Tracking Income/Expenses

[whiskeytails]

I feel like I am not saving enough and I want to know where my money is going before the beginning of the New Year, when I will create a budget and stick to it.

What do you use to track income/expense?

Ideally I would like to use something similar to Quickbooks, where I can make my own expense accounts.

[lindyanne]

I used mint.com for awhile when I wanted to track it more closely. It's a great, easy to use tool.

[SJ]

I use a combination on Excel, mint.com, and Quickbooks.

Mint is free and I suggest you try it to see if it works for you.

[mrssavy42112]

I track all of our fixed monthly expenses on a simple excel sheet with due dates, amount paid & confirmation numbers. I also use Mint.com to watch how much we’re spending in each category & see where we can cut back.

[whiskeytails]

I want something like Quickbooks, but is free.

I'll look into mint, but I don't like that they keep asking to link to my bank account.

I don't really need anything to track when bills are due, since I have most of them autopay on my CC and I pay everything off the same month (only debt is house).

[Pom]

Excel.

[rosiedozie]

We use Mint - it helps us to track since we have expenses coming out of so several different Credit Cards and checking accounts. It automatically knows which expenses are groceries, which are gasoline, which are pets, etc. (and if it's ever wrong you can change it). Trying to do all that manually would be a huge hassle.

[HoneySpider]

I use an excel spreadsheet. Easy and effective.

[BravoBravo]

I used excel then mint. I went back to excel because I felt like actually inputting the information helped me keep on track.

[Deleted]

Mint.com

[apelila]

I use mint.com.

[cricketwife]

Aug 3, 2012 16:06:42 GMT -5 Pom said:

Excel.

+1

[mollz007]

To see exactly where our money is going, I make my own excel worksheet. I used to use mint but it got too frustrating. I also track how much money we spend each DAY on my excel worksheet.

To see how much money we have spent overall in a given month compared to our overall budget, I plug my numbers into sparksavings.com. I just discovered it, but so far I like it

[polarbearfans]

Downloaded the mint.com app. Hopefully it helps me get my spending in check. This post inspired me. I'm thinking I will just not spend money out of laziness of having to enter it in lol

[phunluvin82]

I love mint. It shed so much light on our spending habits. And it's all automatic...I occasionally have to label a transaction, but for the most part, it gets the categories right. With numerous bank accts, credit cards, and loans to track, I feel like it would take me forever to do it manually.

[whiskeytails]

Thanks for all the responses. I am going to work with mint for a few months and at Jan of next year decide what to stick with.

[bliss]

Another vote for mint. I love it. I can see what I'm spending over time, which categories, and keep track of my multiple accounts. It's easy, free and has great charts. I'd hate to enter things manually.