Best budgeting app?

Tips to save money in Japan, life better for less, etc.
William
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Re: Best budgeting app?

Post by William »

It was already mentioned, but I'm in the GnuCash family. Moneytree to access the latest updates on my bank accounts and credit cards. I update GnuCash daily and enter each and every one of my expenses, try to budget a little bit, make sure that I reach my goals every month, etc.

It might be overkill, but I like to think that knowing exactly how much I have to the yen at any given time by simply opening GnuCash is good life hygiene.
Telebroker
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Re: Best budgeting app?

Post by Telebroker »

Still happily using MoneyTree; just noting that they limited the data to the past 12 months in the free plan.
Passive ETF investor and Berkshire shareholder on the way to FI; banking tester in JP and Doitsu.
Crudzilla
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Re: Best budgeting app?

Post by Crudzilla »

I also have a copy of YNAB4.

It is a little unintuitive compared to usual accounting as you designate your money before using it, rather than just tracking expenses etc. But it is a very interesting way to keep your spending under control.

I'm intrigued by GnuCash. I think I'll start using it. At the end of the video he briefly mention you could connect to online securities to track them automatically. I don't suppose anyone has had any luck linking to Japansese securities accounts?
patatepartie
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Re: Best budgeting app?

Post by patatepartie »

Crudzilla wrote: Tue Oct 22, 2024 7:31 am I don't suppose anyone has had any luck linking to Japansese securities accounts?
Tried that, last week, but couldn't figure out how to fetch the price of Japanese index funds.
I don't know if it's because I'm looking for Japanese stuff, index funds or my setup of the retrieval system.

Getting GnuCash's "Quote retrieval" system to work on my mac was a really painful experience (it's a pretty complicated setup, which took me several hours to figure out, and I'm a software and system engineer :oops:).

I'm now able to automatically fetch currencies exchange rates, so at least I know that part works, even though it's not actually particularly useful for me (it just allows me to see my overall assets in JPY, regardless of their actual currency, at the time I refresh the exchange rates).

If following the recommendations of having a simple, mostly-automated, portfolio, it's probably not worth the effort to get automated securities pricing to work, since you can enter the price manually, when you buy/sell securities or want to "refresh" your net worth.
Tsumitate Wrestler
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Re: Best budgeting app?

Post by Tsumitate Wrestler »

patatepartie wrote: Wed Nov 06, 2024 1:35 am
Crudzilla wrote: Tue Oct 22, 2024 7:31 am I don't suppose anyone has had any luck linking to Japansese securities accounts?
Tried that, last week, but couldn't figure out how to fetch the price of Japanese index funds.
I don't know if it's because I'm looking for Japanese stuff, index funds or my setup of the retrieval system.

Getting GnuCash's "Quote retrieval" system to work on my mac was a really painful experience (it's a pretty complicated setup, which took me several hours to figure out, and I'm a software and system engineer :oops:).

I'm now able to automatically fetch currencies exchange rates, so at least I know that part works, even though it's not actually particularly useful for me (it just allows me to see my overall assets in JPY, regardless of their actual currency, at the time I refresh the exchange rates).

If following the recommendations of having a simple, mostly-automated, portfolio, it's probably not worth the effort to get automated securities pricing to work, since you can enter the price manually, when you buy/sell securities or want to "refresh" your net worth.
You can automate that in Google sheets pretty easily. Fetching exchange rates, and tickers via Google finance.

Japanese stocks and mutual fund prices can be fetched with the IMPORTXML or similar functions.

Or, with Moneyforward, it can all live together on one account very neatly.
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adamu
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Re: Best budgeting app?

Post by adamu »

I recently leaned about https://actualbudget.org/

It's an open source YNAB clone. Originally a competitor but they gave up and open-sourced it. It looks like it requires a bit of technical know-how to get up and running, but might be better than GnuCash.
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