What do you use to track your financial life?

[WynnDuffy73]

Quicken, excel, Google sheets, Mint, Personal Capital?

My old version of Quicken stopped providing stock quotes and has slowly been shutting down features. 

I would love to switch over to something like Personal Capital but the idea if giving one third party all my user names and passwords seems like an insane thing to do. 

What are you guys using?

[forummm]

Excel. I don't need anything more than that. And I also don't trust my info, let alone my password, to 3rd parties.

[2Birds1Stone]

Personal Capital is awesome,

especially when you are CC churning and want to keep tabs on 10+ CC's from one place.

I love tracking net worth, allocation, expense ratio's, etc all from one location.

I also use an elaborate excel sheet for all my FIRE projections, detailed spending/budget progress, etc.

[kpd905]

I use Excel as my main tracking method.  I have Personal Capital, but through refinancing my student loans and rolling over a 401k I had networth swings of $50,000+ in a day when they disappeared from one account and then appeared in another account a few days later.  Makes my networth trend line look pretty bumpy.

[Caoineag]

Mint for tracking categories of expenditures and a spreadsheet for cashflow, investment growth, networth and roth ira contribution availability. Oh and yearly spending as well. My spreadsheet is where the real information is but Mint makes data accumulation easier.

[Calvin]

Since I started working in 2011, I tracked with Excel. Then, I added Mint and a couple years ago I switched to YNAB.

My system's evolved over time (especially my Excel workbooks). Now I have:

- YNAB: I absolutely love their system of budgeting because budgeting never worked for me in the past. I use it for keeping track of day to day transactions and at the end of the month I reconcile accounts with Ally Bank and my CCs.

- Excel Expenses/Income/Net Worth workbook: At the end of the month I copy over my current balances for all my accounts as well as the total Income/Expenses numbers that are reported in YNAB. This workbook keeps track of the following:

• Monthly history of Expenses, Income, Net Worth, Retirement Funds
• Calculated items: Projected FIRE income @4%, Savings Percentages, Months to crossover, Years of Expenses
• Graph over time of Income, Expenses, Excess Income (Income-Expenses) and projected FIRE income
• Graph over time of Net Worth, Retirement Funds and Capital xRetirement Funds

- Excel Rebalancing Workbook: I have a 401k, Vanguard Roth IRA and Vanguard Taxable account. This workbook rolls up the investments to an overall portfolio and I use it to compare vs target for rebalancing purposes.

If anyone's curious at seeing my excel spreadsheets, just PM me, I'd be happy to share. A lot of my work is done with Excel and financial projections/analysis, so I have fun applying some of that to my own personal finance worksheets. Seeing my Net Worth change over time and the trending of expenses/income and progress to the crossover point is very motivating!

[Tjat]

I use Quicken to aggregate expenses and categorize, then export to Excel for tracking and reporting. I too am uncomfortable about a third party having login info to my accounts, but all my important accounts have two factor authentication, so I suppose that's safe enough.

[MDM]

Quicken & Excel.

Yes, Quicken could be a lot better and their planned obsolescence strategy is annoying, but until someone else comes along with a better package my time is worth more than the ~every 3 year upgrade cost.

[NorCal]

I used to use Mint, but became increasingly frustrated with some of the errors they had syncing with my bank.

I use Quicken now, and am incredibly happy with it for my expense tracking and new worth tracking.  I don't care for the investment management side of it, so I use spreadsheets for that.  I've found the price of Quicken to be worth it.

[MakingSenseofCents]

I use Personal Capital but mainly stick to Excel.

[seattlecyclone]

I use Quicken to track account balances and categorize expenditures. I also use Google Sheets to track investment performance vs. my asset allocation to help me decide which funds to contribute to next.

[Financial.Velociraptor]

Largely, nothing.  I give myself a regular allowance in the form of regular defined monthly withdrawals from my brokerage account to my checking account.  As long as my checking account balance is growing, I'm doing it right.  Else, adjust something.  The anti-budget approach.

When I have the old Former Financial Analyst itch to torture numbers, I use MS Excel 2000 because I'm too cheap to upgrade.

[Lordy]

I actually wrote my own scripts that collect the balance of each account plus the spot price of gold and silver each night. These get put into a neat graph that shows each separately as well as the total and 30-day and 200-day rolling totals. As long as the line keeps moving upwards, I'm good :)

[arebelspy]

Mint to track spending automatically.

Excel to track NW (though also log on networthiq.com) and make projections, predict cash flows, track real estate expenses, etc.

Basically I'd have no idea how much I spent if I didn't use Mint, and I'd have no idea how much I had or be able to make monetary predictions if I didn't use Excel.

Actually, that's a good argument that maybe I should stop using both.

If not for taxes...

[SingleMomDebt]

Ditto to arebelspy. Mint and excel.

[IndyPendent]

I use a custom dashboard (screenshot attached) for FI tracking, and Mint for my detailed spending logs.

The original thread for this dashboard is here, if you're interested.

http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/share-your-badassity/one-sheet-to-rule-them-all/


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[fb132]

YNAB, I don't need anything else, it does what I want and I enjoy entering the transaction manually.

