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Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash

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Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My bank has this feature where the same card has two PIN codes. The PINs are coupled to different bank-accounts, the PIN determining which account will be charged. So groceries I pay with 111222, coffee-to-go with 333111... My bank does the rest. All easily analysable and exportable.

What do you do if PIN pads are disabled due to COVID concerns and customers are only permitted to make contactless payments?

Have you actually seen disabled PIN pads? I have seen places refusing cash (which I believe is illegal), but the PIN pads are easily wiped down between uses.

Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash

#262

Aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrgggggggghhhhh! I just want a bank account and to have that bank record my spending and let me download it, securely, and automatically. I mean the European Union has taken years to force, yes force banks to do this, and it is basically still broken. I don't want to spend this much effort on something so obviously solvable. It just offends me. Yes that is the right word. And, finally, none of this matt…

> I just want a bank account and to have that bank record my spending and let me download it, securely, and automatically.

I don't think this solves the problem, unless you use incredibly broad categories for budgeting such that you never want to split a single transaction over two categories.

Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the old addage "look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves" really applies. Some people don't seem to mind not really tracking their spending down to an extremely granular level (ie everything) because they make so much money that small outgoings on their bank account are worthless, or they have to dedicate their time to their family and can't be bothered to track it. That seems odd to m…

I have mixed feelings about this and overall I still want to engage in better financial tracking. However, the obvious flip side of the coin is that if I need several hours a month to keep proper track of the budget to save a few hundred more a month it might not be worth it, as I value more what I do with that time and not worry about a budget. The problem of course is that once I start tracking in detail I may find…

I'm on the same page as you. I want to make sure my wife and I are not overspending (still happens on occasion), but I also don't want to waste time on it.

So I have a simple metric: Is my money (cash + investments) increasing each week?

If it is, then once every ~6 months, I take a look at my family's spending and see if there is anything we would be happy getting rid of.

Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash

#264

I've been using YNAB. I want to switch out because YNAB is too expensive. What I miss with open source alternatives is the mobile app. I don't like to link my bank accounts, so I enter expenses manually whenever I buy anything. The mobile app is critical for that to work.

YNAB can sometimes feel expensive. And while I could use an OSS solution like Gnucash or ledger, I don't have the time to deal with the tech support needed to be able to share my setup with my spouse. Likewise, we extremely value the mobile experience. To me, YNAB is cheap and well worth the money. You might want to try "Every Dollar" which is free and has a mobile experience. It's not open source, of course, but it…

This is exactly why I pay for YNAB. As I'm going through all of these free options I'm wondering what support there is for sharing the information with my spouse and how much manual wrenching I'll have to do to make that work and what my less-technical spouse will have to put up with to work with it.

YNAB is drop-dead simple and available on all of our different platforms. Money well spent.

Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash

#265
post #140

Aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrgggggggghhhhh! I just want a bank account and to have that bank record my spending and let me download it, securely, and automatically. I mean the European Union has taken years to force, yes force banks to do this, and it is basically still broken. I don't want to spend this much effort on something so obviously solvable. It just offends me. Yes that is the right word. And, finally, none of this matt…

I know you're not asking directly for advice, but if you'd be interested, I find the following is the easiest way of keeping a budget. 0. Forget about tracking things down to the dollar, or even the tens of dollars. That level of precision is unnecessary. If a coffee here or there is going to break your budget, it's already broken and you need to go in to panic mode. 1. Have a spreadsheet with vague monthly costs lik…

> That level of precision is unnecessary.

It may be unnecessary if you are just trying to see how you spend your money, but may be necessary if you are running a business. YMMV.

Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have mixed feelings about this and overall I still want to engage in better financial tracking. However, the obvious flip side of the coin is that if I need several hours a month to keep proper track of the budget to save a few hundred more a month it might not be worth it, as I value more what I do with that time and not worry about a budget. The problem of course is that once I start tracking in detail I may find…

I'm on the same page as you. I want to make sure my wife and I are not overspending (still happens on occasion), but I also don't want to waste time on it. So I have a simple metric: Is my money (cash + investments) increasing each week? If it is, then once every ~6 months, I take a look at my family's spending and see if there is anything we would be happy getting rid of.

