Looking for a budgeting app/system that would work for me

June 5, 2022 9:36 AM

I've read all the questions on budget apps, but lots of them are old and/or apply to people with very different financial situations than me. Snowflakes within.

Wondering what the HiveMind thinks might be the best budgeting software/app for me, given the following constraints/parameters:

- I'm avoidant about finances/budgeting and I really want to fix that. By "avoidant" I mean that I have anxiety about examining my spending habits and endlessly put off looking at my bank statements.
- Nonetheless, I live within my means and have no issues with credit card debt, just a manageable student loan. I am not wealthy but my current expenses are quite a bit lower than my income and I don't currently spend too much. Still, I could probably be spending less (especially on food) and saving more.
- Because of the nature of my work/life, I frequently take on work-related and medical expenses for which I'm reimbursed. I usually put them on my credit card, but I have some trouble managing this (in terms of carefully checking that I'm reimbursed within a reasonable time frame given that I'm avoidant about checking my bank statements). I'm looking for a system that will be able to handle this and even (maybe) remind me to make sure I was reimbursed.
- I travel a lot and am not very rooted, which means I have fewer fixed expenses than most people but more variable expenses (and probably spend too much on food and restaurants). Maybe this doesn't matter at all? I just see all these budget tutorials online and most of them start with entering a long list of fixed expenses whereas I am mostly just overpaying for food every day since I'm on the road constantly.

My main goal is to feel more in control of my finances and be able to save for targeted goals in a more meaningful way than my current strategy of just "close my eyes and hope it will turn out all right."

I find the name and premise of You Need a Budget irritating, but I'm willing to give it a shot if it's truly transformative. But it's expensive and seems to require a lot of up-front work, and I'm worried that it won't be right for me and I'll have exhausted all my optimistic effort by the time I figure out that out.

Thanks in advance for recommendations and advice!

posted by artisthatithaca to Work & Money (6 answers total)

One of the big divides in budgeting software is, does the software automatically pull in your statements, or do you have to download and import them yourself?

Banks are not required to have a standard data format, and they change their formats, and charge a LOT for official descriptions. So software with The Knowledge has to get money out of annual fees or selling your data. And it has your bank password? BUT it happens automatically, big mojo-trap avoided.

(They aren’t hard to download and read if you have any data familiarity. It’s just annoying.)

So tell us how you feel about that, it will rule things in/out.
posted by clew at 10:08 AM on June 5, 2022

Response by poster: Good question -- I guess I'm neutral on automatic syncing. I see the privacy issue and am theoretically bothered by it, but I'm afraid, given my personality, that I will not actually do this myself without a nasty data-sucking All-Knowing app.
posted by artisthatithaca at 10:19 AM on June 5, 2022

Food is a necessity, and if you are on the road you will end up spending more since you can't build up a pantry or take advantage of bulk buys. So, first I would suggest not being to hard on yourself for spending more in that area. Many people find food expenses are a higher percent of their budget than they would have guessed. It is self care, entertainment, time savings, etc. You're not outspending your income.

expenses for which I'm reimbursed
I would have a separate app for this than your regular budget app. This article from The Points Guy lists several options for apps. I think this should be your first priority.

be able to save for targeted goals
Many banks allow you to earmark savings buckets but still keep them in the same account. Ally seems to do this as does Capital One.

YNAB is basically the envelope method, which includes savings for goals and tracking them. Your irregular expenses might not make this a good idea for checking and cash, but you could still handle your savings this way. How avoidant are you? I have a reminder set to check my credit cards and pay them every ten days. This is not just to make sure I don't get late fees, but also to push me to review the transactions for fraud or errors. I caught a double charge for a hotel in April within days and got my refund in a week. If I was only checking every 30 days, I might have missed that and would probably have waited a lot longer for the refund. You may find yourself less avoidant if you set a regular reminder every 7 or 10 days and see how painless it ends up being. Maybe not, but worth a try.
posted by soelo at 10:36 AM on June 5, 2022 [2 favorites]

If you’re steadily reducing your debts and putting money aside for job loss/retirement (that’s two separate funds, ideally, Elizabeth Warren's book is pretty good) then how you spend your disposable income kind of doesn’t matter.

You might also want to put aside money steadily for Big Size projects/vacations/degrees. And then after that, if there’s money in your walking-around account, you can spend it.

All of that should be doable within one bank, if they have no-fee savings accounts or other "buckets". Then you only need to check for fraud/errors, and that there is money in walking-around.
posted by clew at 11:17 AM on June 5, 2022 [1 favorite]

The way I handle reimbursements in YNAB is this: anything that is awaiting reimbursement (or a refund!) goes in a "reimbursement" category (instead of food/travel/etc). When the reimbursement is received, that goes into the same category and zeroes it out. If the category total is not zero, then I know I am owed money.
posted by acidic at 12:19 PM on June 5, 2022 [8 favorites]

Best answer: I used to be in this situation a few years ago -- income exceeded expenses, avoidant of budgeting. Here's what worked for me:

You don't have to track personal expenses if you don't want to -- that really matters if you're just making ends meet, and otherwise you can spend your avoidance budget better elsewhere.

You *do* have to bribe yourself to spend an hour or two on finances every month, year in and year out. For example, plan that the first Saturday of every month is Finances Breakfast, order a great delivery treat, and put in the hour. Set up as many recurring calendar alarms as you need to remember this, and don't ever skip because it feels bad -- your avoidant brain will happily make you feel bad if you reward it for that. Give it a treat instead.

With your hour or two a month:

* Make a bookmarks folder of every financial account you have. (That counts as a month's work.)

* Open the folder and log into each site and skim through the transactions. Write down any todo items you see in a running google doc. (That's it, that's the month; actually doing the stuff is optional.) I like to do this in the sites themselves instead of through an app, in case there's an alert or a points reward to redeem or something.

* Write down the total amount, positive or negative, in each account. I just use a google spreadsheet with a column for each month and a row for each account.

If all you get is this, congratulations, you are now more in control of your finances than most people. You know your net worth and a high level view of why it's changing. No rush to do more, but the next step is saving.

For this you need three accounts. I happen to use two bank accounts at the same bank and a Vanguard investment account, but use whatever's easiest to add to what you have now.

Your main account is where checks go in and big expenses come out. In particular, food and ATM and other small discretionary stuff never comes out of here. This account should stay about flat over time and have a small number of transactions per month.

Your savings/investment account is where savings build up.

Your personal spending account is where you make discretionary purchases. Discretionary credit card purchases go on a card that gets paid from this account.

Every month, you make automatic transfers of a fixed size from the main account to your personal, savings, and retirement accounts. Tweaking the size of those three transfers is how you handle saving, and how you deal with raises and such as well. The game (as often as needed, during your hour a month) is to adjust the three transfers so your main account stays about flat; your personal account is adequately funded; and your savings and retirement are going up at a rate that works for you.

If you do this big picture stuff, you're in control and saving. You can now add nudges to yourself to follow up on todo items, or download a batch of personal expenses every once in a while to check whether adjusting your habits would make a meaningful difference for your three transfers. But you're also free to ignore the details this month if that's where you're at, and know that you're fine.
posted by john hadron collider at 3:09 PM on June 5, 2022 [5 favorites]