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Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash

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Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash

#311

Post by pstrateman »

jldugger wrote: post #103
pstrateman wrote: post #63

Importing records in GnuCash is a pain. Credit card payments end up with two records of the payment, one from the credit card and another from your bank. There's no way to merge records in GnuCash, ideally you would be able to mark them as the same record, but keep them both to keep the import logic happy.

How are you doing this? The OFX import tool has a bayesian matcher that will update and reconcile existing records, and classify them based on past behavior. The big challenge IMO is that each transaction has a date, but sometimes the ends disagree on when it happened. E.g. you transfer money from checking to a brokerage, it takes multiple days but you have to choose one date for that transaction.

Using the import tool it identified them as separate transactions... which they kind of are.

They're separate records whichiwould like to keep... but as a single merged ledger entry.

Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash

#312

Post by 6510 »

sequoia wrote: post #191
6510 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice! I just stop spending money unless I absolutely have to. A cup of coffee and a bit of candy at the gas station every other day (2+4 euro) * (365/2) * 10 years. Thats ELEVEN THOUSAND euro I could probably be doing something more interesting with. At 7 euro/kg and 30 gr/liter 11k is 52380 liters of coffee or 314285 cups or 86 cups/day for 10 years. 2/3 was candy (we are not buying that) so we only have 28 cups lef…

> 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…

12-15 is 1200-1500 cent. Lets say 1300.

10 cent coffee (12 euro/kg 30gr/liter) + 20-50 cent sandwich (5 cent slice or 15 cent bun, a 10 cent egg and/or 25 gr cheese 25 cent, 5 cent butter) is 30-60 cent. Lets say 40.

1300/40 = 32.5 while Alice only got a 17% raise. The extra 5k doesn't buy her anything. She will just favor the 15$ lunch which is 20% more expensive(!)

Coffee was just an example of course. Bob wont be able to save this much on everything while some things will be even cheaper. There are other perks like growing your own food and making your own stuff.

But the real kicker is perhaps that Alice could [naively] spend all of her savings on a big purchase, get fired and turn her life into hell on earth. If Bob does that he can be reasonably certain he will figure it out. His big purchase is also more likely something that can be converted back into cash.

Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash

#313

Post by PascLeRasc »

6510 wrote: post #305
nitemice wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a distinction to be made between "guilt-free" and "dumb/wasteful" spending. I can totally understand spending $150 on a pair of sweatpants if they "bring you joy" and are useful and will last you a decent amount of time. But just because you're willing and able to spend your money without guilt, doesn't mean any and every purchase is a good one. At the very least, spending a lot of money on a series o…

I don't feel guilty at all. I feel fantastic not buying the sweatpants. I [quite specifically] don't want the joy from them. I just need clothing and I like to look sharp. A month ago I visited a second hand store. It was really well maintained, the experience was much like visiting a museum. They had a lot of second hand clothing all washed, ironed and nicely folded / on coat hangers and it was all nicely sorted by…

You know, I had a technical job interview a few months ago where the interviewers told me I spent too much time on the little details and ignored the big picture. I didn't get what they meant until this comment, so thank you!

Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash

#314

Post by kyuudou »

sequoia wrote: post #189
6510 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice! I just stop spending money unless I absolutely have to. A cup of coffee and a bit of candy at the gas station every other day (2+4 euro) * (365/2) * 10 years. Thats ELEVEN THOUSAND euro I could probably be doing something more interesting with. At 7 euro/kg and 30 gr/liter 11k is 52380 liters of coffee or 314285 cups or 86 cups/day for 10 years. 2/3 was candy (we are not buying that) so we only have 28 cups lef…

> More time to enjoy life! What if I enjoy life by buying a fancy coffee & drinking it on my walk to work? The downside of your formulation of "why buy coffee? you could be enjoying life instead!" is that this worldview encourages people to feel guilty about buying coffee. Extreme frugality has its place, but remember that "your life" that you have to enjoy isn't something that starts in 5 years or 10 years or once y…

> Hoarding cash is not a goal.

