How to Create a Budget

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SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Morning folks. For those of you use who Excel to track your budget, do you guys have a good template to start with? I'm very curious.

I currently use Excel to make my budget (that I barely stick to because I'm poor, unemployed, and a student! Is that enough excuse?!) and Quicken to track my expenses, and export a report to Excel to compare the two to every now and then. I really like how Quicken & I track my expenditures, but I think Quicken budgeting sucks horridly. Once things stabilize for me income wise a bit, I am going to try to use Quickens budget tools in earnest, and next time YNAB goes on sale I will get a copy to try it. I don't think trying it right now would give me a full picture of what it can/can't do, but I think it will be worth using in a month or two.

I kind of like what I'm seeing from Phantom which I gather is Excel generated. Mill and 5 decimals for fractions? That's some precision right there. So, how exactly are you going about tracking it in Excel?

Thanks!

# ¿ Aug 8, 2013 11:23

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 20:39

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Combat Pretzel posted:

What version of Quicken do you use, anyway? The 2013 release has a budgeting module similar to YNAB.

Also, Intuit sold their Financial Services part for a billion bux, under the guise of focusing on their core products like Quicken and Mint. Maybe Quicken starts to suck less come next year. --edit: On the other hand, if YNAB would get its head out of its rear end and add scheduled bill based cashflow forecasting, it'd do what I miss from Quicken.

Im currently using 2013. The budgeting has changed and I guess gotten better, with carry forward balances and such.

tuyop posted:

If mint.com is available in your country, it sounds like it would be even better for your... approach.

USA, we have everything! No thanks on Mint. I tried it out a while ago and absolutely hated it. I've used Quicken since 04 and Mint is not something I can handle.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2013 19:11

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Phantom - Thanks much for the info. I wish I still programmed, it could be sweet to write my own software to do this. You wouldn't happen to have yours published anywhere, would you?

# ¿ Aug 9, 2013 06:03

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Old Fart posted:

This is just personal preference, but I don't like recording found money as income.

I'd log the transaction as income, but give it a category. That way it doesn't show up as income for the month, it just affects the balance of the line item. You could even create an "Uncle" category and isolate it all there, so that when you make reports, you can easily remove it from the equation.

I use Quicken not YNAB, but this is basically how I do it.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2013 00:13

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

HooKars posted:

I just wanted to make sure there was no real disadvantage to changing all my budgets to match my actual outflows and zeroing things out. I can't really think of a time where I would want to know what my budget numbers were in August 2013 vs. what I actually spent, but I wasn't sure if anyone had any views on that. I was just going to make the budgets match the actual spending and then move the leftover money to my savings categories.

Disclaimer: I have yet to use YNAB.

So you're going to change September budget amounts to reflect real spending in August, and add more to savings? That sounds entirely ideal to me. Now, depending on category you may want to leave a higher monthly budget amount and roll it over. For me, car maintenance, electronics, books and animal care (maybe more...) fall into that category.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2013 00:01

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

glug posted:

Hello thread I just found.
YNAB is on sale on steam for $15 now. I had it wishlisted because it looked pretty cool, glad to know there's a thread discussing budgeting specifically with people using this

Of course there is. It's rare I don't find an SA thread for anything I'm looking at.

I must figure out how to buy this without steam! Or, get a steam account. To google I go, thanks for the heads up!

# ¿ Aug 27, 2013 21:04

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Well I just started using YNAB. Its weird not forecasting whatsoever! I am definitely going to keep using Quicken in addition, but I like planning where money I currently have is going, vs where the money is coming from and going to for the next month+. Thanks for the suggestions guys! (And no, I definitely could not use YNAB as my only software at least not at this point in time. Plus investment tracking, tax tracking, etc.)

(PS: This part was an afterthought, spurred by your post, Phantom!)

DirtyTalk posted:

So, this summer really demolished me in terms of finances. I have a spending problem, Im 23, earn a pretty decent salary, and have a girlfriend that is currently broke that I pay for everything for.

I really want to fix this before poo poo gets out of control.

I remember seeing that there was a Goon that provided a budgeting service. I tried to find it but I didn't come across it. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

Have you plugged your numbers into Mint? It will give you a pretty quick idea of where your money went, which is definitely the first step to correcting the expenditures.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2013 06:25

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Good deal. This is an ideal time to start too, end/start of month and all. Good luck!

