Best app for tracking spending?

February 15, 2011 2:18 PM

Best app for tracking my daily expenses?

A coffee here, a dinner there, an electricity bill every month - those kinds of things. Telling me when I'm getting close to my set budget would be great. Not syncing online to my bank is a must. Just something easy to use. Day Bank is a maybe, but thought I'd solicit some other suggestions. Thanks!

posted by meerkatty to Computers & Internet (14 answers total)

I use mint.com. It works well for me since I typically use a debit or credit card as payment type and that automatically creates an electronic trail.
posted by jchaw at 2:22 PM on February 15, 2011

I've always liked pocketmoney from catamount.
posted by wkearney99 at 2:24 PM on February 15, 2011

It's not specifically built for it, but Google Spreadsheets has worked for me for the past two years. Set up five columns: date, item, credit, debit, running total. The first row is your after-tax income. The running total column is just the previous row's total + any credit (say, your after-tax income or a refund you got for something) - any debit (pretty much anything else). Everything you do gets its own row. I set it up so all my regular bills are lined up at the top of the sheet so I can fill in the amounts when I receive them. Anything extraordinary you can highlight for future reference. It's simple and flexible and available anywhere.
posted by kittyprecious at 2:28 PM on February 15, 2011

I use google spreadsheets, too! I love the flexibility, including the ability to make whatever categories and charts I want.
posted by momus_window at 2:38 PM on February 15, 2011

I love mint.com, but it does sync to my bank account. I see that as a major feature, not a problem. Is there any reason you don't want it to sync?
posted by insectosaurus at 2:41 PM on February 15, 2011

I use iXpenseit. It's pretty easy to use and I think it will do all you want.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 2:45 PM on February 15, 2011

My credit union actually does it within the account history (which I suppose is kind of the opposite of syncing!). It parses things out by location into categories like groceries, etc., but you can change the category -- one thing at a salon might be my haircut, for example, and another thing might be the gift certificate I got my mom for Christmas.

You might check and see if they have that functionality, or if they plan to offer it in the future.
posted by Madamina at 2:53 PM on February 15, 2011

Assuming you're using an IOS device - I use Ixpenseit as well and it works great. Especially now that they've set it so choosing a vendor automatically fills in the other fields for you. I used it to keep track of all of my spending for about a year, and it worked fine - and that was before they added the automagic.
posted by backwards guitar at 3:04 PM on February 15, 2011

If you use Android, I love EEBA. It can be synced to a bank account, but it's not necessary.
posted by Calzephyr at 3:28 PM on February 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

I use Cashtrails (iPhone) and I've been happy with it.

When I had comments and suggestions I contacted the developper and he answered quickly. I particularly like how the app handles multiple currencies and the fact data is easily exported in a csv file.
posted by domi_p at 4:28 PM on February 15, 2011

I just signed up at mint.com the other day. It tracks your expenses just like it advertises (it pulls from your bank account info, but I think you can enter all your transactions by hand if you want).

My problem is that now I've got a bunch of stats and graphs and I'm not sure they're telling me anything useful. What next?
posted by tylerkaraszewski at 4:29 PM on February 15, 2011

I like pear budget a lot. It makes budgeting and expense tracking pretty painless.
posted by fixer at 5:50 PM on February 15, 2011

Response by poster: Yes, I should have clarified. This is to use on my iPhone while I'm on the go. Just inputting simple things - I am already happy with how I track my bigger finances.
posted by meerkatty at 2:27 AM on February 16, 2011

I'll second PocketMoney.

I've been using it for ~3 years now. Started off just using it to keep track of how much money were in my various accounts and on my various credit cards. Just starting using the budgeting feature ~4 months ago and I find it really quite awesome.

Looks like you can try the Lite version for free, but $5 isn't much at all considering how much you'll save by keeping track of what you spend!
posted by StarmanDXE at 11:29 AM on February 16, 2011