Tracking Your Net Worth, Budget & Investments

[MissChievous]

Guys! Do you get help from Finance apps or from Mr. Excel in tracking your finances? I have a yearly budget sa Excel and I track my goals sa Excel din. I've downloaded templates using Microsoft Office 360. Katuwa lang. I'll start tracking my Net Worth na din. Next action item.

Sa iPad marami ding apps, may Expense Tracker 2.0 (which I use) and it's really a great help sa pag plan ko ng finances ko. May Toshl Finance and Wally among others.

How about you guys? What do you use?

[ikaela]

Ay, favorite ko 'to. Haha.

Income and expenses, I use Budgetpulse.com. There are many more money-tracking websites that are fancier, better-managed, have mobile apps, and have better customer relations, but the simplicity of this one suits me just fine. It also generates charts -- the graphics could be better, but all the valuable info I need on the timeline I specify is there. Shows you how much you spent on food, fuel, groceries, medical bills, etc., and how much you earned in a given time. It calculates the difference, and shows you your cashflow net worth; choose to see how much your net worth is each year if you want to. Again, a very simple money-tracking tool, but rarely has bugs and no complicated accounting skills needed, which are all I'm looking for.

Investments, UITFs and MFs in particular, Bloomberg.com is the best, I would say. They have all the fund types listed. I only wish there was an option to show all of the figures in your currency.

Stocks, I could also use Bloomberg, but I just use my broker, COLFinancial.com.

For an overview of my entire net worth, I also created my own Excel file.

I would say that tracking my cashflow was the most important, life-changing step I took in my financial journey. Just knowing where my money comes from and where it goes has helped me grow my net worth by (according to budgetpulse, hehe) 3089% in 3 years!

[atemai]

^

i just signed-up at budgetpulse.com, thank you sis ikaela

[MissChievous]

@ikaela,

3089% in 3 years!!  Wow sis, that's so nice. Ako kakaumpisa ko pa lang. I always thougth na walang hanggan na yung kamalasan sa pera pero when I learned all about financial freedom and on how to actually achieve it, I was renewed!

Thanks sis sa advice. I signed up din sa BudgetPulse. Excited to try it out. Maganda din kasi I am just starting out so I get to track my finances. I am trying out different budget/finance apps kasi. Do you also put your MF funds dun? Meron akong nakita Financial Portfolio template sa Excel wherein ilagay mu mga MFs mo tpos connected na [textspeak!] sa internet para ma track mu din yung actual NAVPS mo.

Tapos sis, is BudgetPulse safe to use? Wala ka namang bad experience ba? They're Norton verified, have a Privacy Policy, but I just want to be sure. TIA!

[ikaela]

^I came from a very huge debt sis, kaya ganyan ang figures ko. If I showed you the first years of my reports, very, very negative. Kung kamalasan ang pinaguusapan, baka matalo pa kita diyan 5 years ago. I had piling medical bills, a court case so piling lawyer bills, and a growing debt. That point in my life was THE time to make a change.

Yes, Budgetpulse is safe because it doesn't link to any of your accounts or ask for any sensitive information. Yun nga lang, you have to input everything manually. Just make your categories clear, so you can really track your income vs. expenses, and net worth. For example, some of my categories are like this:

Sample income categories:
Work - From salary, regular employment
Freelancing - Income from oDesk and my other online jobs
Business - Further subdivided into the kinds of businesses that we have
Investments - MFs, UITFs, stocks, and interest earned from bank saving accounts
Money Deals - Mga one-time or not regular rackets
Gifts Received - Lumaki 'to when we had a baby and nung baptism niya, haha
Loose Change - Yes, hanggang loose change trinatrack ko, hehe. Pang-dagdag pambayad parking minsan.

Sample expense categories:
Bills - Subdivided into Electricity, Water, Internet, and Cellphone
Shopping - Subdivided into Kitchen & Appliances, Furniture & Home Stuff, Electronics & Gadgets,  and Clothing & Accessories
Food - Divided into Dining Out & Snacks, Palengke, iba pang category yung Groceries
Hobbies - My husband and I have a ton of hobbies. Too much na ata, so I decided to create its own category and see if we're spending too much on our bikes, boards, surf & dive equipment, cameras, and etc.

These categories are tailored to my life, so just alter accordingly. Bad experience ko lang sa Budgetpulse is, yun nga, parang pinabayaan na ng creator, so no updates, no mobile apps, no customer support.

