[Cialug] Finance Software

[Matthew Nuzum]

On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 8:36 AM, Todd Walton <tdwalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> What do y'all recommend for tracking finances?  I don't even really
> have a good idea about how a person does this.  My current strategy is
> mostly reactionary.
>
> Is there software to help me do this?  I tried Gnucash last year.  I
> got from January 1 all the way to October or so and kind of sputtered
> out.  I don't really need to track every financial transaction *after*
> the fact.  I want to know what's upcoming, and what my finances will
> be a week or two out  What do you do?
>

For inspiration and tips check out this site:
http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/about/ Also, an *awesome* class you
can take is called "Financial Peace University" created by Dave
Ramsey. (someone I know from church teaches classes locally, if you're
interested let me know and I'll get you in touch with him). Using
stuff we learned in the class my wife and I, in the last 14 months or
so, have paid off about $10k in debt and have made good progress in
savings and we're a single income family.

My personal technique is to make an accurate monthly budget (no fancy
tools needed), have a $1,000 emergency fund (for now, but it will grow
when my debt is gone), and use the "envelope system" of taking cash
out of the bank and dividing it up into envelopes according to my
budget. Then I don't use my debit card or credit card. The good thing
is that you know how much money you have left simply by looking in the
envelopes. :-) It took me several months to get an accurate monthly
budget and during those months my emergency fund fluctuated quite a
bit, but now things are pretty smooth and we look forward to having no
debt except our house payment by spring.

Anyway, that's what I do.

-- 
Matthew Nuzum
newz2000 on freenode