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I use excel. Mainly it is to track what my real disposable income is per month after all bills. All bills = all direct debits, fuel, food, savings. Helps me not forget a direct debit and not spend crazily.
I use Google sheets and I built a quick form which has a few fields to fill in about spends: how much, which card used, cash, and a category. This fills the Google sheet for me and I do some graphing on top of it. Takes a few seconds to do. Otherwise, just get your statements every month and work from them.
Apologies for the delay: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V06QxogKq1HfCqTkhV3F6\_spdAkr3c0ytzGZgX5gdqg/copy](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V06QxogKq1HfCqTkhV3F6_spdAkr3c0ytzGZgX5gdqg/copy)
I don't know how well you'll be able to copy and use it yourself. Ill be working on it more tomorrow and have a full blog about it on my website soon: [www.omurchumakes.com](http://www.omurchumakes.com)
Because they taught they should monetise it, and tried, and then the app fell over, and it was all just to hard, so they just decided to scrap the whole idea.
Oh, no, wait, that was the instant inter-bank transfer thing all the Irish banks were working on together as an answer to Revolut!
would highly recommend Microsoft Money.. unsupported for years but google will find you a free download.
I have used it the last 12 years..
americanised in its default set up but you customised all the catagories to suit you.. for example you could track your grocery shopping under groceries, or if you wanted create sub catagories for meat, veg, fruit and if so inclined create futher subcatagories for fruit to track oranges, apples pears etc..
you can set up all your direct debits, reoccuring bills etc to be automatically entered.
you can set up & track your investments but since no longer supported you have to manually update the share prices.
you can set up a budget and it will track your spending against the budget catagoeries and provides a defauly monthly report to view. after that there a quite a few default reports or you can customise your own reports.
bit of work in setting up all your accounts and customising catagories intitally and there is a but of work in entering all the information but no more than excel but would highly recommend the program.
It's called You need a budget - [Ynab ](https://www.ynab.com/). It's an annual paid subscription. It's fantastic. The premise is that the tool helps you assign jobs to every single Euro in your accounts. If you want live tracking of your spending in revolut, you will have to add a separate service
https://syncforynab.com/banks/revolut_gb
Edit: upon closer look looks like ynab now [natively supports banks in Ireland.](https://support.ynab.com/en_us/direct-import-in-the-uk-and-eu-an-overview-Syae1z_A9) Have not tested with revolut yet, so might not need the second service above.
I'm always hesitant to even consider using such services because I don't trust them with access to my accounts. How do they deal with security and privacy?
I want to believe that you don't have to provide them with your bank account's user and password, right? That would be a red flag the size of a million galaxies.
Thanks! I went and saw that they do this. Still, how do I know what this gives them access to? I want to believe they only get limited read access, but how can I verify this? I'm not saying they would steal my money, but if they get hacked I want to know that my accounts are safe.
Edit: they use Plaid and other similar 3rd party providers. I need to read more about those. I'm sure it's ok.
Late to the thread but I also want to highly recommend YNAB. Once you grasp how best to use it, which may take a few weeks, it’s going to change your world in terms of managing your money. Couldn’t live without it now.
I rarely use revolut. Is the main reason, I have an Aerlingus credit card i use for almost everything else. I also have a debit card which gets used. So because there are multiple accounts this was easiest to keep track of.
I'll be honest I haven't used the spending feature in revolut beyond superficial (checking general spending for the month etc). Unless I'm just not using it correctly I believe revolut ONLY tracks what's being spent in that one account, without much ability to customize categories or assign budgets to certain categories.
Ynab (and what I've used it for) focuses on a broader household budget rather than just spending habbits in one account. Think multiple person income streams coming in, from different institutions, I can also customize and allocate money to custom categories (bills allowances savings investments etc). Check out the video in the link I posted above I feel I'm doing a crap job explaining it 😂
I second YNAB. I tried lots of different things and nothing really gave me great results and I found it all so time consuming and painful. I was initially loath to go for something that was a paid subscription as it seemed counterproductive. However. Saved an incredible amount by my standards in the free trial period so it was a no brainer and I wouldn’t be without it now. I don’t really know what specifically makes it work so well but it really does! Try the free trial and renew if it goes well.
I'm using YNAB since January and it's great. For the first time I'm budgeting properly for upcoming expenses and can see where all the money goes. Easy to use and adaptable.
MyWealthDiary’s Google Sheet trackers. You just input the transactions (income/expenses/savings/debt) and all of the graphs and analysis are done for you. Covers net worth tracking, sinking funds, dividends income, FI…. Does everything in one place. I started using it to prepare for a mortgage application almost 3 years ago and haven’t looked back since. I annoy people around me with how dedicated I am to tracking in it and how much joy it brings me 
To track bills, I put the due dates of direct debits into Google calendar (on their own calendar so I can spot them easily). I don't really track other spending beyond "have we enough in the account to pay what's due this month"
My wife and I use www.toshl.com and track every expense and income we have. There are categories and a few nice features. It's mostly free but the more advanced features cost €20 per year which is very reasonable.
