Ask HN: How do you track your expenses? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How do you track your expenses?

#11

Post by blaser-waffle » Wed, May 20, 2020, 5:14 PM UTC

I used You Need A Budget (YNAB) for a while, but supplemented with a google doc/spreadsheet. Eventually moved to a gDoc entirely, but I may move back to YNAB as I try to de-googlify.

I would call them reasonably sophisticated, but ultimately something I did by hand. Mint.com and some of the automated tracking solutions are attractive, but I don't like giving access to sensitive things to random companies, plus I don't need deep, regular breakdowns, just broad trends; if I miss a couple of lunches out, or forgot to add an oil change it won't impact my overall financial picture.

I don't know any terminal-based apps, though I did have a basic python script that hits the Yahoo Finance API to track my stocks. It doesn't work now because I think Yahoo shutdown the API to the public. See also: https://pypi.org/project/yahoo-finance/

Re: Ask HN: How do you track your expenses?

#12

Post by frompdx » Wed, May 20, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

iends wrote: post #5

For personal expenses, YNAB has literally changed my life. It’s also helped my wife and I’s relationship with money and forced us to plan each month. When my wife was furloughed due to COVID19 a month ago, we knew we’d be ok because we have been planning our finances for 5+ years.

Also happy with YNAB. I've used it for almost a year now. To be honest, I don't really budget down to the dollar like YNAB recommends. For example, a lot of stuff still ends up in the "stuff I forgot to budget for" bucket. However, I find it useful for general expense tracking and understanding trends in my spending. I also find it useful as a way to confirm that bills were paid, etc.

Re: Ask HN: How do you track your expenses?

#13

Post by Chetane » Wed, May 20, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

I manually track expenses in a spreadsheet. I'm using tillerhq.com to pull transactions to the spreadsheet automatically.

Re: Ask HN: How do you track your expenses?

#14

Post by rochak » Thu, May 21, 2020, 2:08 AM UTC

I use Spendee. It has a nice interface and doesn’t get in the way.

Re: Ask HN: How do you track your expenses?

#15

Post by donnanorton » Thu, May 21, 2020, 9:20 AM UTC

I do it in an old-fashioned way - in a notebook. For example, you can find lots of different expense trackers on Amazon. I prefer paper planners instead of digital ones in general.