# ¿ Aug 30, 2013 16:36

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

spinst posted:

Sigh. Just start to get a budget under control and some punk kid keys the car I bought less than three weeks ago.

Budget for the comp deductible. That really really sucks tho.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2013 10:50

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

the littlest prince posted:

I am so glad I still read this thread. Mealime sounds awesome. Do they calculate nutritional information for each meal or do you have to do that on your own?

e: found a still-active groupon for it in case anyone else in here is thinking about trying it: http://www.groupon.com/deals/mealime. It's a canadian deal but I imagine anyone can buy it since it's essentially just a meal plan.

Groupon definitely worked for this US goon! Thanks.

# ¿ Sep 20, 2013 19:12

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Dantu posted:

One thing in YNAB that I'm struggling is why transfers can't have a category. I hate that I can't move $25 into my savings account and say it's for my emergency fund without getting errors.

Im unsure if this works in YNAB, but in Quicken you can use a consistent note ('emergency fund') for every transaction and pull a report based on note. But like Tuyop said, emergency funding isn't an expense, it's a budget item.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2013 01:15

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

I use to have 4 savings accounts. One for long term bills, one for retirement (save up xx before transferring to Roth), one for savings and one for short term bills. So if you physically want your emergency fund in a savings account, maybe make a new one and make it off budget?

# ¿ Sep 24, 2013 04:58

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Demon_Corsair posted:

This is the same logic I do when I compare anything with Americans. Sure you get Amazon prime and I pay $20 shipping for anything, but I get healthcare!

I'd trade my prime for decent healthcare. My father and I just visited Canada for a diagnostic procedure that isn't approved in the USA, and saved him surgery and about $5,400, and it's more accurate...

But drat, that's some expensive cheese and chicken.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2013 23:13

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Switchback posted:

I spend cash almost exclusively. Is the YNAB app good for logging cash expenses?

Very, mobile app and all.

E: Quicken also has mobile apps these days, I don't use them so I can't comment.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2013 03:29

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Key extraction eh? I must google that. I dislike having to update (or having to launch) steam constantly.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2013 16:44

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

100 HOGS AGREE posted:

You just go into the menu and there is an option that will give you your serial. It's either right in the program or you do it by opening up Steam and going into the application list and hitting properties or something. I forget offhand. You just gotta run YNAB through Steam at least once.

http://www.youneedabudget.com/support/article/using-ynab-on-steam

You rock! Thank you! I never bothered looking on Google because it isn't -that- annoying but I could surely do without using Steam!

# ¿ Dec 3, 2013 22:37

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Celot posted:

If the apartment or house you are renting is the same quality as the house or apartment you would be owning, then surely you do not turn a profit by renting. The cost of repairs and taxes will be passed on to the renter by the owner, plus a profit. Right?

----

I want to budget the following way:

Get paid. Pay off credit card. Maintain a balance of $200 in checking account for bill autopay. Transfer the rest to savings. Use credit card for all purchases.

I don't know how to make YNAB work for that. It just shows that I am over budget, because you can't seem to edit the monthly budget amount.

You set the budget... How can't you get it to adjust? YNAB doesn't care about what account your income or expenses go through.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2013 21:30

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

100 HOGS AGREE posted:

By the way, what is Quicken meant to be used for? I've never even looked at it because all my needs are currently met and my finances are not complicated.

Quicken is a more powerful Mint, especially with older editions of Mint. I've used Quicken for so long, and got so use to various things in it, Mint has never felt right. So, I still use Quicken for reporting and tracking expenses/saving/investing/etc, along with YNAB to budget. The dual entry is a little annoying, but it makes me analyze my spending twice, and I find YNAB to suck reporting wise. I can't search for all transactions with memo xyz and export to Excel, etc.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2014 21:40

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

IMO don't setup fake sub accounts in Quicken. It causes reconciliation hell, and doesn't change your mindset to spend to balance vs budget.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2014 00:24

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

YNAB does bank imports, you just have to log on to your bank website. I am pretty on top of my YNAB updating, so its really not hard to just auto-download into Quicken, and then put the two programs side-by-side and manually add to YNAB. However, if I skip updating for 7-14 days (happened maybe twice in 5 months) I can download everything from my bank's site.

I had the same experience as Tuyop, manually entering has definitely made me more conscious of all the accounts I track. Thought I track more accounts than he does, and I plan to indefinitely. I don't have to log on to check a few of the accounts that I track as they only get quarterly interest adjustments. I have considered starting to track it monthly, but..so lazy..Quicken tracks it daily for me anyway!