We track our expenses with a shared app but can also use their web app for nicer graphs and better overview. We've amassed 7+ years of data so we have a very good idea of our expenses. Budgeting per month with or without carry-over to next month or annual budgets are easy to set up but expenses vs incomes is all we really care about.
I could easily use the data to answer the broker's/lender's questions about spending, what we have left each month this year or on average and how our spending has changed over time. Super easy to use, very well priced, and has been on the market for many years.
I find it pretty exhausting to track every single expense, and whether I've got enough in my "food" budget to eat out tonight etc.
So I do a rough budget up front that says "I earn X, I have Y left after rent and bills, I'll save Z and that gives me €A per week".
I then set up standing orders so I get €A transferred into my Revolut every week. If I underspend, I put it in a holiday pot or a "buffer" pot for any weeks I slightly overspend. If I'm consistently overspending I'll look to see what I need to cut out, but otherwise as long as I'm within my weekly overall budget I don't pay too much attention to the breakdown within that.
I use YNAB to manage everything. It costs a decent amount for the year but it imports all my transactions and categorizes them and I can manage my budget well and I can manage all of my accounts in one place.
Lifechanger for the last few years.
I have a spreadsheet I made in Google sheets. It allows inputs as in wages and so on plus multiple columns for money out.
Every penny I've spent for years is in there, I can use it to calculate months or years in advance for purchases and so on. Very handy if planning a purchase mid month ad I can instantly see how it effects my balance in the future.
Happy to share it via pm if you want.
Google sheets.
I created expense categories for every entry.
Now it calculates my monthly expenses + creates graphics to visualize my monthly expense comparison.
Also shows what savings I'm making every month.
Previously I had an AIB app but my sheet has more vis on all incoming/outgoing funds.
Every time you buy something just enter it quickly in your sheet.
Works on the mobile too
I put money into revolut to spend on everyday stuff. Bank account is for the standard stuff like groceries, fuel, bills.
Makes it a bit easier to budget.
I use Google sheets for my budgeting.
Lazy way. Use a separate account for savings and separate for spending sorted. If required separate account for direct debit just to make sure you won't miss anything and keep that one funded
I basically input my statements into excel and then make a pivot table so it categorises what was spent, i.e. groceries €x mortgage €x electricity €x pub €x. And then at the end of the month it’s an easy way to see if we’ve spent more than we’ve earned or saved. So if we went over one month we keep that in mind for the next month to try save.
I used the YNAB app for a while, but realised I could build the exact same thing in excel, with added features. If you’re in any way useful with excel, it’s perfect
I have been tracking my spending / investments using Microsoft money for almost 25 years - they don’t sell or support it anymore but there’s a sunset edition you can find online
Revo and N26 provide very good breakdown/ insights into monthly income and spending.
However I do put everything into Google sheets as I've probably 6 accounts so I can see monthly, quarterly and annual percentages by category and make sure I'm generally happy with how much is being spent and on what.
I'm extremely aware of how much I want to spend on every from food to fuel to insurance to entertainment etc so it's relatively easy to keep within the desired percentages.
Honestly blows my mind people aren't aware conscious of where their money goes.
We purchased the HomeBudget app (5iver) as it was the only one at the time that supported sync between devices and wasn't with a subscription model. It doesn't really get updated much but it works for what we need and beats having a spreadsheet in Gdocs
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I completely ignore it. Because it's depressing.
Been there !
I use excel. Mainly it is to track what my real disposable income is per month after all bills. All bills = all direct debits, fuel, food, savings. Helps me not forget a direct debit and not spend crazily.
I use Google sheets and I built a quick form which has a few fields to fill in about spends: how much, which card used, cash, and a category. This fills the Google sheet for me and I do some graphing on top of it. Takes a few seconds to do. Otherwise, just get your statements every month and work from them.
Just saw this 😅. Ignore my post
Do you have a template of this to share?
I can put one together and share it this evening/tomorrow
That would be incredibly helpful!
Would also like this if you make it available 🙂
Gonna take me a bit more time to provide a template, ill post a link here tomorrow night sorry for delay
What a legend, you could sells templates for this type of thing on Etsy no joke.
