Comments on: Please Help Me Find a New Way To Track Personal Finances!

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 15:48:55 +0000

I’ve used Excel in the past, but now I am using iMoney.
It’s very easy to use, it’s need to have a try.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:54:06 +0000

@Everyone

Thanks for all the suggestions so far! I hope others will continue to contribute.

Obviously, I should have stated that one of my requirements is that any software has to run on Windows. I don’t own a Mac (at least not yet).

The two that stand out to me so far are Mint and YNAB. Does anyone else have experience with either of these? Are there other alternatives?

Thanks for your input!

By: Butter Eater Lis

Butter Eater Lis — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:59:48 +0000

It is SOOOO all about ibank. I love it. Live for it. Worship it.

By: Ron@TheWisdomJournal

Ron@TheWisdomJournal — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:04:03 +0000

Wish I could help you out on this one. I use Excel to track everything by downloading info from my bank every couple of days. It’s crude, but it works for me!

By: Paul Singh

Paul Singh — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:56:46 +0000

My wife and I started using Mint (mint.com) to track all of our accounts (including 401k’s, bank accounts, credit card, etc) and it’s been great.

While it doesn’t exactly do the envelopes thing, we’ve got it setup with alerts if we exceed our budget in specific areas like entertainment, fuel, electricity, etc.

The best part of it was that it took me <15 minutes to initially set it up and it’s been on “autopilot” since then. Assuming we don’t get a “budget alert” at any point during a month, my wife and I will login around the first of every month to take a look at our net worth calculations.

By: Charlie Gilkey | Productive Flourishing

Charlie Gilkey | Productive Flourishing — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:00:15 +0000

I’m going to throw it in here although I assume you use a PC. Mac OS has Budget at http://www.snowmintcs.com/products/budgetmac/index.php. It’s built on the envelope method and does what you’re wanting it to do. So, if you have a Mac, it’s probably the option you’re looking for.

By: Lynnae

Lynnae — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:57:13 +0000

YNAB Pro! I’m a former Mvelopes user, too, and I LOVE YNAB Pro. It’s a desktop based system, rather than online. It doesn’t automatically import transactions straight from your bank, but you can download your transactions from your bank in quicken format and then import them into YNAB. It’s only one extra step.

It doesn’t use envelopes, per se, but it does show you the different categories of your budget and how much you have left to spend in each category, which pretty much works the same way as envelopes.

Adjustments are super-easy, and you can easily tweak your budget every month, if you want to. If you don’t want to, it’s easy to keep it the same.

I don’t use reports, so I’m not sure what the support on that is. I believe YNAB Pro comes with a free trial period, though, so you could check it out without spending a dime.

By: Frugal Dad

Frugal Dad — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:56:45 +0000

I’ve used Microsoft Money in the past, but currently just use plain ol’ Microsoft Excel. I’ve set up a ledger to track expenses and I assign categories to each expenses that ties back to a budget worksheet. We are a little anal in that we budget by biweekly paycheck rather than by month – for us it’s easier to predict expenses two weeks out rather than for an entire month.

By: Marc and Angel Hack Life

Marc and Angel Hack Life — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:41:26 +0000

Jeff, we use Quicken Deluxe 2008 for keeping track of our finances and managing various budgets. It wasn’t really designed for the Mvelopes style budget, but it does fit the bill for every other requirement you have. It has worked wonders for us.