Until the open source options have direct download options that 'just work', Quicken is the best.
I've tried GnuCash and Skrooge, can't ever get the direct downloads to work for more than two months without breaking.
Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash
11–20 of 323 posts
Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash
#12I've used GnuCash for years before switching to beancount ( https://bitbucket.org/blais/beancount/ with smart_importer: https://github.com/beancount/smart_importer ) and fava ( https://github.com/beancount/fava/ ). Much easier to work on your journals (ledger, trades, prices...) since they are just text files. Really great if you're using the beancount package for Sublime: https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Beancount…
Thanks for this. Looks compelling. Is there a simple installation guide, I find it hard to figure out how to get going.
Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash
#13I tracked my finances for a while with GnuCash and found myself in the category he describes here: > If you’re happy with just knowing that your credit card balance is less than a certain amount each month, that’s great! You don’t need GnuCash. I'm curious what fraction of people track personal finances versus those who don't. I don't know if I'm in a big majority, small majority, big minority, small minority, or wha…
I'll bite here... I used to track my finances and balance my checkbook. But, it took hours of my time. The best thing I ever did was create a separate account for my disposable income. My bills account gets the exact amount it needs and everything is payed automatically. The rest of my income goes into my fun account and I rest easy knowing I can spend until it's gone and my bills still get payed.
After that worked well for me, I now put small amounts into various savings accounts, like "tires", "vacation", or "emergency". I use an Ally account with "buckets".
I don't balance anymore, and haven't for 20 years. Just a quick glance at recent transactions to make sure I recognize everything.
It's also amazing how quickly some of those savings accounts add up when I'm not thinking about them much.
Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash
#14I'd be curious if anyone has used this and also used YNAB (and can compare them). I'd put YNAB along with 1Password (and probably Fastmail) in the class of best single purpose pieces of software that I pay for.
Why 1Password? I've tried it throughout the years, and IMO nothing has beat KeePass.
+1 for keypass. The apps aren't quite as polished, but they do what I need, and I can store my encrypted password file in my Dropbox folder so that I've still got it if any single company in this small chain folds.
Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash
#15I've been playing around with ledger[1] recently. On one level, it is the simplest of tools requiring only a command line and a text editor. But once you wade into the documentation[2] you will begin to see it quite differently. Its capabilities are staggering...
Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash
#16I've used GnuCash for years before switching to beancount ( https://bitbucket.org/blais/beancount/ with smart_importer: https://github.com/beancount/smart_importer ) and fava ( https://github.com/beancount/fava/ ). Much easier to work on your journals (ledger, trades, prices...) since they are just text files. Really great if you're using the beancount package for Sublime: https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Beancount…
I'm also a happy beancount user. It's also pretty simple to extend, if not too documented.
I was able to write a plugin to get data from the Milan stock exchange in a few hours, which was very nice. The vim plugin is also pretty ok.
Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why 1Password? I've tried it throughout the years, and IMO nothing has beat KeePass.
+1 for keypass. The apps aren't quite as polished, but they do what I need, and I can store my encrypted password file in my Dropbox folder so that I've still got it if any single company in this small chain folds.
1Password its vault format is open source, so even if the company goes belly up a 3rd party tool that can decrypt your vault can easily be written.
Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash
#18Until the open source options have direct download options that 'just work', Quicken is the best. I've tried GnuCash and Skrooge, can't ever get the direct downloads to work for more than two months without breaking.
Quicken died for me ten ir so years ago, as did many other personal finance software applications. It is the syncing between devices that’s imperative these days, and this is where Quicken is failing, especially when your database gets larger: it syncs, but as your database grows its latency becomes ever more apparent.
Quickbooks Online, which I have been using for a little over a year, does syncing exceptionally well; but at the cost of a polished UI.
Ideally I would love to be able to access my Quickbooks desktop database using iOS or web, alas that’s not doable.
Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash
#19> We don’t care about how much money we’ve spent at Amazon That's like, your opinion man. While I'm sure that's one perfectly valid approach, I find a lot of value in knowing where my money has gone beyond categories. To make it more concrete, how much I spend at Amazon my Rewards Visa determines whether the 2% bump in rewards is worth the cost of Prime. (I know - most people find enough value in the videos or not th…
Last time I looked they seem to have a pretty decent python API so splitting down transactions by retailer shouldn't take too much python-fu methinks.
Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash
#20I've used GnuCash for years before switching to beancount ( https://bitbucket.org/blais/beancount/ with smart_importer: https://github.com/beancount/smart_importer ) and fava ( https://github.com/beancount/fava/ ). Much easier to work on your journals (ledger, trades, prices...) since they are just text files. Really great if you're using the beancount package for Sublime: https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Beancount…
Thanks for this. Looks compelling. Is there a simple installation guide, I find it hard to figure out how to get going.
As a longtime beancount user- it should be easy to install- there are packages for most OSes, they mostly work, the maintainer, Martin Blais is amazing and indefatigable, and the community is active and friendly and technical.
But the "how to get going" part is where I find the real difficulty lies.
There is a conceptual friction in double-entry accounting, which beancount enforces. If you do not have prior exposure to it, even if you are financially and mathematically inclined- grokking double entry can be a life-changing practice. It is the Iyengar Yoga to the 7 minute workout that is just tracking transactions as per GnuCash or Quicken or whatever.
One has to have the appetite to consume a worldview. As someone living in that world, FWIW, I highly recommend it. I would not undersell the conceptual work required. It is not for everyone.
But if the approach speaks to you, reach out on the mailing list and people will help with the mechanics.
Cheers.