I allocate items by credit cards, eg. "meals out" on one credit card, "food" on another, "fuel" on another. That's only 3 lines on a spreadsheet showing the budget.

If at the end of the month, the spend on each card is higher than those figures I've failed.

With modern apps for card balances, seeing if you're near your budget helps.

The alternative is to get money physically out of the bank and put it into separate envelopes and spend out of the envelopes. You'll be amazed at how your spending habits change when you have to physically hand over cash.

If you are finding that looking down a list of 50 purchases at the end of the month "takes up too much time", I would wonder how much time you spend watching TV and compare the time values. One is surely more important than the other.

Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you do if PIN pads are disabled due to COVID concerns and customers are only permitted to make contactless payments?

Have you actually seen disabled PIN pads? I have seen places refusing cash (which I believe is illegal), but the PIN pads are easily wiped down between uses.

Yes, in Poland I have seen a few shops where the clerk and the PIN pad are behind a sealed glass barrier and there is no way to hand the PIN pad over to the customer. The clerk holds the card reader up to one side of the glass, you hold your card up to the other side, and the contactless transaction manages to reach across the glass.

Also, refusing cash is perfectly legal -- and increasingly common -- in a number of countries.

Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you do if PIN pads are disabled due to COVID concerns and customers are only permitted to make contactless payments?

Have you actually seen disabled PIN pads? I have seen places refusing cash (which I believe is illegal), but the PIN pads are easily wiped down between uses.

Federally, assuming you are speaking of the US, a business refusing to take cash for goods/services is not illegal, as you are not paying a debt:

https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm

Business owners should note that state and local laws can and do vary on this topic!

https://blogs.findlaw.com/free_enterprise/2019/08/is-it-lega...

Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It really doesn't matter how much you earn. Real wealth is in not spending it. Have to add on that this is definitely not correct. Yes you must not simply inflate your spending to match your 100% of income if the latter increases, but while there's a limit to how much you can decrease outlays, income increase has no exact limit. Bob makes $60k, never buys coffee, brings lunch from home every day, stays focused on h…

I think you‘re making a good point. I would add though, that 6510‘s statement... > * it really doesn't matter how much you earn. Real wealth is in not spending it.* didn’t remind me of extreme frugalism (in which case I would side with your argument) but with my encounters in the workplace: No matter how much most people increase their income, they also increase their spending. And some manage to par their spending i…

To me, suggesting that I save money by not buying coffee for fifty years is extreme frugalism.

Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash

#270
post #140

Aaaaaaaaarrrrrrrgggggggghhhhh! I just want a bank account and to have that bank record my spending and let me download it, securely, and automatically. I mean the European Union has taken years to force, yes force banks to do this, and it is basically still broken. I don't want to spend this much effort on something so obviously solvable. It just offends me. Yes that is the right word. And, finally, none of this matt…

I know you're not asking directly for advice, but if you'd be interested, I find the following is the easiest way of keeping a budget. 0. Forget about tracking things down to the dollar, or even the tens of dollars. That level of precision is unnecessary. If a coffee here or there is going to break your budget, it's already broken and you need to go in to panic mode. 1. Have a spreadsheet with vague monthly costs lik…

> 0. Forget about tracking things down to the dollar, or even the tens of dollars. That level of precision is unnecessary. If a coffee here or there is going to break your budget, it's already broken and you need to go in to panic mode.

I use Homebank[1] which has pretty useful auto-assignment rules. I then have vague categories - think groceries, lunch & dining (e.g. buying lunch is more luxurious than buying lunch and dining is even more extravagant)

Every couple of weeks I import my statements and have a quick look at anything that wasn't auto-assigned - there's usually a couple of things and I add these, based on the merchant name or description, never to worry about again.

I figure this gives me the best of both worlds.

The only reason this small amount of work works for me is that I don't have to pay cash for much. When I do, it's unique enough I remember and categorise it, no biggy. I understand this wouldn't work for most though.

I wouldn't want to lose track of the small things, as they do add up! Keeping the categories loose (and not caring about the difference between coffee and a sandwich) makes it work.

"Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves." as my grandma always says.

[1] http://homebank.free.fr/en/

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