# ¿ Feb 10, 2014 22:25

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

App13 - I would start with examining your past expenditures. Then allocate your money for April, with a large emphasis on saving money, being you bring in ~2k over your base expenses. See how it goes. You could have 3k saved up pretty easily by June, or 5k with a little more effort.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2014 17:45

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

I would drop savings to 1k or 1mo expenses max (based on your risk tolerance) and pay off higher interest card first. I would prioritize getting out of (omg) double digit interest debt over savings, too. Throw that money at your credit cards. You can do it by lowest balance or highest interest rate. I would advocate highest interest rate, but do whatever makes you feel like you're making the best headway.

You need to list your car and student loans under debts. Your expenses don't look too out of line. A bit more to food than I would want to see myself, but it doesn't seem unreasonable.

You may consider adjusting your tax withholding if you keep getting tax refunds, or use that for lump sum debt payoff.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2014 20:33

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Veskit posted:

They're like right on the border of being Slow motion levels of debt while making around the same income. I don't get why you have no sense of urgency in your post.

It read to me that they have no interest or desire to change spending habits, and are strictly looking for input on what to do with savings money. Perhaps I should have said the rest of what I think, but I also think it'll fall on deaf ears. This is America after all

No doubt, they're deep in debt-central and should make efforts to get out. But he clearly stated he doesn't want to change anything besides what they do with savings, which should be entirely debt repayment. They are too poor to save.

SiGmA_X fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Apr 7, 2014

# ¿ Apr 7, 2014 22:48

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Hand of the King posted:

Okay, my wife and I will take a look at our budget and trim down where we can. I didn't know we were in the nuclear stage, but I shall heed everyone's advice.

But so what are some smart things to do with our current savings and the $1k we save each month? Dump most of it into the debt and pay those off ASAP?

Having debt means you need to take measures to correct it. Just because it's American to be broke doesn't mean that should be your goal.

Approaching the subject with yourself, and with your spouse especially, will likely be tricky. Modeling your savings after you're debt free has been an encouraging way I've done it, eg you can save $1k now and $1.6k if you are debt free, that sort of thing. Do you have purchase goals like a house? It'll be easier to do that if you're debt free.

I would say what I said, and most will agree with me. Drop savings to a minimal level and throw 100% everything at debt, highest interest rate first. Re-thinking your budget and expenses would absolutely benefit you. Think about how much more money you'd have today if you had no debt repayments to make. It's a lot of money.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2014 22:56

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

I Love Topanga posted:

The number "6 months worth of expenses" gets throw around for an emergency fund. What does that really mean? Are we talking:
A) 6 months worth of the average spent in a month
B) 6 months of mortgage/rent+utilities+food
C) 6 months of just the mortgage/rent?

Your call, but minimally B in your list. I would say usually it includes all basic living expenses - housing, utilities, food, transportation and insurance/necessities etc. I shoot for FULL expenditures including stuff that could be easily cut out.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2014 20:48

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

For me, 12k would last 6mo, but I would rather have 15-18k. That's single with a roommate (gf). If we combined finances, 25-35k.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2014 23:41

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Combat Pretzel posted:

I'm more surprised at the 100 dollars of groceries. He's either anorexic, does magic accounting, or I'm doing something horribly wrong, because...

That said, I'd like a third level of categories, but which are informal only. Which means that you can assign to transactions, but don't carry actual budgeted amounts of money, and whose aggregates would be subtracted from the second level categories they're hosted under. This would allow splitting up say grocery bills into subcategories of produce you bought, or let you define a generic hobby category with a set budget, but dynamically split amounts, and it'd reflect in the various reports and related drill-downs, but doesn't require you to micromanage your money.

I would *love* this. How I do it is with quicken. I do transactional reporting in quicken and budget setting for master categories in YNAB. Otherwise, I haven't found a good option for this.

spwrozek posted:

Sounds like a normal weekend so I would have it part of normal fuel, eating out, and blow money.

This is how I do it too. Same deal for taking a week off and going to a family beach house or similar. I may bump fuel up by a tank or two for the month, but I don't really adjust other categories.

That said, for my gf, we have her budget $XXX extra to 'vacations' for the month to make her not see "oh I have an extra $50 on fuel and $100 in groceries, let's buy more ice cream!"or similar.

