# best app for budget / expense tracking?



## kubatron (Jan 17, 2011)

Hey

I was looking for an app for the blackberry and wondered what people out there use to track their expenses. As stupid as it may sound, I'm 33 and have only now decided it's time to see where my money goes! (never too late, they say). So far it's eye opening. I found www.expensify.com and am pretty happy with it, but in case someone else has any other suggestions I'm all ears.

(the scariest part is when you can make a pie chart and over 1/3rd is towards "entertainment".)


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

Dump the archaic Blackberry, get an iPhone or Windows 7 Phone.
With Windows Phone, you can run Office Excel right on your phone and do all the budgeting, tracking, calculating you desire.


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

I use a template in Google docs. 

That said, I actually think budgeting and tracking spending is highly over-rated. I like to do it, but ... I don't delude myself that the investment of time produces results beyond what much more basic, simpler behavioral techniques like "pay yourself first" do. 

All that stuff about "the latte factor" etc. drives me insane. What I like to spend money on is not what you like to spend money on. My favourite grocery store is not your favourite grocery store. The amount of money I spend on entertainment is not the amount you spend. And on and on and on. 

But so long as you are 1. meeting your financial commitments, 2. putting aside an appropriate amount of money to meet all of your long-term goals, and 3. not incurring any new debt - who the heck cares where the rest of your money goes?


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## kubatron (Jan 17, 2011)

I disagree. For my wife and I it's of primary importance to first see where our money is going. At the end of the year we made good money, put a chunk into the mortgage with overpayments, but we don't splurge on many things and yet feel like we blow it on.... nothing. So perhaps you've done the tracking before and I haven't - that's why I'm doing it.

I will never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever get an iphone. Reason being is the keyboard sucks. I type dozens of emails on the unbeatable bb keyboard.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

MoneyGal said:


> But so long as you are 1. meeting your financial commitments, 2. putting aside an appropriate amount of money to meet all of your long-term goals, and 3. not incurring any new debt - who the heck cares where the rest of your money goes?


I agree with this philosophy in general, but tracking can help you spot areas where you could tighten up the ship. If you discover that you spend $8,000/year on booze, for example, it might cause you think twice (and maybe visit a doctor). It's not that $8,000/year on booze is "wrong" (maybe you throw a lot of parties) but it's money you could have spent on other things. You chose to spend it on booze, but seeing how much you spent over the course of a year can sometimes cause you to sit up and take notice, and take steps to plug that particular money leak.

For example, I spend $38/month on cable, which seems reasonable to me until I consider that this is $456/year and we only watch about 10 hours of television per year, max. That means watching television costs me $45/hour. If I didn't track my expenses, I never would have thought about it. There are a lot more useful things I could do with $456/year or $38/month, and clearly if we're only watching 10 hours of TV a year we wouldn't miss it.


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## MoneyGal (Apr 24, 2009)

You do realize I said I do this (track spending) for myself? I didn't say it was useless, just over-rated. 

Think of it this way: all of us have a finite amount of attention and time (just like we have a finite amount of money. Same concept!). 

Someone "wanting to get a handle on their finances" [BIG BOLD NOTE: I am not referring to the original poster, just a hypothetical "someone"] - what is the best way for them to spend their limited attention and time budget on their personal finances? 

Is it to: meticulously track each penny spent...or is it to set up a pay-yourself-first system with stops to prevent any new debt? 

The problem I see (having worked with people! and their money! for many years!) is that people can get really stuck in analyzing and processing, as opposed to making simple behavioural changes that will make much more difference over time. So someone might spend a day processing a return for a defective CD to get their $15 back, and then spend an hour clipping coupons for groceries, and then maybe enter each coffee they purchased over the past month in their personal budgeting system. And then they might confidently announce, "I've spend the WHOLE DAY working on my finances! I feel great!" 

But what difference, really, have they made with that whole day? 

