

Ask HN: What money management tool do you use?  - bluepanda_

And what are its advantages and disadvantages? I am looking for a tool that keep things simple, while doing what it does best.
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smartician
Not sure what exactly you mean by money management, but to have an overview of
my finances, i.e. see all credit card, brokerage and checking accounts at
once, and to track spending, mint.com is awesome. It saved me a fair amount of
money once when I caught a credit card fee I was unaware of and missed on my
statement, and I could call and cancel that service in time to get a full
refund.

It's a bit unsettling to give all your financial account logins to a third
party website, but I trust that a company like Intuit has decent security...

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stevekemp
I have a simple online application which allows me to enter my recurring
expenses and salary payments.

That allows me to compare my bank balance on any given day to the "expected"
total.

<http://static.steve.org.uk/expenses/>

I've no patience for writing down every transaction, and over here in the UK
there is no mint-like service I'm aware of. (Though I'd probably be unwilling
to share my bank login details with a third party anyway.)

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bluepanda_
It would be perfect if I could add one-time expense/income.

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stevekemp
Patches welcome!

More seriously if you could explain how you'd like to see it done I'd be happy
to try adding it.

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bluepanda_
It'd work best if I fork it and and it myself. Less work for you, more
customization for me. :)

~~~
stevekemp
Well I'll keep an eye out, and if I see your changes I'll try to fold them in
- unless they look too you-specific :)

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bluepanda_
Thanks for all the suggestions. To be more specific, my situation is that I'll
be making $x this summer, in addition to making $y/month and spending
$z/month. I need to visualize these data to determine whether I can afford to
make that $x/k expense (i.e: expense that represents a part of x that is less
than x) and still have a margin m, where m is defined as financial "safety".
Sorry if it's confusing, but I hope it makes sense.

As smartician suggested, Mint is great to get an overview of one's finance,
but it doesn't let me visualize the above amounts.

As ragatskynet suggested, spreadsheets are the most obvious choice, and the
fact that I can "complicate them to the level [I] want" should allow me to
plot the above amounts as I need, but I was trying to find a more elegant way
to do this than using excel.

I will be looking into the other suggestions. stevekemp's seems to be just
what I need.

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zrail
I use Ledger CLI[1] along with a bunch of custom reporting tools. Ledger uses
a simple-to-use plain text format and runs queries with a command line
program. I've been keeping my finances with it for six years, it's the only
system I've ever been able to use consistently.

[1]: <http://www.ledger-cli.org>

~~~
bwr
Not related to finance, but for people who enjoy Ledger and need a calendar
application, there is remind[1] which works a lot like Ledger. I just have
remind run from my bashrc to print out my reminders at the top of every new
terminal. It works great for me.

[1]: <http://www.roaringpenguin.com/products/remind>

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ragatskynet
Not sure if that is what you are asking, but I am tracking my personal things
in an Excel table - you can complicate things to the level you want.

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zensavona
YNAB (You Need A Budget) is the only budgeting tool I've actually found useful
personally.

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mknappen
Step 1: Stash a healthy % of all income into savings. Step 2: Live off the
remainder.

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strobe
some time ago I used Gnucash, it's simple and effective tool but it's has not
ideal UX

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stevoo
expensify i found to be usefull.