[geekette]

Quicken for over 20 years.  Besides the obvious tracking of spending and net worth, it's nice to be able to search for old transactions, like when did we buy that dishwasher, or how much was the sofa, or how much have we spent on travel in the last 1/5/10 years.  Problem is, garbage in, garbage out, so some of the early info is missing.  I wish I'd started tracking earlier, but I'm very happy that I have a good deal of info from 1/92 on.

[mrpercentage]

Mint for budgets. I american express everything for points and pay it off every month, and invest my points.

Yahoo to track all my investments. I manually update new purchases. It tracks my Scottrade and Robinhood accounts. I have tried Bettermint. Its okay but too vanilla for me. I love Robinhood. Im dying for them to get the IRA option they say is coming.

[OneDollarAtATime]

2 workbooks of Excel.

Book 1 is cash flow -- income in one column, expenses in the next, credit cards in the third (these get paid off monthly in full, but I track them for cash flow so I can make sure they are covered each month).  There's a column tracking the savings account, as well.  The last column is the math that tracks the total balance.  The spreadsheet is projected out 4-6 months and tied out to the bank statements weekly(-ish).

Book 2 is a net worth tracker, updated quarterly.  This includes bank balances, 401k balances, Roth IRA balances, credit card balances (at the time), home mortgage, etc.  I've also included an estimated home value so I can track equity, but I don't include that count in my net worth calculation even though I could / should.

Fairly simple, but I've never run into a cash flow problem, have upped my savings amount and grown my net worth every quarter since I've started tracking it 3 years ago so it works for me.

[notoriusjt2]

YNAB all day

[GGNoob]

Mint for budgets. Google Sheets and Personal Capital for investments.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[thedayisbrave]

Excel, it's fun :)

[Patrick A]

Excel. I don't need anything more than that. And I also don't trust my info, let alone my password, to 3rd parties.

Pretty much this.  I enjoy keeping my own detailed data and being able to crunch it however I want - if I so choose.  If I'm lazy my spreadsheets do the important calcs for me anyways.

[Mississippi Mudstache]

Personal Capital and to some extent, excel.

[mom22boys]

YNAB and Excel.  Like FB132, I enjoy manually entering my expenses to track against my budget.  It gives me the 'Dooohhh' effect whenever I want to spend more money and have to manually enter a large number into YNAB. Forces me to compare actual to budget even time I log an expense.

For Excel, I'm using some of the spreadsheets that Mad FIentist provides. I just found them a month ago, so I'm still trying to optimize, but they are nice because he has worksheets for investments, expenses, net worth, and estimated FI.  Awesome tool!

[Cookie78]

I use excel. But mine is random and scattered, half at work and the other half at home. This year I've just started tracking expenses and income, and done a few projections and net worth calculations. I should optimize it a lot more like some of the other people in this thread.

[bermudasq]

Google Sheets for budget (so my wife and I can both access/contribute from anywhere).  Excel for the heavy lifting.  Dozens of tabs.  Lots of fun.

[One Noisy Cat]

pen and paper

[Ozstache]

Quicken (free 2004 version) for tracking day to day expenses against budget. Excel for annual budget performance analysis and new budget development. Excel again for ER projections out to age 100.

[2Birds1Stone]

Excel, it's fun :)

Haha, I love the excelisfun channel on youtube.

[Faraday]

Personal Capital is awesome,

especially when you are CC churning and want to keep tabs on 10+ CC's from one place.

I love tracking net worth, allocation, expense ratio's, etc all from one location.

I also use an elaborate excel sheet for all my FIRE projections, detailed spending/budget progress, etc.

+1 to all 2B1S's comments - same for me.
Personal Capital kicked MINT's ass all up and down the street.

BTW: Personal Capital recently added a retirement simulator that works like a graphical version of cFIREsim. It's very easy to use and helps you graph the long-term viability of your stash.

I was having trouble visualizing what happens between now and when I'm eligible for Social Security, then what happens AFTER I start getting Social Security. The simulator in Personal Capital helped me visualize this plus lets you pick a lot of variables to run "what-if" scenarios.

[RWD]

GnuCash for me.

[Faraday]

GnuCash for me.

Studly....GnuCash isn't for the faint of heart and mind....

[beee]

I've been using HoneyMoney (Russian-only) since 2011

[RWD]

GnuCash for me.

Studly....GnuCash isn't for the faint of heart and mind....

I personally think it's significantly easier and more powerful than generic spreadsheet software, but maybe my brain is just wired different...

[Minion]

Pocketbook here in Australia.

[Old Man Mase]

Personal Capital to track net worth (the Balance Sheet), and Excel to track cash coming in and going out (the Cash Flow Statement).  I tried Mint long ago, but some years back they had terrible syncing problems and I eventually just abandoned it.  Personal Capital has been much better for a 'big picture' view of all accounts.

[Bardo]

Excel here.  My main spreadsheet started in 2001 just to track my primary checking account.  Over time it has grown to incorporate budget, net worth tracking, and reminders to pay bills etc.  Each year has a tab for budget v actual spending by month.  On the net worth tracking page I can see my monthly net worth summed by account, going back for years (except for during the crisis, when it was just too depressing!) 

