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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?

#62

Post by Yaser_Amiri »

I use these as a stack: hledger + dab-dab + Surfingkeys

Basically all I need to do is: login in to the bank's web app and press Ctrl+Alt+P

I wrote a script which can take transactions from my banks webapp, gave it to dab-dab (https://github.com/Yaser-Amiri/dab-dab), added a key binding to Surfingkeys to extract the token and other related stuff from the cookies, send it to dab-dab to run the script, the script adds the transactions to the ledger files.

By the way I have some extra sugers in the script for resolving the destination/source of money to hledger's accounts and descriptions.

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

#64

Post by csw-001 »

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…

You don’t sound combative at all. As others pointed out - the main issues with the 401k is liquidity and taxes. If your going to rely on that as emergency funds you’d want to make sure you had an open line of credit with a sufficient credit limit to dip into while you’re in the emergency room, mechanics shop, etc. You’d want to make sure that you had enough lead time on the payment of that debt to get to the 401k funds, and understand the tax implications.

A final thought here - there’s a temptation to see “emergency” savings as something you _might_ use, but I think for most folks (especially those with families) emergency funds are something they WILL use at some point (life happens, and it’s expensive) - so they need to be saving in addition to retirement planning. If your retirement plan explicitly includes the notion of looting the 401k at some point, then that might work for you - but for most people viewing a retirement account as emergency savings is dangerous because it leaves them under saving for inevitable bumps in the road.

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

#65

Post by Jtsummers »

workingon wrote: post #37
justusthane wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should still be building an emergency fund at least to cover unexpected expenses, and if you can afford to contribute extra to your 401k than it sounds like you can afford to do that. Not to shill for YNAB, but it's specifically designed to help break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle, even for people with a decent amount of cashflow.

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…

401k loans must be repaid when you lose the job. Borrowing against it while unemployed is not borrowing, it's withdrawing. Which means penalties and taxes become due (taxes dependent on if it's a Traditional or Roth 401k).

Now, you may not mind that, but it's worth keeping in mind. So while you're employed, this can work, but once you become unemployed you lose 10% on that withdrawal if you're too young, and maybe also owe taxes. That's a steep penalty.

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

#66

Post by farisjarrah »

silicon2401 wrote: post #55
workingon wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ban…

Post tax Roth-401k's are a thing. When you quit your job and roll it over to your personal account they also go into your Roth ira. But your point still stands.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/roth401k.asp

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

#67

Post by drakonka »

I don't anymore. I have a monthly overall budget (a single number) I try to stick to. It encompasses all expenses except for rent. So this one number includes groceries as well as discretionary spending.

If I go a little over it's no big deal, but I try to stick to it. I pay myself a pretty low salary. The rest stays in my company, some as a buffer and some gets invested.

I find this solution works best for me. I'm constantly working on suppressing my impulse buying habits, but YNAB or other systems didn't really eradicate them and having this single number to aim for each month is just less stressful. I have no debt and OK savings, so I guess it's working.

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

#68

Post by lostdog »

Just an excel sheet that I put balances into monthly. As long as the numbers go up, everything's fine.

The hardest part is separating investment "earnings" from real earnings. I'd like to know whether I'm saving money from my direct compensation, or whether I'm leaching off stock market gains, but I'm not sure of the right way to track the difference.

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