So do what works for you.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2014 21:09

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

I'm doing this as complexly as possible for my gf and I. Personal budget -> YNAB and Excel. Gf's budget-> Quicken and Excel. Transaction recon -> Quicken with Excel exports and analysis/tracking. Joint budget and expense tracking -> Excel (pivot tables).

Seems to work well and it's pretty easy, at least for me. She watched me do it this morning and was rather baffled, but that's why I do the recon/Excel work...

# ¿ Jun 28, 2014 21:25

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Bugamol posted:

Mint has never gotten along well with my bank (US Bank), which is why I've never really used it. They have some problem with how some banks handle security questions. This is why I just use Excel. Utilizing a few SUMIFS formulas and what not to categorize stuff quickly based on category and date range it works pretty well.

I can download all of my transactions as a .CSV if I'm looking at monthly totals or manually fill in transactions if I want a real time outlook of what's in my checking account. I also use it to forecast which I don't really think you can do in Mint. I'm not sure as I never got to spend much time with it due to my bank.

You could always grab YNAB if you're looking for a complete package, they even have a free trial. However I don't like the way it treats budgeting as I like to look into the future more than YNAB lets you. YNAB wants you to allocate dollars as you earn them so "every dollar serves a purpose". It works depending on your spending personality, but doesn't mesh well with mine. Again though I don't have a lot of experience with YNAB.

EDIT: Plus you never know if/when they're going to decide they don't want to be a free service anymore and you'll be out of luck.

Fwiw pivots are way faster than sumif, IME, and expand literally effortlessly.

Add in some conditional formatting based on a lookup range and you have an easy to read summary. You could do the conditionals based on days into month even.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 21:03

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Bugamol posted:

Ya Pivots are definitely my weakest point in Excel. The last company I worked for hated them and hardly used them (plus didn't like me using them because they didn't understand them), so I haven't had much practice. I've moved companies and they use pivots for a lot of functionality, so I'm definitely going to start working with them even on my own. Any tips for someone who is excel experience but pivot naive?

Not really - plz share if you find some oops resources. I'm mostly self taught, figuring things out for work tasks and stuff. I've been using them a bit for budgeting cuz it just seemed like the easiest way. I'm a newb, but I like to expand my skills. I can do light VBA now to make my tasks faster. gently caress manually formatting multiple hundreds of lines daily when I can spend a few hours learning and coding and then press GO. My dept is very happy with it, I've shaved dozens off hours per month with some of them... And increased accuracy. The macro doesn't have human error once it's tested out.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2014 22:23

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

tesilential posted:

$152 a month for "hair"? please tell us you are paying on a hair transplant or something. I can't imagine a dude would rack up that much even with weekly trims, does your stay at home wife get monthly colors or something?

I'm no expert but I would wager you guys will do a lot better if she gets a job and puts the kid in daycare. Even in the extremely unlikely event that she only makes enough to cover daycare at least there's 8 hours a day she won't be spending money. She'll also probably be more hesitant to spend when she has to work for the money herself.

Do you guys do most of your spending together or does she handle things herself while you are at work? What kind of clothes are you buying? Hard to see spending over $300 on clothes every month unless she's getting the kid designer clothes or something.

My gf and I spend a combined $150/mo on hair. Most of that being her 6wk cut/dye.

I totally agree about working out of the house to make one spend less. Unless that converts to spending more in eating out.

Your groceries and diapers need to be 2 diff line items. And use cloth diapers. You live in Seattle, be more green.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2014 21:14

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

PhantomOfTheCopier posted:

How are you (everyone in the thread) storing/allocating your emergency savings? If you have a single line item for emergency savings, under what circumstances has the balance gone down? Have you misused the money?

I have 2 line items. One for emergency fund, one for buffer. Emergency fund has never been pillaged and has roughly one month of post tax income in it - which would be closer to 1.75 months of spending if I got fired. I added to it over the months until I hit that level. Buffer has maybe $100 in it, and fluctuates +/- based on overages and saving targets. Bad answer but that's how I do it ATM... I also do in-category saving for vehicle maintenance and pet care, and then infrequent bills (allocate roughly 110%/12 to those per month). Counting the pet and vehicle maintenance, I have ~2mo of total emergency fund monies I could allocate in the event of poo poo happening. Eventually this will increase. I hate being a poor, and spending too much...

