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Ask HN: What is your financial “setup”?

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Re: Ask HN: What is your financial “setup”?

#11

Post by smarri »

herrvogel- wrote: post #5
smarri wrote: post #3

I have; 1. One account for salary and bills 2. One credit card for large purchases and spending online which I pay off each month 3. One pre-paid card which I top up weekly to use for daily spending and when travelling (as it has multiple currency accounts) 4. One savings account (All of the above accounts are available to me on one App, due to the Open Banking regulations in Europe) (Would be a good idea to set up a…

How is the app called, that you use for your accounts?

Herrvogel I bank with a large bank and their app connects to other account via APIs

Re: Ask HN: What is your financial “setup”?

#12

Post by aliceryhl »

I mostly just have two accounts: a private and a shared account.

The shared account is very simple: Every month me and my boyfriend tops it up to 5000 USD, we have a debit card to it each, and all shared expenses including rent come out of this account. By topping it off to a high number like this, we ensure we wont run out within a month, and we just use the debit card for things we need.

For my private stuff I have a credit card that I pay everything with, and I've set it up to be automatically paid off at the end of each month.

Every so often I write the expenses we've had into gnucash so I can see how much we're spending, but I don't budget in advance.

I also have a savings account with some emergency money, but I'm a poor student so I don't really have money to invest or for long term savings.

Re: Ask HN: What is your financial “setup”?

#13

Post by amingilani »

aliceryhl wrote: post #12

I mostly just have two accounts: a private and a shared account. The shared account is very simple: Every month me and my boyfriend tops it up to 5000 USD, we have a debit card to it each, and all shared expenses including rent come out of this account. By topping it off to a high number like this, we ensure we wont run out within a month, and we just use the debit card for things we need. For my private stuff I have…

Mine is similar, except:

1. The top-up amount is much lower and designed so we run out of money at the end of each month. This way, we spend pragmatically and save more.

2. I take pictures of every receipt.

Re: Ask HN: What is your financial “setup”?

#15

Post by hirves_lot »

I put fixed sum to loan account to pay off the bank debt each month (amount may vary on some months, it's flexible so I can put 0 - 9999€ per month for example), then move majority that is left to "pseudo-savings" account which is only used to pay maintenance fees etc. and also 1-2 times a month to move spending money to everyday account (in case of theft i only keep small amount in account linked to debit card).

Re: Ask HN: What is your financial “setup”?

#16

Post by _l4jh »

The thing that really worked for me was I only ever buy in person with cash. I almost never use my debit card in person. This simple thing changed my relationship with what I buy. Obviously my mortgage and other monthly payments are direct debit but unless the purchase is several hundred Euros or more I will pay in cash.

I always have €200 in cash on me which is enough to cover me at least a week. Then whatever I have left over at the end of the week I roll over. So if I have €60 left I take out 140 and transfer the difference into a savings account. I have saved a shocking amount doing this. It may seem strange but budgeting myself 800 for the month and only using cash has really helped me appreciate how much the money is worth to me. The short of it is on pay day each month I transfer 800 to my "cash account", I transfer the exact amount I need to cover my bills into my "bills" account (I also have a "buffer" of 100 in this account as a 'just in case its more than I calculated'). Everything else goes into savings. Everything.

Obviously some things fall outside the 800 cash allocation for example I bought a new coat a few weeks ago which was €230. I tried it on in store but bought it online as there was a discount I couldn't use in store annoyingly. However I have a separate budget allocation for key clothing items like coats and boots which I generally replace every other year. However I don't bother with multiple savings accounts anymore. I never found I benefited from the added complexity. If in a month or two I ruin my coat and have to buy a new one unexpectedly I will just take 230 from my savings rather than juggle things around.

I should say though that all of our expenses come from a single salary. Every month my wifes automatically goes into savings. Generally we never need to touch it. This is great for many obvious reasons but it also helps us (well me!) feel less guilty when I suggest we buy something we don't really need such as an OLED TV we got a few months ago.

Re: Ask HN: What is your financial “setup”?

#17

Post by y4mi »

tra3 wrote: post #2

YNAB ( https://www.youneedabudget.com ) for budgeting and tracking spending. It forces you to pre-allocate your funds which ensures that you don't overspend unconsciously via credit cards. I've been very successful with it. > Anything that follows the "don't make me think" philosophy? I don't think that exists. YNAB requires pretty diligent tracking, but the payout (heh) is huge.

I loved ynab4 and actually build a smallish webservice to duplicate it's functionality after it went SaaS.

It sadly stopped working with the PSD2 regulation this fall.

I'd definitely pay for it, if I could connect my bank account for automated imports.

It's seriously silly that they still haven't come around to that. There are several platforms which let you access basically all banks in Europe. And these have been around for years.

Re: Ask HN: What is your financial “setup”?

#18

Post by psv1 »

Important features of any good setup:

- you consolidate your finances in the minimum number of accounts & cards

- you have a couple of months of expenses as cash in a current or savings account

- you pay off your credit card in full every month

- you invest some amount every month

- all of this is automated - paying bills, credit card repayments, investing, putting money in savings, all of it.

Once you have these things down, you can then adjust percentages, providers and all other details according to your personal situation and preferences.

Re: Ask HN: What is your financial “setup”?

#19

Post by ttcbj »

We have a checking/savings account, and then various investment accounts at vanguard.

All income goes to vanguard. Each year, we move our total budget for the year to checking. Then, we pay for all spending from checking. We can easily track whether our budget is on Pace at any given time. If we run out of money, we went over. (Technically, we subtract out year end expenses like property taxes to avoid a year End surprise.)

We also have a 30 year budget spreadsheet that estimates our savings, expenses, and income Up too retirement. If we exceed or income goal for the year, we put half towards retirement and half towards a virtual 'bonus discretionary' account. If we exceed our annual budget (have to do an extra transfer from. Vanguard), we deduct that from the virtual bonus discretionary account.

Note that I wouldn't recommend exactly this approach unless 1 years spending is a relatively small amount of your net worth. We only started this technique in our 30's.

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