budgeting

[hydroazuanacaine]

i figure this thread can be about budgeting in general, but i have a specific question. is the a budget app that syncs with my bank account and allows me to include budgets that are not monthly like clothing and plan for expenses that are not monthly like a biannual property tax bill? i also need it to either allow me to cancel out charges or pair them with a refund to cancel out the charge, as i return half the items i buy and a program like mint that still counts them against my budget is no good. googling does not help because most of the internet is just garbage top 10 lists pushing ppv/ppc advertising.

thanks!

 

[Pretty_Diamonds]

I have a whiteboard that I put on the frig. Cost, Spent, Remaining. I'll keep the receipts on the frig too if I don't have time to calculate or need to look back.

Then I have total expenses... and how much I would put towards debt, etc.

 

[Lysis]

I'm terrible at budgeting. I don't do it although for me I've always been able to make more money if I want something and then just buy it.

I kinda just add up what I need to pay out in my head. It's pretty terrible. lol

I would be careful giving a random app access to my bank account if I'm understanding you properly. I think it would be better to manually do it and not let an app do it if it means entering your banking info.

 

[thujone]

for Android? why is syncing with bank account necessary?

 

[hydroazuanacaine]

ios. i wanted one that syncs with my account so i didn't have to manually add the expenses and income. also seemed like a good way to keep an eye out for fraudulent charges. but when i went to sync, my bank gave me a disclaimer that i could be liable from fraudulent activity resulting from giving a third part account access, so i'm uploading with csv sheets instead. good call, Lysis.

i'm currently using "home budget with sync." it allows me to manually delete expenses, so it can handle the refund issue. while it has the option to enter budget items on cycles other than monthly, that doesn't do anything to help you plan for those expenses and instead just adds the whole giant expense to your monthly budget so it looks like you have way more money left in the month than you do. so instead i divided those expenses to get the monthly amount, included that amount in my monthly budget, move that amount into my savings each month with the transfer logged as an expense, and don't log it as income in the app for the savings account.

i like your fridge method, Pretty.