For the longest time, I thought I didn’t have to keep track of my spending, I told myself that I make a decent living, I save for retirement, I don’t spend wildly… and it just seems so restrictive to have to keep track of every penny that comes in and out of my wallet.
Incidentally, I’ve always felt that way about calorie counting – hated it, didn’t see the point of it, assumed my metabolism would just take care of everything. But as my dresses fit a little more snug and jeans hung a little tighter, the truth became clear. It’s all a matter of mathematics, and I’m not going to reverse the trend without some serious work. About two weeks ago, after I heard about the app MyFitnessPal through Newlyweds on a Budget, I decided to give it a try. I started counting every bite and every sip. Instead of finding the tracking restrictive, I love knowing exactly where my calories are “spent” on.
The very act of typing in numbers keeps me accountable and keeps me informed, and that’s what I need with my spending as well. After all, saving money is all about math as well – dollar in, dollar out. And it’s mightily hard to control or reduce dollar out when I don’t have any idea how much dollars are going out and what they are going out for. That’s why I am on the hunt for a good expense tracker app, something that does for dollars what MyFitnessPal does for calories, if you will.
- I’d prefer the app not be linked to my checking or credit card account. I like Mint’s interface, but at this stage of my spending, I need something that forces me to manually enter the numbers.
- I’d like the app to be able to separate my spending into different categories, and if it has preset categories, allow me to add my own. Little charts and graphs to display the data are always appreciated, but I don’t need anything too crazy.
- I’d like the app to track income input as well – ideally also support the capacity to separate out taxes, pre-tax medical premiums, etc.
- There are lots of great paid apps out there, but ideally the app is free. (I think my experience with my MyFitnessPal spoiled me).
Some apps, both paid and free, that I am considering are: ExpenseTracker, iXpenseIt, and Buxfer.
I use Money Journal (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/money-journal/id325038611?mt=8) and didn't pay for it. It has a simple interface and I'm pretty sure there's more to it than I'm using but I just track my spending each day. There are payment categories (debit, credit, cash etc ) and income/spending categories (food, entertainment, groceries, transport, salary, tips etc). All of the categories can be tailored (colour and name, more added etc). I like the little pie charts it has – daily and month to date of each category. I'm really happy with it, and it allows the data to be exported (not that I've tried that yet).
I haven't looked at the others you refer so they may well be quite similar. Good luck and I look forward to hearing what you choose.
I agree- I've always stated that a budget is just like a calorie counting diet. You are given a certain amount to "spend". You can spend it any way you want to, but you obviously want to be under your goal. I've found that I've only lost weight when calorie counting. Personally I don't track every dollar in a budget, because I'm satisfied with our savings.
I love the way you put it.
I use Piggie for iPhone. There's a paid version and a free version but they essentially do the same thing. Expenses/income can be itemized and there are smalle graphs that can be made. The date can be backed-up on Dropbox and exported but since I haven't exported yet so I can't give you my opinion about it
I want to know the same thing for similar reasons! Let me know if you find one you like?
mint lets you enter in manually and categorize. This last year I didn't pay too much attention to my weekly summary e-mail from them, that is UNTIL they sent a year end one where I found out I spent 2g on FAST FOOD last year! That's like 2 months of working for TACOS! I haven't stepped inside anyplace that smells like french fries since.
I actually don't use an app. We use Quicken at home and just email ourselves and keep receipts of money we spend when not at home. It works really well especially when traveling.
I use Easy Envelope Budget Aid (EEAB) on my iPhone. Lets you set your own categories, can do annual/irregular expenses over the year (I use this for car maintenance and gifts) as well as Monthly Expenses. You can also set your budget to Monthly, Weekly, Semi-Monthly or every 2 weeks (I budget Monthly, smaller timeframe would frustrate me).
I use Money on my macbook, and they have an iPhone counterpart as well (I think it syncs between the two also!). I found it has a nicer interface than Mint and all the data is self-entered so it doesn't pull from your bank accounts. Check it out!
Thanks for the rec. I will!
I've tried using Xero Personal…it worked REALLY well until the free trial period ran out
same sort of thing as Mint, you import statements then categorize expenses and compare against budget.
Some good suggestions above, I might check them out!
What happened after the free trial period? Do you think it's worth the full price?
If you want to go really grassroots and manual, why not Excel? I believe FB has one that is pretty awesome. I've made my own Excel budgeting spreadsheet and set mine up so that I manually enter in all of my spending into several columns (cost, budget category, and comments to myself to remind myself what I spent it on) and it automatically updates my budget spending so I can view what I've spent in each category at a glance. I found the other programmes just didn't have the right categories, or enough detail to tell what I actually spent my money on…good luck!