I'm not knocking tracking spending. I am suggesting that there may be other ways to reach your financial goals which have a bigger payoff. (I am meticulous about knowing where my $$ goes, but I have a very deep interest in this for myself. Other people do not. They are probably not on this site, though.)


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

MoneyGal said:


> what is the best way for them to spend their limited attention and time budget on their personal finances?
> 
> Is it to: meticulously track each penny spent...or is it to set up a pay-yourself-first system with stops to prevent any new debt?


Well put. I think most people do it backwards: they start by tracking to identify the money leaks and gradually work up to a system, which could be termed the pennywise/pound foolish approach. Instead you start by adopting a system to address the big issues and then use tracking to gradually identify and plug the smaller leaks. Pounds first, pennies later. I think people get stuck on the notion that pennies add up to pounds.


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## Sampson (Apr 3, 2009)

HaroldCrump said:


> get an ...Windows 7 Phone.


Seriously?!?

Harold, your suggestions are usually spot on, but this?!? Windows 7 is already dead. It has been shipping for about 3 months now, 1.5million activations... lots at the beginning, only 300k this past month.

Android on the other hand... 500k per day!

Go iPhone or better yet Android.

No one seriously wants to run a full MS Excel on a 3-4" screen do they?


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## larry81 (Nov 22, 2010)

Get Quicken at download statement from your bank website...

I dont see the point of tracking all this manually... on a phone


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## MikeT (Feb 16, 2010)

I've had both a blackberry and now an iPhone 4. I'll admit it took about a week to get used to the iPhone keyboard. But the i can now type much faster on the iPhone keyboard than I ever could on the blackberry. You don't actually have to press as hard, which makes each keystroke faster.


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## K-133 (Apr 30, 2010)

I suppose I adopted that pound first strategy. I laid out my big expense categories, and estimated what I'd spend. I track each expense in my phone using MoneyCalc (I wanted a very simple app). Every quarter, I review the previous 12 months of data, and adjust the budgeted amount for the coming 3 months. 



MikeT said:


> I've had both a blackberry and now an iPhone 4. I'll admit it took about a week to get used to the iPhone keyboard. But the i can now type much faster on the iPhone keyboard than I ever could on the blackberry. You don't actually have to press as hard, which makes each keystroke faster.


Speaking of keyboards. If you've got an Android, check out swype! Its weird at first, but makes typing so much faster!

When I use a blackberry, I feel like I'm struggling with Windows 95.


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

MoneyGal said:


> The problem I see (having worked with people! and their money! for many years!) is that people can get really stuck in analyzing and processing, as opposed to *making simple behavioural changes *that will make much more difference over time.


And that is the fundamental problem..behavior change driven by a necessity
to cut spending due to shrinking income..or overspending.




> I'm not knocking tracking spending. I am suggesting that there may be other ways to reach your financial goals which have a bigger payoff. (I am meticulous about knowing where my $$ goes, but I have a very deep interest in this for myself. Other people do not. They are probably not on this site, though.)


Well if any of you catch the odd episode of "Til debt do us part"...by
Gail (hypenated last name) ...it's easy to see why so many people
these days get into severe debt because they can't curb spending or
spend way more than they take in.

Having easy access to credit cards is one of the main reasons. 
If you pay just the minimum payment on each credit card (to juggle 
finances) it will take several years to pay off the balance and that is
if there is no new charges accumulated in the mean time.
Credit cards are fine, but only if you can manage to pay the balance off
at the end of the month..and that takes discipline, a monthly budget and
better still ONE credit card that you can manage to pay off that way.

Since I'm on a shrinking pension (thanks to the bankrupcty of my former
high tech employer (N--tel), I have to manage what I get each month
with a budget and save what I can each month for the future where there
probably won't be much of a pension for me. This is simple economics,
you don't need to be an accountant to track what you spend..just include
the essentials , property taxes, heat, hydro, phone/internet/cable tv and
incidentals that you can't put into any other catagory...check against what
you have at any given instance in the bank that month and calculate the
balance you have remaining. All you need is a $5 calculator for this...
you don't need no apps or high tech s/w to do this. 

