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Ask HN: Do you use budgeting software?

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Re: Ask HN: Do you use budgeting software?

#51

Post by gregorymichael »

beagle3 wrote: post #43
gregorymichael wrote: post #8

Built an ad-hoc system using flask, Google Spreadsheets, and Twilio (where I work) that my wife and I have been using for 18 months now -- far longer than any other system has stuck. - budget tab: tracks category + allocated budget for the month - expenses tab: tracks date, amount, category, description - when we spend money, my wife and I text, eg, "13.31 restaurants lunch at chipotle" to a Twilio number. A flask ap…

Cool. Would you say the SMS plays an important part? Or would e.g. a Telegram bot work as well for those of us who do not work at Twilio?

Yes, you should be able to recreate the experience on any platform where you can deploy a chatbot (which really overstates the complexity of the logic that's happening here).

Re: Ask HN: Do you use budgeting software?

#52

Post by psalminen »

PenguinCoder wrote: post #21
gregorymichael wrote: post #8

Built an ad-hoc system using flask, Google Spreadsheets, and Twilio (where I work) that my wife and I have been using for 18 months now -- far longer than any other system has stuck. - budget tab: tracks category + allocated budget for the month - expenses tab: tracks date, amount, category, description - when we spend money, my wife and I text, eg, "13.31 restaurants lunch at chipotle" to a Twilio number. A flask ap…

I am definitely interested in technical details on putting something like this together.

Seconded. This sounds like an interesting project, and I'd definitely be interested in implementing something like it myself.

Re: Ask HN: Do you use budgeting software?

#53

Post by gregorymichael »

grimgrin wrote: post #29
zumzumzum wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is it about this system that you like better than YNAB? (new or 4)

The interface is anything that sends SMS (well or a google spreadsheet, which can be viewed on many devices), and all party members can get an alert on spending. I like it

Affirmative. The text input is as low friction as possible, and a spreadsheet is as flexible as possible.

We also couldn't figure out the YNAB methodology. I know people swear by it, and we probably just didn't put in enough effort. But we attended a webinar, made it one month, then couldn't figure out how to duplicate our budget for month two. It was just different than how we are used to thinking about finances.

Also -- and this is probably the biggest thing -- I built it myself. For 99.999% of the population, YNAB is an objectively better product. But as a developer, I can't overstate the satisfaction that comes from my wife using something that I built multiple times a day.

Re: Ask HN: Do you use budgeting software?

#54

Post by gkhartman »

cm2012 wrote: post #27

I use Mint to track my habits retroactively. I wouldn't have guessed otherwise that I spent $20k on Amazon alone last year, and $12,000 on Seamless! It really adds up. It also makes adding up business expenses at the end of the year a breeze.

I second Mint.

It also allows for CSV export so data can be imported into other apps. Although, I'm not sure if it would work as great if I had to track joint accounts shared with a partner.

Re: Ask HN: Do you use budgeting software?

#57

Post by Max_Mustermann »

mping wrote: post #56
nwrk wrote: post #47

I was using long time Speendee ( https://www.spendee.com/ ), but changed to Toshl ( https://toshl.com/ ). I would recommend both. Somehow like the Toshl more. 2c

Do you trust these sites to store your banking credentials?

You don't need to store them, in my country you can't even do it has been a great tool to maintain an overview of your money I/O. I tried several apps but only stuck with Toshl, I think its great UX made the difference.

Re: Ask HN: Do you use budgeting software?

#58

Post by Ceres1 »

If you want to budget in a spreadsheet, check out TillerHQ.com. It uses Yodlee to automatically import financial transactions into Google Sheets. It's popular with people who want to use spreadsheets to budget and manage their money, but don't want to deal with manual CSV files. Just enough automation. Excel will be out this summer. Optional templates to get started.

Re: Ask HN: Do you use budgeting software?

#59

Post by t3h2mas »

gregorymichael wrote: post #8

Built an ad-hoc system using flask, Google Spreadsheets, and Twilio (where I work) that my wife and I have been using for 18 months now -- far longer than any other system has stuck. - budget tab: tracks category + allocated budget for the month - expenses tab: tracks date, amount, category, description - when we spend money, my wife and I text, eg, "13.31 restaurants lunch at chipotle" to a Twilio number. A flask ap…

Very cool. I'd love to see a blog post. Will keep creative twilio use in mind for my next side project :)

Re: Ask HN: Do you use budgeting software?

#60

Post by t3h2mas »

Sometimes I use mint. My bank (simple) has simple goal saving that I'll use for toys. Otherwise I 'pay myself first' into savings/investment. It's been working so far. I can use mint to identify problem areas, cut those back, and add the difference to an automatic deposit.
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