There is another workbook for allocation, where I periodically break down investable assets by category (cash, bonds and embedded cash, equities).  This also has a tab where I track monthly net worth (net investable assets and home equity) compared to my target retirement date and amount.  That way I know how much I need to accumulate by month for the remainder of my working life to meet my goal.  Another tab is just notes on investment and retirement dis-investment strategies.

I use other spreadsheets for quick net worth estimates, electricity usage by month, and for tracking my mortgage and home equity. 
 

[xDavidx]

I used Quicken for years, but I eventually decided to stop upgrading and try some different tools.

I tried Mint, but I have problems with it syncing to some of my accounts. Also, it is too automated. Manually entering transactions in forces me to pay more attention.

I am currently using YNAB. It is ok, but could be a lot better. I updated it daily with daily transactions. At the end of the month I update my investment accounts and track my networth over time with it. I have been using it since Sept. 2013.

This years I started using Google Sheets to track passive income. Not as fancy as some of the excell sheets I seen people use, but it meets my requirements so far.

[dess1313]

I use excel to track my savings, and checking account portions.  I sometimes have several earmarked piles of money in each account.  I've been crunching numbers for several things and have multiple work books open in it for the different scenarios i'm considering.  I also have my budget in another work book, and have been tweaking that trying to cut corners a bit

For on the go finance, i use a phone app called Better Than budgeting, I input my budget amounts, and each time i purchase something i record it there.  I'm still not totally perfect in sticking to my budget, but I've trimmed it back hugely and am trying way harder.  It still needs some tweaks.  But this lets me know when i'm off track and when i'm near my limit in different categories.  Its making me much more aware of my spending than i was before.  And it has some nice monthly break down features and graphs.  You can also set up recurring ones for monthly bills and such

[samuck]

I use Excel on dropbox for access from anywhere. Track transactions, a monthly portfolio update and a quarterly net worth update - enough tracking for me as long as the figures and trends go in the right dieection

[halfshellmeijin]

Google Spreadsheets. I use this because I can access it anywhere. I also like the idea of a workbook because then my passwords are not stored on some centralized server. Also, if my bank changes the login procedure then there is no adjustment period as the site has to adjust to the new system, as was my issue with Mint.

I hand enter every transaction into my spreadsheet on one sheet and the rest of the sheet updates automatically and includes net worth, budgets, average monthly spending, monthly spending in self picked categories and sub categories, and savings rate. I like to do this because it also serves to cover other home chores, like balancing the checkbook, checking my w-2 during tax season, and doing my own fraud checks with my credit cards.

I do admit I am currently working on a longer term spreadsheet in order to do projections, but all data from that spreadsheet will be dynamically pulled from these yearly spreadsheets I already have and I should just have to open it and the data will already be there to look at. No updating necessary.

[turketron]

Mint to pull in my checking and credit card transaction data without having to login to my bank and CC sites separately, which I then reconcile to YNAB to track my spending. I don't really put much effort into the budget part of YNAB, it's mostly for tracking spending & identifying trends in the reports. Mint also to track my overall net worth in one place, since I don't have any of my investment accounts in YNAB.

Also use a simple Google spreadsheet to track my paycheck info. It mostly just recalculates what's on my paystubs, but I've had issues in the past with our payroll department calculating things incorrectly so I like to double check it myself. I also use it to track my overall savings rates month to month, once my automatic investment deductions are added back in.

[Mrs.LC]

Personal Capital and excel. Keep an excel spreadsheet to took at historical data of net worth.

[morning owl]

YNAB (totally worth it) and Excel. YNAB for my own day to day expenses, and excel spreadsheets for overall net worth for me and DH. I also track my / our dividend income in an Excel spreadsheet.

Since I have a variable income I find YNAB is the only thing that works for me, in terms of knowing what bills are coming up, and how much I can afford to put into investments. I pay myself a regular salary and try to keep my expenses as low and even from month to month as possible.

I had one month so far this year where my dividend income > expenses, which was a pretty exciting moment. I happened to have a low expense month and a high dividend month though... but it's getting there :)

[JuSp02]

Mint to track spending automatically.

Excel to track NW... and make projections, predict cash flows, track real estate expenses, etc.

Basically I'd have no idea how much I spent if I didn't use Mint, and I'd have no idea how much I had or be able to make monetary predictions if I didn't use Excel.

I am the same way.  I also use Excel for general obsessing in a way that is probably completely unhealthy...

[Wads]

I use my Ispending app on iPhone to track all my expenses and income. Once the month is over, I update the free spreadsheet the madfientist gives out.

http://www.madfientist.com/resources/   

The spreadsheet is along the right side, I also recommend his FI Lab.

[rocketpj]

I tried Quicken but seemed to spend all my time recategorizing expenses.

Currently I use YNAB, mostly because my wife likes it.  I keep loose track of our investments by entering transactions into Google Finance, but every few months I update my asset allocation Excel sheet just to see where I should stick my next 6 months of investments (I try not to sell when possible, just rebalance by directing new savings).

[DaKini]

http://www.kmymoney.org/ and i like it very much.