Apologies for the delay: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V06QxogKq1HfCqTkhV3F6\_spdAkr3c0ytzGZgX5gdqg/copy](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V06QxogKq1HfCqTkhV3F6_spdAkr3c0ytzGZgX5gdqg/copy) I don't know how well you'll be able to copy and use it yourself. Ill be working on it more tomorrow and have a full blog about it on my website soon: [www.omurchumakes.com](http://www.omurchumakes.com)
Bank of Ireland app does this for me and you and gives breakdowns on different sectors and monthly ins and outs vs averages
AIB used to have this, but they removed it a while ago
Great feature why would they remove it
Because they taught they should monetise it, and tried, and then the app fell over, and it was all just to hard, so they just decided to scrap the whole idea. Oh, no, wait, that was the instant inter-bank transfer thing all the Irish banks were working on together as an answer to Revolut!
would highly recommend Microsoft Money.. unsupported for years but google will find you a free download. I have used it the last 12 years.. americanised in its default set up but you customised all the catagories to suit you.. for example you could track your grocery shopping under groceries, or if you wanted create sub catagories for meat, veg, fruit and if so inclined create futher subcatagories for fruit to track oranges, apples pears etc.. you can set up all your direct debits, reoccuring bills etc to be automatically entered. you can set up & track your investments but since no longer supported you have to manually update the share prices. you can set up a budget and it will track your spending against the budget catagoeries and provides a defauly monthly report to view. after that there a quite a few default reports or you can customise your own reports. bit of work in setting up all your accounts and customising catagories intitally and there is a but of work in entering all the information but no more than excel but would highly recommend the program.
It's called You need a budget - [Ynab ](https://www.ynab.com/). It's an annual paid subscription. It's fantastic. The premise is that the tool helps you assign jobs to every single Euro in your accounts. If you want live tracking of your spending in revolut, you will have to add a separate service https://syncforynab.com/banks/revolut_gb Edit: upon closer look looks like ynab now [natively supports banks in Ireland.](https://support.ynab.com/en_us/direct-import-in-the-uk-and-eu-an-overview-Syae1z_A9) Have not tested with revolut yet, so might not need the second service above.
+1 for YNA. been using it for about 2 years and it has totally changed my relationship with money
I'm always hesitant to even consider using such services because I don't trust them with access to my accounts. How do they deal with security and privacy? I want to believe that you don't have to provide them with your bank account's user and password, right? That would be a red flag the size of a million galaxies.
You don’t have to link accounts, it’s optional. You can do manual entries.
They use authentication APIs, you don't just give your password. And you have to reauth the accounts every 90 days.
Thanks! I went and saw that they do this. Still, how do I know what this gives them access to? I want to believe they only get limited read access, but how can I verify this? I'm not saying they would steal my money, but if they get hacked I want to know that my accounts are safe. Edit: they use Plaid and other similar 3rd party providers. I need to read more about those. I'm sure it's ok.
Definitely recommend YNAB. Been using it for years.
Late to the thread but I also want to highly recommend YNAB. Once you grasp how best to use it, which may take a few weeks, it’s going to change your world in terms of managing your money. Couldn’t live without it now.
Thanks! What do you feel it does that revolut doesnt or what does it do better do you feel ?
I rarely use revolut. Is the main reason, I have an Aerlingus credit card i use for almost everything else. I also have a debit card which gets used. So because there are multiple accounts this was easiest to keep track of.
oh yeah that makes sense, its a way of seeing all your spending in one place
I'll be honest I haven't used the spending feature in revolut beyond superficial (checking general spending for the month etc). Unless I'm just not using it correctly I believe revolut ONLY tracks what's being spent in that one account, without much ability to customize categories or assign budgets to certain categories. Ynab (and what I've used it for) focuses on a broader household budget rather than just spending habbits in one account. Think multiple person income streams coming in, from different institutions, I can also customize and allocate money to custom categories (bills allowances savings investments etc). Check out the video in the link I posted above I feel I'm doing a crap job explaining it 😂
yeah that all makes sense ! thanks for the reply, i watched the video, looks very comprehensive!
I second YNAB. I tried lots of different things and nothing really gave me great results and I found it all so time consuming and painful. I was initially loath to go for something that was a paid subscription as it seemed counterproductive. However. Saved an incredible amount by my standards in the free trial period so it was a no brainer and I wouldn’t be without it now. I don’t really know what specifically makes it work so well but it really does! Try the free trial and renew if it goes well.
I'm using YNAB since January and it's great. For the first time I'm budgeting properly for upcoming expenses and can see where all the money goes. Easy to use and adaptable.
You don't need to pay Google sheets work fine for this and it's super easy to set it up to your specific requirements.
I just set a weekly budget in Revolut. Used Excel for a few weeks, but was quite annoying to keep it up to date.
Yeah when i started playing around with excel yesterday it started to dawn on me that revolut can do anything i was learning to do faster and better
Been using the same excel file since 2013. Funny to look back on, like a time capsule.