Especially considering the inflation tax. Especially lately.

And money should be making more money after the $5000 point.

Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash

#315

Post by kyuudou »

6510 wrote: post #305
nitemice wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a distinction to be made between "guilt-free" and "dumb/wasteful" spending. I can totally understand spending $150 on a pair of sweatpants if they "bring you joy" and are useful and will last you a decent amount of time. But just because you're willing and able to spend your money without guilt, doesn't mean any and every purchase is a good one. At the very least, spending a lot of money on a series o…

I don't feel guilty at all. I feel fantastic not buying the sweatpants. I [quite specifically] don't want the joy from them. I just need clothing and I like to look sharp. A month ago I visited a second hand store. It was really well maintained, the experience was much like visiting a museum. They had a lot of second hand clothing all washed, ironed and nicely folded / on coat hangers and it was all nicely sorted by…

If I have the time I do like to browse used merchandise, as well as find stuff on craigslist etc. that I know I can fix up or deal with rather than buy a new one.

Often it's cheaper given the bigger picture just to buy a new one, though. But, finding some old tech t-shirt in a thrift store is fun!

I definitely don't buy new vehicles.

Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash

#316

Post by jldugger »

pstrateman wrote: post #311
jldugger wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you doing this? The OFX import tool has a bayesian matcher that will update and reconcile existing records, and classify them based on past behavior. The big challenge IMO is that each transaction has a date, but sometimes the ends disagree on when it happened. E.g. you transfer money from checking to a brokerage, it takes multiple days but you have to choose one date for that transaction.

Using the import tool it identified them as separate transactions... which they kind of are. They're separate records whichiwould like to keep... but as a single merged ledger entry.

Still not sure I follow. If I make a payment on a credit card, it shows up as a transaction from asset checking account to the liability credit card. It shows up on both accounts already. When I later import OFX transaction files, it sees the payment in the OFX and matches it up to the existing transaction: https://lists.gnucash.org/docs/C/gnucash-guide/importing-fro...

Apparently not all import assistants do this for some reason.

Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash

#317

Post by anitil »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #220
anitil wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Yes and no. Late last year I did track everything to the cent (well, to the grosz, the fractional part of Polish złoty) and used ledger (the CLI double-entry accounting tool) to analy…

I did the same a couple of years ago, and came to the same conclusion, which is why I've settled more-or-less on the system above.

Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash

#318

Post by anitil »

mattbillenstein wrote: post #306
anitil wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You should try my sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1c24ZmUy19_n_QggMOjcE...

Thanks! It's much more sophisticated than anything I've tried

Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash

#319

Post by mattbillenstein »

anitil wrote: post #318
mattbillenstein wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should try my sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1c24ZmUy19_n_QggMOjcE...

Thanks! It's much more sophisticated than anything I've tried

I've evolved it over time - I think budgeting, the csv import is key to get a rough handle on expenses, but I guess not every bank supports that.

Re: Simple Personal Finance Tracking with GnuCash

#320

Post by 6510 »

kyuudou wrote: post #314
sequoia wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> More time to enjoy life! What if I enjoy life by buying a fancy coffee & drinking it on my walk to work? The downside of your formulation of "why buy coffee? you could be enjoying life instead!" is that this worldview encourages people to feel guilty about buying coffee. Extreme frugality has its place, but remember that "your life" that you have to enjoy isn't something that starts in 5 years or 10 years or once y…

> Hoarding cash is not a goal. Especially considering the inflation tax. Especially lately. And money should be making more money after the $5000 point.

Yeah... well... I'm terrible at that. Recently I learn many more purchases can simultaneously be investments. The topic now makes me wonder if this 7000$ vintage espresso machine is robust enough for another 20 years of service. https://coffeemachinewarehouse.com.au/product/gaggia-vintage...

It looks more solid than fiat?

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