If you want a good budgeting tool look no further than YNAB [0] it's done wonders for me in tracking where my money is going how much I am spending in various categories as well as a good birds eye view of my finances (which even mint couldn't do well)
"healthier homemade meal (if planned)" (missing period at end of sentence)
"how much do you spend on" should be "how much you spend"
"when I’m not drinking (at all) alcohol my performance" should be "when I’m not drinking alcohol (at all) my performance" or "at all" could be changed to "any"
"do I waste on eg having drinks" should be "do I waste on, e.g., having drinks"
"and buy a bread" should be "and buy a loaf of bread"
"which I was eating while on the run. Turns out I’ve spent a lot of money on them" should be use a semicolon, like so: "while on the run; turns out..."
"In a blink f an eye" - of
"on the final straight" - final stretch
"on one category, It’ll point this" - "it'll" should not be capitalized
"you spend to much on for example entertainment, tighten" should be "too much on, for example, entertainment..."
"not rocket since" - rocket science
I really like your fundamental idea of choosing just a few simple categories you care about. Good tip.
When I was a young single man, I had an effective way to track my personal finances. At the start of the month, I'd calculate how much money I had left over after fixed expenses (rent, internet, etc) and whatever savings I wanted for that week.
I'd then divide that by 4, and 4 times a month, I'd withdraw that amount in cash from my account, and use that for discretionary spending like going out, groceries, etc. That way, I could tell myself by just looking in my wallet: "OK, I went out for drinks twice already this week, I have 40$ left, I'll keep it easy until Monday."
I just went back to doing something like this. About a month ago I decided to try a "per diem" (per day amount).
So at the start of the week, I take out a lump withdrawal of spending money for the week, and then each day $40 gets divided into the following packets: Me ($10), Wife ($10), Kid1 ($5), Kid2 ($5), General ($10). Me and my wife don't have to justify what we spend our personal packets on, we can use or save it as we wish. However, we make our purchases from what we've accumulated in our packets. The kids money is earmarked for expenses dealing with them individually (diapers, wet wipes, allergen free food, etc). General is for things like gas or other items that apply to multiple people.
It's caused me to be a lot more conscious of what I'm spending money on. I won't frivolously spend the money earmarked for others, and for me it's kind of a game to see how much of my $10 I can save each day. So far the 6 month old is doing the best at saving, he just accumulates his $5/day most of the time - passive income for the win :).
Note: This only deals with "spending money". Our bills are treated as fixed monthly costs. However, it does include things like groceries, household items, eating out, gas, etc.
Since we started this about a month ago, we are for the first time in about 3 years actively saving, which for a single income family in a fairly high cost of living area (Juneau, Alaska), has been a wonderful change.
It still works. Things like childcare just come out of the fixed expenses that are preallocated (or from cafeteria plan). I more or less take this same approach - except I use a mileage credit card. I have a self imposed budget limit and use my smartphone to ensure I'm staying below that amount for the month.
I don't understand how people manage to log every purchase they make and keep on a budget (this app is no different). I find it so inefficient and time consuming. I can't even plan a budget.
I prefer to focus on how much money I can actually save every month. Much simpler and easier to manage. Best is to put that money aside on the 1st of each month and see if you can stick to it.
Then choosing what to spend less on to improve that saving every month is by questioning the usefulness of the purchase (Will I use it? Will it make me happier? Will it improve my productivity? Will it allow me to create wealth? etc.).
Try to keep your living standard below what your income could afford. On the long run you'll save money and live happier.
I probably live a very different type of life-style, but your method is how I budget. I save everything I can, then only worry about (budget) the expensive items, of which there are only a dozen or so per month.
I highly doubt that my method would scale well if I had more income, though.
I dunno about the happier part, because my friends who live beyond their means sure seem happier! ;)
"I didn't have time to actually make or keep a budget, or learn anything about the topic, so I spent six months writing an app that is basically Mint, but slightly prettier, and worse." Don't ever change, tech dudes!
Well, I guess you can't tell for sure if it's worse than Mint before using it. If it's prettier (as you said) and its UI is more intuitive there's a chance it can be better, at least in some aspects.
I guess you're right, I didn't have time to make a budget but have some to design an app because by doing this I learned a lot when it comes to design, and after all I earn money by designing things. So it's a win-win
Right back atcha, bro; your willful ignorance of the topic or any other solution is, I would say, a focus of your piece.
Done:
[x] Identify a problem ("overpaid millennial techies don't keep track of their spending because they just can't be arsed")
[x] Waste a bunch of time shipping a mobile app six people will ever use
[x] Write self-important, poorly-copyedited Medium post
These are the most visible parts of the design process, but they won't get you success unless you're reeeeeally good in a room with some pretty rich, dumb motherfuckers. (I am made to understand this is getting harder and harder lately.)
Not done:
[ ] Hard stuff?
[ ] Research design process: what else happens??? (<- this sounds hard)
The difficult, meaningful stuff no one really seems to give much of a shit about anymore. Except, of course, the people making good and interesting work that will actually matter a few years from now, and not just destroy a bunch of wealth and effort. But they don't write Medium posts.
If you need a little more pressure, stop using credit cards in favor of cash. There's something powerful about realizing you have less of something every time you get a cup of coffee. It will slow you down and make you think "do I really want this?"