Other personal finance websites to try: www.waveapps.com (ganda sana nito, may separate personal and business accounts pa, but tinatamad na ako to start all over again,) and money.strands.com (very clear pre-made categories so you don't have to spend too much time creating categories like I listed above, but it's kind of buggy.)

These websites, I just use them for cashflow. Yung investments, sa Bloomberg ko trinatrack. Auto-update din kasi sa Bloomberg yung mga latest NAV, kaya gusto ko dun.

[atemai]

^ sis, huge help ang budget categories mo; ill be updating my budget pulse.

thanks again

[ikaela]

^No problem, atemai, glad to introduce these websites here on Girltalk. Also check the other websites I listed, they might be better suited to you. I just stick with Budgetpulse because I have a working system na.

[mxherr5]

I just tried it out when I read your post.
Cool, I could use this site for tracking purposes so I don't
have to clutter my Quicken file

Investments, UITFs and MFs in particular, Bloomberg.com is the best, I would say. They have all the fund types listed. I only wish there was an option to show all of the figures in your currency.

There is such an option. In fact I got mine set to PHP right now.
You can even add more than one "watchlist"
PM me if you need detailed instructions on how change it to Phil Peso
and I'll be glad to help.

[ikaela]

^I got challenged to look for how to change the local currency settings on Bloomberg, and found the little gear icon. Thank you for telling me it's possible, I now have my watchlist set to PHP.

[artificialstar]

yaaaay! thank you mga sis for this! will start tracking na din my net worth and budget. lately napansin ko i spend a lot na on food dito sa office.

[mxherr5]

@ikaela, lol sounds good!

[hun_nie08]

thanks for sharing sisses

[friendlyneighbor]

Hi sis ikaela, may android app ba ang budget pluse? I'm using hand wallet app kasi at kakastart ko lang,. Still looking for other option na maganda, but so far sa mga free app for android na sinubukan ko, eto yung nagustuhan ko.

[MissChievous]

Maganda sana yung interface ng Wave. Kaya lang parang di ko makita yung "Savings" na part. Kunwari, may gusto kang mag save for something at gusto mo siyang i track wala. Tapos yung Mint din. Cute din sana. Kaya lang. Di pa available sa Pinas.

I'll stick with BudgetPulse siguro.

[caterpillar-girl]

Love this thread!

I use and love Toshl, but I also have Expense Tracker. I like simple apps with easy but fun interfaces like Toshl, Expense Tracker, Spendee. If it's too plain and straightforward, like BUDGT, parang I don't enjoy putting info in. Hehe. Nagiging chore lang. But I guess it works for some people.

I just basically need something with customizable categories, and that can tell me how much money I have left to spend, as per my budget. And how much I'll get to save if I DON'T spend. And so far Toshl meets those requirements. I can also sync to my laptop, which is handy. Downside lang sa Toshl hindi gano madetalye yung reports, but I can live with it for now.

I'll check out Budgetpulse. Thanks for the suggestion! I have a Bloomberg account but I never used it haha. I'll give it another go.

[ikaela]

^^^Naku wala, yun ang isa sa mga downsides sa Budgetpulse.

^Thanks for suggesting Toshl din, I'm actually thinking of moving away from Budgetpulse mysel as I see that I'll be needing a more in-depth money tracker soon. Maybe I'll start in 2014.

[mooncake and leaves]

i use toshl din. basic lang sya talaga and easy to use. yun nga lang, ikaw magpuprovide ng categories. another one that i use is money strands. medyo mas maarte sya kesa toshl but for the life of me, i can't edit the savings target part sa phone so sa laptop ko na lang iti-tweak. i tried level money and mint as well but those apps won't let me do anything unless i link my actual bank accounts so huwag na lang.

[j.adore]

Our family uses Quicken for years and years now. As in malaki na yung file due to thousands of transactions. It's PC based and I'm not sure if you can get it for free. It doesn't even go on sale.

The features are extensive but I only use it for tracking income and expenses.

[mxherr5]

Quicken now has a mobile app since Quicken 2013
Too bad it only works for dollar denominated accounts

Does your family keep current with quicken versions?

I also use quicken since 2009.

[j.adore]

^The mobile app is not compatible with my phone in my country daw so not sure if it's also because of the currency.

Yup we have the 2013 version (I have 2013 in one laptop and 2008 in another hehe).

The oldest transaction is 1998 pa not really sure if it's from DOS versions of Quicken haha kasi from parents pa yun. I only started a separate file for my personal use last year.

I did try other mobile apps but keep coming back to Quicken