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Ask HN: How do you record your personal finances?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you record your personal finances?

#51

Post by howeyc »

I wrote my own[1] version of ledger-cli[2] that was a lot simpler in the format it accepts, but has features outside of the format, in the program, to do what I need/want. I have an import feature for csv files, a web interface for reports and portfolio tracking, and the usual cli features from the original.

I've got about 15+ years of transactions in a single file, and I have every intention of continuing forever.

I've been so impressed by how well plain text works for this, I always try to use plain text for as many other things as possible. Future proof. I got burned by MS Money going away, no proprietary formats again if I can help it.

[1]: https://howeyc.github.io/ledger/ [2]: https://www.ledger-cli.org

Re: Ask HN: How do you record your personal finances?

#52

Post by mdrzn »

candiddevmike wrote: post #44
mdrzn wrote: post #31

Anyone using Homechart?

Homechart dev here, Homechart is extremely similar to YNAB4 when it comes to finances [1]. One thing it has that YNAB4 does not is the idea of "Budget Goals"--you can set a budget amount for a certain date and Homechart will calculate backwards what you need to save for it. My family uses this for saving for vacations and property taxes, among other things. While Homechart supports importing from CSVs and QFX files,…

Thanks for replying!

I'm soon gonna move by myself into an apartment and I'll have to keep budget of expenses and stuff, so I've been looking into Homechart which seems to fulfill all my needs. I'll give it a try before trying the other paid services that only do budgeting.

Re: Ask HN: How do you record your personal finances?

#53

Post by workingon »

csw-001 wrote: post #46
workingon wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard this for awhile, and I never really understood it but perhaps it's just my particular situation. I can take an interest-free loan from my 401k-type plan at any time. I figure if I lose a job or have an emergency taking $5,000 out of that would be basically the same thing as taking $5,000 out of a bank, except it's been earning returns before that emergency. Do most 401k plans not allow you to take out mone…

I think the logic here is that you don’t want to rob your future self to cover your current self’s emergency. Imagine a prolonged expensive period (car breaks, then you get sick, then you need funds to help a desperate relative, etc.) - you need extra money over a period of months but you don’t have it coming in current cash flows. When you borrow from the 401k you have to pay it back, which you won’t be able to do r…

This all sounds like the solid advice I've heard before, but your very first line is where my disconnect lies. How is it not robbing my future self to divert that money into a savings account instead of having it sit in the 401k? All the money I would've had sitting in the savings account is likely experiencing growth (over time) in the 401k, making the chunk of cash that would've been sitting in the bank larger through growth. I have a decent percentage of the 401k in bonds, just in case the economy were to tank I'd still have some 401k to draw on (like a savings account).

I do see the issue with having to immediately start making payments back toward the 401k loan, but then I think you just take out a little bit more than what you would otherwise to cover those payments for the duration of the emergency.

Sorry if I sound combative, I am genuinely curious to the responses to these arguments. I'd be happy to find the flaw in my outline if it will help me make better decisions, I just don't see it yet.

Re: Ask HN: How do you record your personal finances?

#55

Post by silicon2401 »

workingon wrote: post #53
csw-001 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the logic here is that you don’t want to rob your future self to cover your current self’s emergency. Imagine a prolonged expensive period (car breaks, then you get sick, then you need funds to help a desperate relative, etc.) - you need extra money over a period of months but you don’t have it coming in current cash flows. When you borrow from the 401k you have to pay it back, which you won’t be able to do r…

This all sounds like the solid advice I've heard before, but your very first line is where my disconnect lies. How is it not robbing my future self to divert that money into a savings account instead of having it sit in the 401k? All the money I would've had sitting in the savings account is likely experiencing growth (over time) in the 401k, making the chunk of cash that would've been sitting in the bank larger thro…

401k money = pre tax and is invested. 20k in a 401k = 15k after taxes (random example), and how long will it take you to get that money?

Have you been in a real emergency, where you need serious money within minutes, not days? Because that's what an emergency fund is for. If I need 10k for an emergency right now, I have that available via card within seconds or (entirely) in cash as soon as I can get to an ATM or bank. Not to mention I know exactly how much I have available.

To answer your question, these are the points you're missing: - Money in a 401k is pre-tax. Any money you want to withdraw will cost you taxes.

- You can't put money back in a 401k after withdrawing it. You will lose the tax advantages on that money forever.

- Withdrawing from your 401k before retirement costs you a penalty on top of taxes:

> If you withdraw money from your 401(k) before you're 59½, the IRS usually assesses a 10% penalty when you file your tax return. That could mean giving the government $1,000 or 10% of that $10,000 withdrawal in addition to paying ordinary income tax on that money. https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/investing/early-withdrawa....

- If you take a loan against your 401k, that comes with a lot of conditions and what-ifs. That's not going to help you in a real emergency.

- Using your 401k to get emergency cash is not going to be quick. If your house burns down in 20 minutes from you reading this comment, it would be nice to have money available to make arrangements immediately, rather than waiting until your 401k loan/withdrawal is ready.

The ideal is to max out your 401k and have an emergency fund _on top_ of that. Using your 401k to fund an emergency will come at significant short- and long-term cost. Having a post-tax emergency fund (again, that's _on top_ of the 401k) gives you short-term security without compromising your long-term security.

Re: Ask HN: How do you record your personal finances?

#58

Post by eddyg »

I switched from Mint to https://copilot.money/ a year or so ago and haven't looked back. Vastly better experience. Automatic categorization of downloaded transactions that you "review" day-by-day (to make any category adjustments) is great. It also has automatic budget calculation and tracking (and allows you to set some categories as "carryover", so you have more to spend later when you spend less.)

Re: Ask HN: How do you record your personal finances?

#59

Post by Ceres1 »

johnthesecure wrote: post #4

I currently use a Google sheet, but I'm looking for something better. I have many automatic payments (credit card, telephone, utilities, etc) from a transaction account. I also have a loan with redraw, and I want to have most of my funds keeping the loan balance low, but I don't want my transaction account to go negative. So I need to forecast future transactions. Future transactions may be annual, monthly, four week…

I'm you like Google Sheets and automation, check out Tiller - it's pulls your daily spending and transactions directly into you spreadsheets. It also has auto-categorization. It is a paid service.

Re: Ask HN: How do you record your personal finances?

#60

Post by marttt »

howeyc wrote: post #51

I wrote my own[1] version of ledger-cli[2] that was a lot simpler in the format it accepts, but has features outside of the format, in the program, to do what I need/want. I have an import feature for csv files, a web interface for reports and portfolio tracking, and the usual cli features from the original. I've got about 15+ years of transactions in a single file, and I have every intention of continuing forever. I…

Long time ledger-cli user here. I recently discovered PTA [1, 2, 3], a Perl script by OpenBSD developer Ingo Schwarze. I'm in Europe, so the account numbering he uses is much preferred in my country as compared to Ledger's system.

I seem to be in the same boat like Schwarze: ledger-cli is really nice, but has too many features for my modest needs. I also really like the terse single-line syntax in the journal [4] as compared to ledger-cli's multi-line entries.

A port of Schwarze's PTA to awk would be lovely, though (as compared to awk, Perl is huge! :); maybe I'll try to hack something together some day.

Is anybody aware of other plain text double-entry accounting utilities that would use the numbered chart of accounts?

1: https://mandoc.bsd.lv/pta/

2: Great discussion on the implementation involving the author: https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20200928123430

3: The Design Goals section in the readme is also interesting: https://mandoc.bsd.lv/pta/README

4: https://cvsweb.bsd.lv/~checkout~/pta/journal.example.en?rev=...

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