Inspired by Kim’s post about how she and her husband took charge of their finances, I decided to toughen up financially too. I started by looking for an expense tracker app like hers. She’s on iOS though, while I’m on Android. Still, there was no shortage of similar apps on the Play Store. I wanted a clean, simple interface combined with a variety of nifty features. I narrowed my choice down to Expense Manager, Expense IQ and Financius.
Though I liked their minimalist interfaces, I found Expense Manager too barebones and I didn’t like how the accounts and transactions were kept separate in Financius. Expense IQ hit the sweet spot for me with its slew of nifty features (e.g., Budgets, Bill Reminders, several types of Reports) and ease of use. You can also keep separate accounts (like I did) to prevent confusion.
I love how comprehensive and totally integrated its features are. Like, when I set a budget for Food and then enter an expense under the Food category (even under its sub-categories), the corresponding amount gets deducted from my Food Budget. You can see a bit of that in action in the last screencap. I obviously went way over my budget in the Tech & Gadgets category, but that’s only because I bought a power bank; the allocated amount there is just the monthly payment of my phone’s cash-out.
I never before really paid mind to where my money goes, but since I want to become financially capable, I had to confront my spendthrift ways face-on. >_< Not an easy thing to do, really. But absolutely necessary. And since I’ve been religiously tracking every peso through the app, I’m now getting a better idea of how I spend. The Budget feature also made me realize that I actually am supposed to have extra money aside from the necessities–that is, if I don’t go impulse spending here and there. So it means I really, really gotta stick to my budget.
How about you, how do you keep track of your money?
Yay for making a move towards finances! 🙂 I have an excel sheet. Been trying a lot of finance apps and I can’t seem to settle. Lol. So I decided to make my own. I’ll check out Expense IQ though.
I actually had an Excel sheet for the same purpose before, but since I’m not in front of the PC 24/7, it didn’t really work out for me. That is, I sometimes forget to log in expenses and by the time I remember to list them down, I’d have forgotten half of what I spent on and how much exactly. This is better for me since I always have my mobile with me anyway (because I use it as my pedometer too). 🙂
Before I started on excel too, but then I’d miss something and became lazy to update. Might try this Expense Iq on our tab 🙂
I use excel lang. Medyo old school but it works for us. Hehehe! I used an app before but it was confusing me more (plus I like being able to see everything in one go). So back to Excel spreadsheets we went.
Between the husband and I, I’m much more the budget nazi than he is so when I proposed that I handle all our money na (he’s the sole breadwinner for now), he didn’t agree at first. He’s been independent kasi for far too long. It was even a topic of a number of fights pa. Hehehe! So we met in the middle and decided that he’ll be given a specific budget for the month which he can choose to spend on whatever he wants (with no complaints from me). This also includes his workday expenses and whatnot. The rest, I handle (which also includes all our investments, insurance, etc.)
We’re a few months in this new arrangement so far, it’s been working for us. We’re finally debt free (wheee!) Our investments are all in order and we’re now working on our emergency fund. Still a long way to go but at least it’s getting there. Oh! And we were finally able to meet 2 of our major financial goals this year, too — purchase life insurance for both of us and health insurance, too. =)
I started with the manual kind of expense monitoring : pen and notebook. I wrote down every peso I spent. But I was too lazy to translate them into charts and graphs and I wanted to see a more graphic visualization of my finances. I also tried several personal finance apps and settled for the Home Budget app from the Apple App Store. 🙂 Works wonders, I tell ya. Whenever I have the urge to buy something unnecessary, I just take a look at the app on my phone and I am instantly reminded that I have no money for it hehehe Also helps to see how much credit limit I still have and how much debt I still have to pay. The app is literally screaming “Kristine, no swiping!” lol