It has worked for me. Dead simple philosophy: the money you earn this month you get to spend next month. Helps break the cycle of debt, and also has given me visibility into my daily spending.
I've used YNAB for over a year and I don't understand it like that. I allocate to different savings (bills, rainy day, etc) and spending (games, eating out, etc) categories and spend from those.
Could you explain what you mean about that philosophy? I may be able to further improve my budgeting.
I love YNAB and would love to use it in the cloud. It's a shame that it is isn't up to snuff yet and is $45/year. It would be great if someone came out with a cloned competitor.
yes, but at first glance, it looks complicated. Im a lazy person, so my goal was to create a very basic, but dead simple system to keep track of my expenses
Yup, but a well done one. He starts by modelling reality according his own view (7 categories of expenses) and then propose his app. I never tracked my expenses, but this "ad" tempted me to do it..
Not a comment about whether it is an add, but Blinq is already a crowded name, you may want to think up something unique. There was a dating app with AI hot or not ratings here just a day or two ago with the same name, not to mention the discount website that already has blinq.com.
First of all, congrats on taking control of your finances!
Also, good luck with the forthcoming app launch.
Sad to see the top responses didn't celebrate what you've done but instead complained that you are putting out an app.
I'd suggest going deeper into your philosophy of why you only need 7 main categories. How did you decide on those exact 7? Where would you classify: giving, investing, and short-term savings (tech replacement, saving for an anniversary, etc).
Edit: as mentioned elsewhere, there are a bunch of typos too. "taht" instead of "that", etc.
The app looks interesting! I'm nt sure if I'd stick to entering in every purchase, but I'd be willing to try. Worst case you could add Plaid integration as an option too. I do think there is value in simplifying way more than Mint.
One idea I had recently was for a similar interaction, but instead of for expenses it would be for every time you "saved" money. So for example, if you were in the super market and saw some $5 cookies and debated buying them. If you decided not to, since you wanted to save that money instead, you'd open then app and quickly enter $5. It would keep a tally of all of the savings you had instead of the expenses, to incentivize that mentality.
You might be able to easily incorporate that already (or I could after signing up) by adding a "Savings" category. But if there are any places where expenses are graphed or totaled it would need to be discounted.
Anyways, congrats and good luck with the launch! I like how clean it feels.
Thanks for the advice! Right now, we;re working on MVP version of the app, but there are some things on the roadmap already. I'd definitely think about this feature!
I try to spend around $600/mth on food, gas, drinks and other entertainment. This works out to roughly $20/day. I keep a running tally in my head day to day on what I've spent and try to stay around $20/day.
This is not a great tracking method, but just having the idea of $20/day in the back of my head curbs my spending a great deal.
I wrote up my system in another thread - I do almost exactly the same thing, except it's $40 a day for me, my wife and 2 kids. The only difference is we actually "pay out" the money each day, and only spend from what we've accumulated from that day and previous days.
Regardless of whether it is an ad or not: You missed a huge chance by submitting to HN before having the app ready. I find the idea of only a few categories appealing, but if I wanted to do this right now I would probably go look for an app that is available right now. I want to test your app for a week or so, give feedback and move on if it doesn't work. Not too keen on signing up on a mailinglist for an app that will "someday" be ready, unless I'm very excited about it or the app is the first one to solve a specific problem. Attention spans are short!
This also works best for me. Write it down straight away. Not some evening, or in the weekend, but right away. I got into the habit because I wanted to save 5 months of expenses before starting as a freelancer.
Money goes into one account, then I work out all my expenses for the month, rent, petrol, food, isp bills etc. This amount is then transferred to my bill paying account. As the month wears on this account is depleted automatically as bills are taken then next month I refill it.
The other account is a play money account. Anything I need/want during the month comes out of this. At the end of the month any left over is transferred into a saving account.
Been doing this for 15 years and it works pretty well for me.
I'd recommend a combination of billguard and mint. Mainly billguard, both free. billguard allows you to add your debit/credit card accounts. when you make a purchase, bill guard notifies you. it will group your spending habits into different categories. at the end of every week, bill guard notifies you by email with a message similar to this "you have spent $400 this week etc. etc. going into the app itll show you where the money you spent went to. this is a great way to determine how much money you go through a weekly basis.
I would hope you won't cancel your app development. your app looks very intuitive and simplistic, the UI clean as well. didn't mean to overshadow your accomplishments. only a suggestion for an alternative.
I did this with a single sheet of engineering graph paper in the 1980s. Rows were spending categories and columns were months and annual summaries. I spreadsheeted it in the 1990s and clouded it in the 2010s.
Simple and powerful if you can see it all on one page. Takes just minutes a month. Most the mobile apps I'ver seen use too small screenfulls. And I DONT TRUST THEM INTO MY WEB ACCOUNTS like Mint wants to do.
The easiest way to budget is just stop spending money on stupid stuff, and don't live somewhere with high rent. Don't make large purchases, except perhaps a condo or house so you don't have to pay rent anymore. You don't need to write anything down or manually keep track of stuff in an app. Your online account balances automatically keep track for you. This isn't rocket science.
If you want a good budgeting tool look no further than YNAB [0] it's done wonders for me in tracking where my money is going how much I am spending in various categories as well as a good birds eye view of my finances (which even mint couldn't do well)
[0] http://www.youneedabudget.com/ (Though I suggest you use http://classic.youneedabudget.com/ as the web version just isn't there yet IMHO)