Finance software for the household

[jimbouk]

I'm sure some financially sound Hexus members must have a few tricks up their sleeves as to how they manage their money.

I'm currently running a spreadsheet to ensure that between the current account and 2 credit cards I average out in the black. This is a rather slow process and doesn't have the ability to plan for known bills without manually entering them ahead of time. I am generally sensible, just have some big expenses coming up and want to work out when I can afford them.

So, any recommendations for simple software to do this sort of thing?

[kalniel]

Have a look on the MoneySavingExpert forums - some people share excel macros/templates to manage this kind of thing very neatly - we use one for mortgage calculations.

[OilSheikh]

Microsoft Money plus Sunset
Micorosft Office accounting

[peterb]

I used to do that and found that the accounting packages just took up too much time. In the end I created a big spreadsheet with all my regular outgoings on it - the critical inputs were income and predicted balance/overdraft at the end of the month. At the end of every month, I updated the predicted balance with actual figure, and that gave me the difference between the prediction and actual. The actual figure then carried through to the next months. The other variable was my credit card bill as my incidental expenses were made using the card and my aim was to repay the balance each month and that spending was fairly consistent.

I used a two year future period. Within the spreadsheet columns there were blank ones for unexpected items, so I could do 'what if' inputs to see how that affected the future predictions.

By putting in regular payments as separate columns, I could also see what impact changes in fuel bills, or council tax might have, so I could plan accordingly. It took some time to set up, but once it was running, I only had to enter a couple of figures at the end of the month to get a snapshot - I didn't have to account for every single item.

With the rise in internet banking it is less critical (for me) as I can check my credit card and bank balances on line and move money accordingly - the bank and credit card sites effectively provide the spreadsheet so I just check them once a week or so to ensure that there are no surprises - a bill I hadn't expected - but most of my bills are paid by direct debit so it is only the variable direct debits I need to keep an eye on, and I get advance notification of those anyway.

[jimbouk]

Thanks! I'll see how I get on with Microsoft Money Plus Sunset, Wikipedia also got me looking at GnuCash so I'll try that out as well. It sounds like pimping a spreadsheet might be the easiest way forward though.

[Zak33]

Excel is all you need...

As far as software......

But what you also need is imagination and the best way is to play it like a game

Cashflow forecast for example

Set up a basic row Jan to Dec
Next row down Opening balance
Next row down income
Next row down outgoing
Bottom row closing balance with sum to calculate those

Closing balance goes to next month opening balance

Add your salary to income line
Guess at outgoing

So far so obvious

Now add rows in for additional outgoing expense and add in guess work
One for summer holiday
One for Christmas
One for car service
One for insurance
One for random broken washing machine

In short... Build a game in excel and then put in stuff....additional income line " ebay result...sold playstation and games for £ 100 clear funds"

Add notes to each cell ( right click add note)

Once you've built this move stuff to make it work

Add in additional income tick doesn't yet exist to make it work out to cover your outgoing


Then.....make that income!

Make sure you put some money away for savings too....

And you must have the opening balance -closing balance style that we began with

As soon as the opening balance of a month is a negative mend it!

Then once this " game" is complete...have a sob about reality....then dry your eyes...boil a kettle...make coffee....

And change how you live to make it add up

New rows for " electricity saved each month"

And " overall money saved on fuel by driving smarter every day"

In short...don't list daily expenses in detail...list monthly savings from a change of life style

New row "wife not buying x item every other month for only one year"

And

" don't buy can of coke every afternoon"

Get a few of those in and you'll smile like a chimp!

I recently stopped a colleague buying 1 can of drink from the work machine every working day

70p x 5 days x 48 working weeks

£168 per year

Paid for the insurance on his classic car for a year
Drinks extra cup of tea everyday now....work pays for tea

[Zak33]

I once saw a program that I'm reminded of

The tightest man in Britain ( or similar)
I learned a lot while the nation sneered at him

He ate his work colleagues unwanted lunch items

He posted postcards from the airport before flying on holiday with uk stamps

He always always had a dump at work to save on bog roll at home


Ok.....a bit overboard but he really was like that

Years ago I posted here about my electrical savings at home from buying the simple power reading plug in device and monitoring every single thing in my house

I have saved thousands of pounds now

I kid you not

Had I kept that spare fridge in the garage for a few years I'd be broke now! Plugging all the TV audio stuff into two different plugs...one on all the time ( set top box and aerial booster) and one that goes off every night

Knowing that my microwave oven draws 10W when not in use from a transformer inside it and therefore switching it off at the wall when not in use

Knowing the cheap pc speaker use same current on or off and chucking them away

Saves lots of dough when it adds up over 5 to 10 years

[peterb]

I think that's the tl:dr version of my earlier post

But pretty much exactly what I did. Packages like money required far to much effort, and for most people, income and outgoings are regular and predictable. What is important is what is left over or the potential shortfall.

At a time when money was very tight, I used to read my gas and electricity meter every week so I could monitor my energy use age to predict changes in the direct debit.

Used carefully, spreadsheets are very useful. I was able to get a mortgage on the basis of my financial modelling when the initial response was no on the grounds of affordability as it demonstrated that I could afford it. I t was also at a time when borrowers were required to take out mortgage protection insurance if the loan was more than a certain percentage of the purchase price.

The threshold for my lender was 75%. Modelling the transaction enabled me to set the loan at 74.8% which saved me several hundred pounds.