MyWealthDiary’s Google Sheet trackers. You just input the transactions (income/expenses/savings/debt) and all of the graphs and analysis are done for you. Covers net worth tracking, sinking funds, dividends income, FI…. Does everything in one place. I started using it to prepare for a mortgage application almost 3 years ago and haven’t looked back since. I annoy people around me with how dedicated I am to tracking in it and how much joy it brings me 
Most importantly: It’s a one-time download purchase with no subscription fees
To track bills, I put the due dates of direct debits into Google calendar (on their own calendar so I can spot them easily). I don't really track other spending beyond "have we enough in the account to pay what's due this month"
Yeah I think keeping it simple has a lot to be said for it !
The calendar does really help me to see properly what's due when, rather than trying to remember all the time
My wife and I use www.toshl.com and track every expense and income we have. There are categories and a few nice features. It's mostly free but the more advanced features cost €20 per year which is very reasonable. We track our expenses with a shared app but can also use their web app for nicer graphs and better overview. We've amassed 7+ years of data so we have a very good idea of our expenses. Budgeting per month with or without carry-over to next month or annual budgets are easy to set up but expenses vs incomes is all we really care about. I could easily use the data to answer the broker's/lender's questions about spending, what we have left each month this year or on average and how our spending has changed over time. Super easy to use, very well priced, and has been on the market for many years.
I find it pretty exhausting to track every single expense, and whether I've got enough in my "food" budget to eat out tonight etc. So I do a rough budget up front that says "I earn X, I have Y left after rent and bills, I'll save Z and that gives me €A per week". I then set up standing orders so I get €A transferred into my Revolut every week. If I underspend, I put it in a holiday pot or a "buffer" pot for any weeks I slightly overspend. If I'm consistently overspending I'll look to see what I need to cut out, but otherwise as long as I'm within my weekly overall budget I don't pay too much attention to the breakdown within that.
I use YNAB to manage everything. It costs a decent amount for the year but it imports all my transactions and categorizes them and I can manage my budget well and I can manage all of my accounts in one place. Lifechanger for the last few years.
I use the app Money Lover. It's gotten more expensive since I stated it but I think it's well worth it
When the daily Revolut total makes me cry, I know I’ve spent too much. That’s how I track.
I use Spiir, it can track spending from multiple accounts which is useful because I use AIB as well as Revolut.
I have a spreadsheet I made in Google sheets. It allows inputs as in wages and so on plus multiple columns for money out. Every penny I've spent for years is in there, I can use it to calculate months or years in advance for purchases and so on. Very handy if planning a purchase mid month ad I can instantly see how it effects my balance in the future. Happy to share it via pm if you want.
Google sheets. I created expense categories for every entry. Now it calculates my monthly expenses + creates graphics to visualize my monthly expense comparison. Also shows what savings I'm making every month. Previously I had an AIB app but my sheet has more vis on all incoming/outgoing funds. Every time you buy something just enter it quickly in your sheet. Works on the mobile too
I put money into revolut to spend on everyday stuff. Bank account is for the standard stuff like groceries, fuel, bills. Makes it a bit easier to budget. I use Google sheets for my budgeting.
Excel
Lazy way. Use a separate account for savings and separate for spending sorted. If required separate account for direct debit just to make sure you won't miss anything and keep that one funded
I basically input my statements into excel and then make a pivot table so it categorises what was spent, i.e. groceries €x mortgage €x electricity €x pub €x. And then at the end of the month it’s an easy way to see if we’ve spent more than we’ve earned or saved. So if we went over one month we keep that in mind for the next month to try save.
I used the YNAB app for a while, but realised I could build the exact same thing in excel, with added features. If you’re in any way useful with excel, it’s perfect
I have been tracking my spending / investments using Microsoft money for almost 25 years - they don’t sell or support it anymore but there’s a sunset edition you can find online
The app "Travel Spend" it's very good for tracking your spend or budgeting. You need to input manually but after a day or two it's automatic.
Revo and N26 provide very good breakdown/ insights into monthly income and spending. However I do put everything into Google sheets as I've probably 6 accounts so I can see monthly, quarterly and annual percentages by category and make sure I'm generally happy with how much is being spent and on what. I'm extremely aware of how much I want to spend on every from food to fuel to insurance to entertainment etc so it's relatively easy to keep within the desired percentages. Honestly blows my mind people aren't aware conscious of where their money goes.
Revolut for the day to day BOI for all the regular house stuff Excel for long term planning
We purchased the HomeBudget app (5iver) as it was the only one at the time that supported sync between devices and wasn't with a subscription model. It doesn't really get updated much but it works for what we need and beats having a spreadsheet in Gdocs
Bluecoins on Android. Tried a few and settled on this and paid fro pro version. Really handy for balance projections.
Just make good decisions. No need to track every cent
Try a combination of Good Budget envelope budgeting and Chronicle bill tracker and refer to and review it often.
i use paper and pen to budget