Buy your food and personal items on a Single CC, (to get points etc) and
pay it off at the end of the month before it exeeds 1/3 of your total net
income. It works and you can actually save some to put into a savings
acct as well.


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## K-133 (Apr 30, 2010)

Exactly - you need to know your behaviour to be able to make changes to it.


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## Brownstein (Jan 26, 2011)

Mint.com is in Canada now and I find it really useful. It was a bit of a pain to sync up with PC financial at first but now it seems fine.


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## larry81 (Nov 22, 2010)

Quicken Quicken Quicken Quicken Quicken Quicken Quicken Quicken


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## lister (Apr 3, 2009)

I've been searching around for an app for some time for my needs and tried a number of them. I've used Quicken before but with getting an Android phone a few months ago I've wanted to have an app that has a mobile component. I've found a multiplatform app called Moneydance that does mostly what I want and they're working on an Android app (they have an iPhone app already.) Moneydance can be tried out for 100 manually entered transactions (importing doesn't count towards that.) I'm waiting to try out the Android app before I plunk down my $$$.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

Quicken won't work for the OP's needs as he's looking for something with a mobile app. [edited to say that Quicken Online (aka Mint) does offer an iPhone/iPod app, but the OP hates iPhones.]

Moneydance is indeed pretty good; I used it for a few years on my Mac as an alternative to Quicken; it's cross-platform (it's a Java-based application). The interface is a bit clunky and ugly, but it does the job.


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## PoorPablo83 (Feb 8, 2010)

I don't know if there's an app related to it, but I just started using Mint.com a few months ago and find it pretty useful. I like it for it's "at a glance" financial summary of all my accounts/investments and monthly breakdowns of what I am spending. The nice thing is it automatically categorizes and updates your purchases into various categories (groceries, restaurants, interest income, bank fees, etc etc). I took around 30 minutes the first day setting it up and that's about it. I believe there's also a feature for smart phone users where you can set a budget for a particular expense (ex entertainment) and if you go over it you will receive a text message informing you.

It's not perfect, but very handy for setting goals and gradually reducing petty expenditures.


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## MikeT (Feb 16, 2010)

Mint.com makes me feel like an alcoholic. It sends me texts telling my I am over budget on alcohol & bars this month. I bought 1 bottle of wine as a gift.

I think I should probably spend the 5 minutes and set up the budgets properly.

Great website. Their mobile app could use alot of work though.


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## PoorPablo83 (Feb 8, 2010)

MikeT said:


> Mint.com makes me feel like an alcoholic. It sends me texts telling my I am over budget on alcohol & bars this month. I bought 1 bottle of wine as a gift.
> 
> I think I should probably spend the 5 minutes and set up the budgets properly.
> 
> Great website. Their mobile app could use alot of work though.





My girlfriend had a similar story. She signed up, set up her budgets, then checked her email. Their were two messages, one reading something like "welcome to mint! blah blah blah" the next was something akin to "warning: you are $500 over your monthly budget for bars and alcohol". She is not an alcoholic, she just set up her budgets incorrectly. I still got a good laugh out of it!


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## slacker (Mar 8, 2010)

MoneyGal said:


> I use a template in Google docs.
> 
> That said, I actually think budgeting and tracking spending is highly over-rated. I like to do it, but ... I don't delude myself that the investment of time produces results beyond what much more basic, simpler behavioral techniques like "pay yourself first" do.
> 
> ...


+9000

Once upon a time, I did try to track every penny, but I soon grew frustrated with the effort. And even after compiling mountains of data, all i was able to say was "so-what" ? I don't care how much I'm spending on useless junk. 

I *DO* care about whether I'm saving enough for retirement, and a house.

I *DO* care about whether dealing with irregular expenses like car repairs, vacations and travel expenses.

