amazon. It’s nice to get credit card rewards for everything he orders for work, but it does make the tracking an absolute mess sometimes.
We split the cost of certain things (groceries, eating out, rent, utilities, cat stuff, gifts for family members), mostly via a shared credit card we got in February of this year. I don’t think we’ll ever fully combine everything. We were using Splitwise before we got the shared credit card.
Joining in. I’ve been tracking spending in google sheets for a little over 10 years. I’ve tried things like Mint but it has yet to stick. My google sheets have gotten very detailed and I don’t see myself switching. I got a dashboard tab with some nice little charts and graphs.
As far as budgeting goes I make a monthly budget and hardly ever spend within those limits so I need to really look into what I’m doing here. Do I need to reign in spending or increase those limits? That will be what I work on for the June budget. Trying to fine tune my goals with reality.
I’ll pop around as well! My wife and I have been sharing finances for about eight months and it looks like we are finally past all the miscellaneous wedding/new house stuff and can dive more deeply into monthly tracking/expenses. I am the main finance person and have had to adjust a few times the amount we each throw into shared checking but I think we finally hit on the correct amount to absorb a usual amount of post-bills miscellaneous stuff.
Our grocery budget is still a WIP because Charrin is vegan and I’m not (though our dinner meal is always vegan unless it’s individual takeout) and also because Charrin is work from home and I’m not (so probably 85/15 freezer meals in staff room vs driving home for lunch in my case). Takeout we treat as a personal thing so it’s tracked differently.
I’ve always tracked big picture spending/bills for my finances in (basically plain text) Evernote, which is great for searching back and I find easier to maintain than spreadsheets. I think with a house/repairs and more long term couple goals now in play I should have a spreadsheet budget too, that will be easier to test hypotheticals against when we’re making big purchase decisions.
OK so here is where things are right now;
| Catagory | Monthly Average | Goal | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mortgage | 475.92 | 498.25 | 22.33 |
| Health/Dental | 226.00 | 227.40 | 1.40 |
| Utilities | 241.32 | 190.00 | -51.32 |
| Groceries | 542.03 | 300.00 | -242.03 |
| Gas | 41.42 | 65.00 | 23.58 |
| Car Maintenance | 25.67 | 15.00 | -10.67 |
| Car Insurance | 108.00 | 108.00 | 0.00 |
| Cellphone | 143.11 | 142.00 | -1.11 |
| Pets | 96.72 | 75.00 | -21.72 |
| Dining Out | 120.61 | 125.00 | 4.39 |
| Entertainment | 26.15 | 40.00 | 13.85 |
| Donations | 18.28 | 90.00 | 71.72 |
| Fitness | 9.00 | 15.00 | 6.00 |
| Clothes | 8.50 | 15.00 | 6.51 |
| Household items | 49.16 | 20.00 | -29.16 |
| School | 404.10 | 627.00 | 222.90 |
| Travel | 109.63 | 265.00 | 155.37 |
| Gifts | 32.49 | 50.00 | 17.51 |
| Misc | 267.61 | 100.00 | -167.61 |
| Puglet | 95.60 | 50.00 | -45.60 |
| Total Spend | 3,041.31 | 3,017.65 | -23.65 |
I’m super surprised that my overall spending isn’t much higher than my goal. This is up to date too so I’ve got most of May included in my averages.
My next plan is to look at each category and see about moving some numbers around.
I’ll post a revised budget for June and go from there.
Being newly divorced and having my own condo versus splitting expenses for a house is a recent development. My income is half but many expenses went away with my ex. I need to see if my new budget is realistic. Also I budgeted out of savings for the items I would need in my new condo.
I’ve been playing around. This is my rough organization for tracking for June. I did put together a very rough “budget” as well, though it’s full of swag numbers (and some numbers that won’t be present in June, like the insurance cost).
| Estimate | June 2021 | |
|---|---|---|
| Income | $1,639.16 | |
| (W2) | $1,424.16 | |
| BQMS | $215.00 | |
| Other | $0.00 | |
| Pre-Tax Expenses | $120.00 | |
| BQMS/Sewing | $50.00 | |
| Health Insurance (run thru BQMS) | $70.00 | |
| Taxes | $230.00 | |
| Federal | $100.00 | |
| State | $30.00 | |
| FICA | $90.00 | |
| Self Employment | $10.00 | |
| Take Home Pay | $1,289.16 | |
| Fixed Expenses | $855.00 | |
| Rent | $600.00 | |
| Utilities | $100.00 | |
| Cell phone | $30.00 | |
| Car Insurance | $50.00 | |
| Giving | $15.00 | |
| Cats | $30.00 | |
| Healthcare | $30.00 | |
| Flexible Expenses | $440.00 | |
| Groceries | $200.00 | |
| Eating Out | $50.00 | |
| Alcohol | $30.00 | |
| Clothing | $20.00 | |
| Household | $20.00 | |
| Hobbies | $20.00 | |
| Fun/Entertainment/Travel | $50.00 | |
| Car/Bike Maintenance | $30.00 | |
| Human Maintenance | $20.00 | |
| Total Spend | $1,295.00 | |
| Total Save | -$5.84 | |
| % | -0.45% |
eta: formatting got wonky. Sorry. It is pretty in sheets. 
OK here is my June Budget. I tried to really think about what I plan on spending this coming month instead of just plugging in averages and tried to categorize better instead of throwing dollars in the misc. category.
| New June Budget | Amount |
|---|---|
| Mortgage | 475 |
| Health/Dental | 226 |
| Utilities | 171 |
| Groceries | 470 |
| Gas | 40 |
| Car Maintenance | 35 |
| Car Insurance | 108 |
| Cellphone | 125 |
| Pets | 50 |
| Dining Out | 125 |
| Entertainment | 75 |
| Donations | 25 |
| Fitness | 15 |
| Clothes | 100 |
| Household items | 125 |
| School | 0 |
| Travel | 300 |
| Gifts | 50 |
| Misc | 35 |
| Puglet | 50 |
| Total Spend | 2600 |
Ok I swallowed and made myself do this today. I’ve known all year that I spend a ridiculous amount of money (for me) compared to two years ago, so it’s a very good thing I also work a bunch of overtime and call and make a ridiculous amount of money compared to two years ago.
My house is at the point that I’m starting to do bigger ticket improvements and repairs, and the DooDooDoo line is a HELOC. I was able to cashflow quite a bit last year, but not so much right now.
