Home budgeting software

F

fobs

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FRom a previous thread on home budgeting a few software tools were mentioned i.e ACE money or Microsoft money. Is there any free equivalent to these for doing up a household budget? if not which of these (or other) relatively inexpensive package would peole recommend.
 
Have looked at these...thanks clubman...
was looking for a personal recommendation if possible rather than downloading several so anyone recommend a product for those with very limited accounting knowledge!
 
IMHO
Whatever 3rd party product you obtain will necessitate you re-organising your current method of financial management to fit in the software.

I would recommend you devise your own process to track and manage and forecast spend using spreadsheets. One free source of a spreadsheet is the OpenOffice suite of solutions - they're what I use at home.

I'm still seeking the silver bullet of structuring the spreadsheets to track 2 current accounts & 3 deposit accounts & 2 credit card accounts without significant data entry and replication so I've nothing to advise you there, other than to re-state that whatever you end up doing has to be what works for you and an off-the-shelf solution may not fit your needs.

HTH
 
I've used the spreadsheet approach for major savings/investments (not day to day spending, household budgeting/bills etc.) - except that I formatted my flash drive recently and still haven't recovered the spreadsheet file. I've tried to evaluate a few packages like MS Money, Quicken etc. but generally found them to be too complicated and overkill for my needs to be honest. Maybe they are good for day to day budgeting, spending etc.
 
we are just at the "devising a budget" phase and so was hoping a package would give us a headstart and also help us get cracking on tracking our spending. Don't want to spend ages evaluating packages and not actually budgeting IYKWIM so just wanted a few tips on what worked for others! Might just go back to devising a spreadsheet in Excel then....
 
A former manager of mine was fond of trite managementspeak and one he used often was 'a fool with a tool is still a fool'.

Not meaning to insult you but you need to get your head around where your money is going and if it is being spent on the right things before you can use a spreadsheet or any software to help you.

There are 2 adults and 2 kids and one mortgage and two cars hanging out of one salary in our household.
Our household budget was assessed by
- looking back at utility bills and determining an average spend per month, e.g. add up last 6 2-monthly bills and divide by 12. For us this includes ESB, Dublin Gas, ntl, BT, alarm monitoring fees & TV licence. Whatever figure you arrive at, round up to the nearest 50 to allow for contingency. That comes out at 350 per month.
- look back at supermarket bills on the credit card statements and determine an amount for average spend per week. Multiply by 52 and divide that total by 12 for average monthly spend. Again round up for contingency. For us, that figure is 650.
- 350 + 650 = 1000 per month. I lodge a larger amout to my wife's account each month and she manages it after that. I track the spend (one spreadsheet) and let her know every now and then how things are going. Birthdays and Christmas can blow a hole in it so don't spend down to zero each month.
- I pay for all other things out of my account, such as mortgage, insurance, car (tax, insurance, maintenance), medical (GP, prescriptions), nights out, treats for kids.

Windfalls (dividends, deposit interest, PRSI reduction, bonuses) get banked and saved for rainy days and birthdays and Christmas.
 
Eddie Hobbs and the MABS brought out a book for €9.99 some time ago.
This had some software on it which might assist as well as practical advice.
 
I've been using MS Money for a few years now - there is loads of functionality on it that I would never use, but in terms of recording your income and outgoings across a number of credit cards/current accounts/savings/loans etc it is fab. It allows you to report on transactions/payee's/assets/liabilities etc over any period of time. It takes 5 minutes a week to keep everything up to date and gives you a very good starting point for any budgets you wish to draw up.

Past30
 

Does it give you more disposable income?
 
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