How much time do you invest in Budgeting?

[Ex Pat]

Hey

Knowing how we spend our money is powerful because that's how we can optimize our savings rate.

At the beginning of the year, I took some extracts for last year from my bank account and from Revolut and did some analysis with an LLM to see how much I spent last year per categories.

But since, I didn't find a discipline of doing this each month.

And because it's a new habit to build, I am a bit lost. The spreadsheet @Baptiste Wicht shared is a bit too much, because I don't have yet the habit of taking the data out, in order to put it in spreadsheets.

How much time do you spend per month doing personal finance (spending) analysis?
When you started doing it, what was your motivation?
Did you find it difficult as well? Or did you manage to make it fun in any way?
Do you use an app? (I saw Mustachian Post recommending YNAB).

 

[Baptiste Wicht]

Hi

We do it once a month. We only track expenses, we do not really budget anymore. We found it was working well for us.

How much time do you spend per month doing personal finance (spending) analysis?

I would say about 30 minutes each month.

When you started doing it, what was your motivation?

I wanted to have a good view of my true expenses.

Did you find it difficult as well? Or did you manage to make it fun in any way?

No. I am a numbers guy, for me, it's actually interesting.

You can gamify your savings rate and try to make it better every month.

Do you use an app? (I saw Mustachian Post recommending YNAB).

Yes, I use a tool I have written myself (https://thepoorswiss.com/budgetwarrior-budget-net-worth/). I like having the control of my data.

I have written some import functions for Certo, Migros and Neon so that it's faster to enter these expenses.