Budgeting apps and programs help

[Speedling]

Budgets are hard and annoying to work with but kinda necessary.
I have been using a spreadsheet and entering in stuff but by golly between my wife and i and automatic everythings it's hard to keep up!
We average over 2 credit card transactions a day!
The monthly stuff is easy but the groceries and similar is hard to keep up.
Is there programs and apps that can automatically check this stuff and update?
My credit card runs everything so we for cash back and it categorizes everything nicely but not perfect. For example groceries are just put into merchandise and food is actually just going out.
I would like to not have to enter in every single transaction and have a bit more automated going on.
Also want something that will help us create and meet the budgets so that when we spend $40 on pizza on our card the app picks it up and tell us where we are on the budget for food.

Does what i want exist?
Tips and tricks?
I gotta get serious about this but have very limited time. (Time is allocated to it's fullest extent thus the enjoyment of boating-cant do anything right now i am on the boat)

 

[anmut]

I use excel and custom formulas. I've never been able to find a unicorn program and actually really like the control I have in Excel. I even built out a depreciation schedule for our new boat so I know when I should start looking for the next upgrade.

I would highly recommend looking at adding different CC's to your spending to maximize your return. For instance AMEX has a 6% on groceries (there's a yearly fee, but if you spend enough it offsets very nicely), Citi has a great all purpose 2% cash, and Discover (eww) will give you rotating 5% quarters on different types of purchases. Also take advantage of app + cc combos. I pair my BP fuel app (5c gallon off) with my aforementioned AMEX that gives me 3% cash back on fuel for a nice savings or the 5% on fuel when Discover rotates their offer. That's 15c a gallon savings for doing nothing extra. Or as I like to look at it, that's a free cocktail on every fill-up of the boat.

 

[BigAbe75]

Have you looked at mint.com? (It’s free to use. They send you emails recommending stuff occasionally)

it has some budgeting tools (though I haven’t looked much at them). It connects directly to your bank and cards and sucks in transactions. I got an email yesterday that I overspent my budget on auto repair after a 1400 fix for our Tahoe.

 

[ifly4fun]

I use mint and personal capital. Both free. I tried the cc cash back game, didn’t have the discipline and all it takes is one month with a balance to negate rewards.. so cash only now.

 

[Speedling]

I use mint and personal capital. Both free. I tried the cc cash back game, didn’t have the discipline and all it takes is one month with a balance to negate rewards.. so cash only now.

We have a costco membership which is also a credit card. Get cash back paid once a year.
Ihave my bank auto-debit the amount every month so never have a balance carry.
Certainly will check mint and personal capital out!

 

[jdkaeser]

I is

Budgets are hard and annoying to work with but kinda necessary.
I have been using a spreadsheet and entering in stuff but by golly between my wife and i and automatic everythings it's hard to keep up!
We average over 2 credit card transactions a day!
The monthly stuff is easy but the groceries and similar is hard to keep up.
Is there programs and apps that can automatically check this stuff and update?
My credit card runs everything so we for cash back and it categorizes everything nicely but not perfect. For example groceries are just put into merchandise and food is actually just going out.
I would like to not have to enter in every single transaction and have a bit more automated going on.
Also want something that will help us create and meet the budgets so that when we spend $40 on pizza on our card the app picks it up and tell us where we are on the budget for food.

Does what i want exist?
Tips and tricks?
I gotta get serious about this but have very limited time. (Time is allocated to it's fullest extent thus the enjoyment of boating-cant do anything right now i am on the boat)

I use waveapps.com. It is free, links to your accounts and I use it to run my business. Very good tool. They have a few App Store apps as well that link to your main account. You can code all the transactions and see what your spending on a dashboard. It is not a full phone based app. You will have to go to the website to look things up, the apps are just tools for invoicing or capturing receipts. I love it for my business.

 

[2kwik4u]

I used Mint for a long time. it works fairly well. We have a ton of credit cards, and have a ton of transactions to track as well. Those programs have two issues IMO.

I found that the more I automated my life, the less in touch I was with it. Debt spiraled out of control, and I had no idea why I was still "paycheck to paycheck" on an absurd amount of bring home. Not that I make a ton, but it was more than was required to be paycheck to paycheck......it was really absurd.

Second, once I realized I was out of touch, NONE of the programs would FORECAST into the future. I had no idea how this large bill today might affect my long term outlook.......So I wrote a custom spreadsheet to do it for me, and I track it daily.

That which gets measured, gets managed. I check my measurements daily now.