Basic Cash flow

[mw82]

I need help with very basic cash flow/budgeting. Can you recommend a good book/resource?

[F0017S0]

YNAB, Mint, Personal Capital (https://www.investopedia.com/persona...ting-software/).

jfoxcpacfp will have a more comprehensive list and might be a better guide.

Welcome aboard!

[Craigslist]

Sometimes I feel like this place is for recovering addicts that have reached rock bottom after a spending spree and decide to finally make a change.

[bovie]

Ouch. Or for people sincerely looking for advice?

[Random1]

I use Quicken, I can import all my accounts at once. I use either debit or credit for just about everything which makes it easy to import the transactions and give them a label. I don't use it as a budgeting program , but it is quite useful to know where all the money goes. You can't import you stocks and mutual funds also if you need to. We never had a "budget", we just spend less that we make. But I like itemizing everything, it gives me something to do on a Sat at 6am , having a Type A OCD personality.

[CordMcNally]

Do you mean you need an app/program to help you or do you mean you want to learn about budgeting/cash flow?

[jfoxcpacfp]

I don’t have my long list here at home, but The One Page Financial Plan by Carl Richards is a simple, fairly comprehensive way to get started. I have bought these books to give away to people who were just starting out and weren’t using a financial planner.

[Random1]

I would recommend a program like Quicken, if you put the data in on a regular basis , it is relatively painless. Pay everything using the same card, so it imports automatically. If you do it on a regular basis you will get a good idea where your money is going. I am sure you can set up a budget on Quicken but I never tried. We swipe our card for everything, it is real easy one or two months latter to remember what the money went for unless you track it. Basic finance and budgeting is not hard, you just need to spend less than you make.

Most basic budgeting tells you to avoid the small insignificant purchases , because a cup a starbucks a day adds up to a lot. I personally would take a different approach, control your big purchases , house and car, and the rest will come easy.

[StarTrekDoc]

another vote for online simple budgeting for starters--- mint, personal capital are solid. YNAB is good too. Quicken subscription based now is a bit annoying - more advanced than basic needs though.

[Shant]

Most basic budgeting tells you to avoid the small insignificant purchases , because a cup a starbucks a day adds up to a lot. I personally would take a different approach, control your big purchases , house and car, and the rest will come easy.

This approach lets you avoid most of the day to day pain of budgeting. I combined that with a credit card for my discretionary spending that I can check online to track if I'm getting too close to hitting my monthly limit and close the spending spigot.

[mw82]

Do you mean you need an app/program to help you or do you mean you want to learn about budgeting/cash flow?

I want to learn more about budgeting/cash flow. I am using YNAB, but my spouse and I consistently run out of money before the next pay check comes in.
I'm sure most of it is just discipline, but I really need some help.

[8arclay]

I want to learn more about budgeting/cash flow. I am using YNAB, but my spouse and I consistently run out of money before the next pay check comes in.
I'm sure most of it is just discipline, but I really need some help.

Budget the cheat, dont cheat the budget.

YNAB is great for this in that you can look back and see where your spending is. Where are you overspending? You may need to allocate more to certain areas, less to others. Ultimately though, its not going to work if monthly output is greater than monthly input. If thats the case you need to increase your income or start making cuts because its not sustainable long term

EDIT: If you can, start trying to "get ahead". As in, when I get my paycheck later this week, Ill use it to budget out my necessities for February. It gets me out of the paycheck-to-paycheck mindset and keeps me a month or so ahead. Im in a position now where it probably doesnt make a difference, but earlier in my career when things were tighter it certainly offered peace of mind

[CordMcNally]

I want to learn more about budgeting/cash flow. I am using YNAB, but my spouse and I consistently run out of money before the next pay check comes in.
I'm sure most of it is just discipline, but I really need some help.

You can also look at Dave Ramsey for personal finance things like this. Don’t listen to his investing advice but I think he does help people with personal finance and hitting the high notes.

[mw82]

Thank you everyone!

[uksho]

I have never budgeted truly , I pay myself first and save what I need to .
I have a very good idea about what we spend every month or year. , but not on how much we spend on clothes vs grocery vs other things ?

how helpful are these apps/ sites with calculating your expenses in different areas ? Any privacy concern with all your passwords with them ? Which one do you trust most ? Thanks