Nowadays, I do pay-myself-first. My tools include:

- a chequing account
- ING savings accounts (Yes I have like 8 sub accounts on ING for pooling my irregular and longer term expenses)

Each paycheque comes in, I have set up automatic transfers to funnel money into my ING savings accounts. (e.g. 30% of paycheque goes towards my housing, 7% towards vacation fund, etc)

After my long and medium term goals have been satisfied, the rest are by definition discretionary income. I can choose to spend it all on lattes or beers without any guilt. Because I know that all my financials goals are being met.

PS: I do see the merit of tracking MAJOR expenses though. For example I've started tracking my transportation expenses, because I drive 80km to work each day and back. I have discovered that I'm spending about $6500 on transportation each year. This discovery had encouraged me to join a carpool, and I look forward to halfing my transportation expenses. But this effort is not worth it for tracking how much I spend on chewing gum.

PPS: You'll know when you've spent more than you should, when you run out of money, or when you're having difficulty paying off your credit card in full. That's your signal to spend less.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

I buy almost everything on my CC and I know how much I can afford to spend on that. I can also track it easily via TD's mobile app. I carry about $60 so it's easy to track how much cash I've spent

I download my transactions monthly to Quicken to see everything in one place but it feels kind of archaic. Mint.ca might be a better option if it's sorted out for Canada




HaroldCrump said:


> Dump the archaic Blackberry, get an iPhone or Windows 7 Phone.
> With Windows Phone, you can run Office Excel right on your phone and do all the budgeting, tracking, calculating you desire.


Blackberries are definitely archaic. Android is the future. Microsoft is way over the hill


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## HaroldCrump (Jun 10, 2009)

mode3sour said:


> Blackberries are definitely archaic. Android is the future. Microsoft is way over the hill


I agree Android is much better than the other 3 in many ways. It is a more stable and reliable operating system.
The only thing that endears me to Windows Phone 7 is the ability to run many Microsoft apps right out of the box, although the experience is different than their desktop equivalents.


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## brad (May 22, 2009)

HaroldCrump said:


> The only thing that endears me to Windows Phone 7 is the ability to run many Microsoft apps right out of the box, although the experience is different than their desktop equivalents.


And I think this is why Windows phones will be around for a while even if they are a niche market. The two or three people I know who use Windows phones love them and would never switch to another phone as long as Windows phones are available. It's good to have this kind of diversity and choice in the marketplace -- and it's worth remembering that a small slice of a big market is still a big market. It's a mistake to think that iPhone and Android are the only real players in town; there's enough loyal following for Blackberry, Symbian, Windows Phone 7, even Palm, to keep them viable for the foreseeable future. Even if you only have 1% of the mobile phone market that still means you're selling millions of units. People used to dismiss Apple because they only had about 3 or 4% of the market for personal computers, but 3-4% of that market translates to tens of millions of units sold and Apple was doing just fine.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

HaroldCrump said:


> I agree Android is much better than the other 3 in many ways. It is a more stable and reliable operating system.
> The only thing that endears me to Windows Phone 7 is the ability to run many Microsoft apps right out of the box, although the experience is different than their desktop equivalents.


To be honest I haven't tried Phone 7. They have just been coasting on their brand software wise for so long. They tried to get into other markets such as video games and barely made a cent. Fail after fail after fail. Maybe Phone 7 will change that?

I just went to a demonstration for what our government has selected for software for a $80 million project - Windows based of course. Crash after crash in the year 2011, nothing changes.



brad said:


> People used to dismiss Apple because they only had about 3 or 4% of the market for personal computers, but 3-4% of that market translates to tens of millions of units sold and Apple was doing just fine.


It's true they always had a strong niche following. I'm not sure they were doing fine though. Microsoft dominated them marketing wise to the point of being accused of a monopoly and had to subsidize Apple as competition.

I wouldn't touch Apple back then for the same reason I won't touch Phone 7 now - 3 or 4% of the market means a serious lack of 3rd party support.

Take the OPs question for example, with anything you will have the most choice using the most popular open system. If you have other priorities than niche brands can be great


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