Trying to find the best way to keep track of finances as well as future loan payments etc towards my student loan. This whole "going to law school" thing is costing a pretty penny, even though I'm riding scholarship. Any advice, tips, help, worksheets that can be passed along will be appreciated. I'm trying to be more anal about my expenditures in light of the economy, legal job market and of course the beautiful house of cards built on future graduate debt.
google docs has excellent financial worksheets. its easy to track every penny as long as you are disciplined enough to update it as you spend. there's also mint.com (for automation) as mentioned above, but i just can't convince myself that giving one site all my passwords to my account is a good idea.
http://quicken.intuit.com/personal-finance-software/mint-online-money-management.jsp This keeps me in check. And it's free.
I love mint. There are sometimes issues with one post in the statement but the overall numbers are correct.
Mint is good for seeing a snapshot of all of your money and debts but I don't care for the budgeting tools. I just use a simple Google Docs spreadsheet with expenses on the left and income on the right, and a +/- at the bottom to show how far in the black/red I am that month. The problem with most of the budgeting templates is that they create a category for everything (ie dining out, grocery, going to movies, going to bar, etc). That's good for long term planning but it feels like work to try to keep up with that many categories. I have one big category for food/entertainment and take out cash for it. When the cash is gone I know to try not to spend any more. If you want to be more disciplined you allocate a certain amount of cash for dining out, entertainment, etc. Other categories are rent, car pmt, loan pmt, gas, insurance, and internet/cable. If I have a unique expense I just add a category for it that month (ie textbooks, oil change, gifts, etc.) I just think the simpler the better. The harder it is to keep up with, the easier to lose track.
If you has the Fargo, they gots a Spending Report that categorizes all of your monthly withdrawals and deposits and shows net inflow/outflow; you can also take specific line items and categorize them yourself. I can't imagine Bank of America and JPM Chase don't have similar stuff.
He might need one that has different colors so it will be easier to keep up with.:grin: Best of luck to you in your studies ROCKETS R'US HOPE YOU DO WELL.
Just downloaded a budget spreadsheet from Google Docs and spent the last hour and a half filling it out… I knew that I was doing a terrible job of managing money but wow. Just 11 days into the month, $334 on eating out, drinks, entertainment, and convenience stores. SMH, hopefully this’ll help me get it together.
seeing the cumulative monthly amount staring you right in the face really makes you think about the next time you spend that money.
I tried looking for something on google docs but maybe I was reading it all wrong or something. Could you tell me how to get the spreadsheet you're using? I'd like to see where I can make some cuts myself. Thanks