# ¿ Jul 12, 2014 20:27

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

anitsirK posted:

I'd keep it in there, but set it up as a scheduled transaction, so that all you need to do in YNAB is mark it as "approved". This way you're not getting confused about which transactions are or are not on the budget, and your mortgage is accounted for when you do the math on how much money you need to live on.

Agreed.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2014 15:03

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

xie posted:

Is there a good way to use YNAB just for tracking, like Mint's Transactions log? It looks like I'm permanently locked out of Mint. I tried YNAB and imported my transactions from June/July and all it did was really gently caress with the balances on my accounts, and reconciling it caused it to think I had like $9k in July income.

Should I just wipe it clean and start from scratch, without bothering to import old transactions? I don't have cash flow problems, I just want to make sure I'm sticking to my allotted amounts each month in every category, which Mint was great for.

I like Quicken for what you're doing. You simply need to categorize everything in YNAB and you should be good to go, though.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2014 20:42

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Lblitzer posted:

Just need some quick advice on if this is a decent plan. I've got $3300 in CC debt that I'd like to get rid of as I've moved banks. $3,121.93 in school loans with minimum payments being $43.46

Income
$1576/month

Expenses
Rent: $175
Food: $200
Fast food: $50
Gas/cigarettes/snacks (mostly cigarettes): $160
Cell phone $45
Student loan: $110
Credit card: $190
Total: $930

Net: $646

I've been able to throw a bit into my savings account, usually close to what I have left but I'm wondering if I should be a bit more aggressive towards the CC. I was thinking of doing $50 for the loan and $240 for the credit card.

I'm a fan of focusing and attacking. What's your emergency fund [savings account] balance? I'd aggressively get that to 1k, then aggressively attack your CC debt and then student loans. Sounds like a 11-12mo time frame. Then get your efund funded (3-6mo of expenses)

# ¿ Jul 18, 2014 20:28

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Lblitzer posted:

I've got $700 right now, I'm planning on selling my PC which should get me another $500-600, but I believe having about $1.5k would put me in a decently safe spot. I've just got to keep myself from spending on unnecessary things like shopping. Perhaps I'll look into fixing cellphones or donating plasma for some extra cash.

Solid. I would attack your debt with your spare money. Hold off.on saving more, unless you get a 401(k) match and then save that amount, until you get debt free. After that point, get your efund up more. You're definitely on the right track.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2014 22:48

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

Pay off the car and start saving 15% gross for retirement ASAP. I'd have the car paid off by Oct1 and then save 15%+ for retirement starting Oct1,

# ¿ Jul 28, 2014 04:51

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

AbsenceVsThinAir posted:

We might be close to that already. I've already contributed 5500 to my Roth, and we are budgeting to put the max in hers for this year by the end of the year. 15% would be 24k. I would say including the Roths we are on track for 19k. My company doesn't allow you to change your simple ira percent more than once a year, so as far as I know once her Roth is maxed we won't have any more tax shelters to contribute to. So it sounds like we need to put another 1k into a taxable account a month to hit 15%.

Is there any significance to 15% of gross? If we stuck with that, what would the implications be for our retirement?

It's an easy to suggest number based on current income and expected retirement withdraw amounts. If you have another 32 years in the work force and get 8% returns on investment, at 15% of 160k, you'll retire with ~3.2mil, allowing you to withdraw about 128k and not impact the account balance.

SiGmA_X fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Jul 28, 2014

# ¿ Jul 28, 2014 18:35

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

You're paying way too much for nothing tho.

I would move your non-current-company retirement funds into Vanguard. Roll it all there. Cheap and easy to buy index funds (and others) from there. Both retirement and taxable.

# ¿ Jul 29, 2014 06:39

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 20:39

SiGmA_X: May 3, 2004; SiGmA_X

AbsenceVsThinAir posted:

Everything that I can move is in Schwab right now, including the adviser stuff. I know Vanguard is the best, but I feel like Schwab's offerings are competitive and switching would not be worth the paperwork. I don't like the fees for buying Vanguard Target Retirement date funds, so recently I've been buying the Schwab ETFs and in some cases the expense ratios are lower than the equivalent Vanguard funds.

IMO you have too much money to buy target date funds, unless you're just super lazy. I would do Vanguard Admiral funds.

I don't know much about Schwab funds. What type of ER/fees do you pay them?

# ¿ Jul 29, 2014 17:39

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