I tried Excel… but I discovered that I really need something on-the-go. Unfortunately, if I don't enter my expenses in the moment I swipe my credit card, I'll never go back and tally them up. It's not really a matter of how good Excel is, it's just what would (and wouldn't) work for me.
glad you liked my fitness pal.
i go old school and track everything we spend on excel… i find anything else to be too daunting.
I use Pocket Money and Love it – I think it has all the features you're looking for and very intuitive and pretty. It's not linked online, but has images to symbolize many banks and accounts. You can create any category you want, and even create budgets, which breakdown and tell you where you spent in each category, when you went over and by how much, and even graph it for you. You can create income categories which are identified in the budget to see if your income is =, >, or < the money you spend. There's a Lite and Paid version. I'd try it out with the Lite version, but hopefully you'll be convinced to get the paid version! =) They also have a very detailed PDF manual.
Here are more details: http://www.catamount.com/blog/category/iphone-sof…
It looks pretty convincing… I might give it a try with Lite. Thanks for the URL.
I LOVE PocketMoney too. I'm always surprised it doesn't get more praise when this discussion comes up around the web. My boyfriend each downloaded it and I use it daily!
What about using Mint?
I use Mint.com every day, but their customer service is not great. Adaptu is another great option, but not as good budget tracking as Mint. I did a review of the two sites at http://www.narrowbridge.net/2011/05/mint-adaptu/.
I'll join the Mint chorus – free, and it works well on whatever mobile or web platform you are using. Sometimes it gets weird with the tracking (double billing if I pay through PayPal, listing other transfers as spending), but Net Worth at a glimpse is pretty cool. It also tracks any property you own through Zillow Estimates, if you have some.
Hey WellHeeled – Come give Adaptu a try! We have a free iPhone app. We can do manual accounts, utilities and rewards, income, etc. We break out spending into a bunch of different categories (as well as allow you to create your own). A ton of charts (and predictive spending on the app)!
I am currently working on this! I am looking for an app that my DH and I can both access for andriod. Preferably free, 2 credit card, 1 bank account, 1 savings account, and preferably the ability to track to or three misc accounts. (The misc. accounts ussually end up in the reports because they are not real accounts – but right now it helps to have them separate.)
WAVE accounting!
I track all of my spending manually with a spreadsheet system. So while I'm out, I make a task with the place name and dollar amount in the Remember the Milk app on my phone and then enter those amounts with all of my receipts into my spreadsheet system every week or two. I <3 Remember the Milk!
Try Receipt Catcher, $0.99 and no hidden costs or trial periods. Does what you need it to do. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmzNqDTVZkk http://itunes.apple.com/US/app/receipt-catcher/id…
You can use it on the go, anywhere in the world!
I like the EasyMoney android app. It has a 30 day free trial, but then you have a one time $10 fee. I like it because you can separate accounts, transfer funds between accounts, and easily track bills (marking them paid with whichever account you want). It's been great for me, and keeping detailed track of things is something that is really hard for me to keep on top of.
Xpenser is a great free site where you can track your expenses through email, twitter, phone, and text, categorize expenses, attach receipts, create reports, and integrate with other financial systems. It's free to sign up and also offers apps for iPhone, Android, and Windows phone.
Just so everyone is aware this is no longer free $9 per mo for one user
I use Presto Expense on my iPhone. I like jotting down and tracking my everyday expenses as they occur, but I don't want to do heavy budgeting work or charting on my iPhone. Presto Expense is very simple to use: I can customize my expense categories, and at the end of each month, I can send the expense data to my email account. Then I cut and paste the csv data into Excel on my computer where I do the heavy lifting/bookkeeping.
For the android users you should try Droid Money, it's a must have! The developers really got nice features to make the process of entering your expenses easy and fast. The best android expense tracker!
I am using xTrack – Expense Tracker, it is available for Android and iPhone
Try it for iPhone https://itunes.apple.com/in/app/xtrack-expense-tr…
and Android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com…
Happy to read your experience! I've just started using Mint.com and it's really useful for tracking expenses and save some bucks.
ExpenseSheetTracker.com – free forever version available.
I'm using https://www.inexfinance.com to keep track of our family finances. It's really easy-to-use and convenient, I can use the Android app on my smartphone and my wife's simultaneously and then have the data synced across devices.
I love Money Tracker app https://itunes.apple.com/bg/app/money-tracker-tra…. It's a simple log of my expenses. Costs can be categorised, nice charts by periods, nice and sleek design. They say next version will be iPhone 5 compatible and will provide more features. Real iPhone experience.
We've just released a very easy to use expense tracking iPhone app called Spend Tracker, you can check it out at http://www.nonsame.com or on the App Store at https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/spend-tracker/id5…
I use comb for iPad, it's a new app recently launched but very simple to use
Try out yomaney it has a web site and an App which sync the data http://www.yomaney.com
I use Yomaney Lite to track my expenses and plan my budget
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yomaney-lite-bill…