Frugal Living

Just found out from WSJ Blog that Google Docs has beefed up their resources for personal finance spreadsheets, allowing users to edit them from their cellphones and other mobile devices.

The Web-based tools can help users keep track of variety of expenses, ranging from household and personal budgets to shared costs between co-workers and roommates to weddings. Other worksheets can help users figure out how long it will take to pay off their mortgage or credit-card bills. The templates are Excel-like spreadsheets that users can customize and access from any computer. Now, users can also edit those spreadsheets, sort by column, and filter by terms on from a variety of mobile devices. Users can also share their spreadsheets with anyone, so multiple people can work on a budget together. For example, parents with college-age kids can work on a shared budget at the same time from different locations; others may want to share their spreadsheets with their financial planners or accountants. Users can decide to keep their budgets private or invite others to view them.

Ofcourse, you will have to manually enter your data, which is saved automatically. According to Andrew Chang of Google Docs, the spreadsheets are lightweight and appropriate for do-it-yourselfers who don’t want to connect with other services and prefer to run quick calculations of their finances.

Here are direct links to those templates:

• Family Budget Planner
• Personal Budget Tracker
• Monthly Budget Planner
• Annual Personal Budget Spreadsheet
• Savings Calculator
• Bank Account Ledger
• Credit Card Payment Calculator
• Statement of Net Worth
• Auto Expense Report
• Road Trip
• Mortgage Payment Calculator
• Wedding Budget Manager
• Wedding Vendor Payment List

Like alot of Finance Bloggers, I also encourage the use of the “envelope system.” The envelope system is a budgeting method wherein your spending money is divided into budgeting categories and cash is designated for each category. I use an small accordion envelope for this purpose. But if you do not use cash, but use debit or credit cards, then Money Folders will certainly help you track down all your spending / expenses per category.

Lynnae of Being Frugal have a splendid review on the Money Folders and she gave out several reason why she liked the Money Folders. To read her review, click here.

The desktop application is worth $29.95– yes, sad to know that it is not for free, but there is a free trial version available, so you can try before you buy. Also, it comes with a 30 day money back guarantee, so you can be sure of your purchase. And thanks to Lynnae– if you enter the code ” beingfrugal “, you get 25% off the purchase price, bringing the total down to $22.46!

Are you currently using any accounting or budgeting tools? Share your experience with us here and win some cool prizes courtesy of who else? Me!

SpendingDiary is another simple, functional web-based expense tracker that tags expenditures, generates reports, and gives good data on your money flow.

The site has a completely functional demonstration account available-a nice touch that makes it really easy to test drive without handing over an email address. SpendingDiary has a simple interface-for every entry you assign a name, a category, and the amount you spent. You can generate reports for the day, week, month, or a custom date range, and your expenses displayed in a slick pie graph, broken into the tags you’ve set up. Your data is also exportable to other formats, including the ever-friendly CSV. For more mobile expense tracking, check out the previously reviewed Xpenser-an SMS-friendly expense app.

One of the challenges of having to work at home is the fact that children are around me all the time. The main room has 1 PC and a laptop, and I sometimes have to use the PC as it is connected to the internet. Sometimes, my son, who is three years old and my youngest daughter who is one, likes to play with the keyboard whenever I am not around to ward them off.

Boy, was I glad to find this from LifeHacker! Crazy Little Finger is a nifty program for Windows XP. It ables you to lock all the keys on the keyboard, except for the ones you need to use to exit the program. I love the fact that whenever certain keys are pressed, the PC will emit animal sounds and the screen will display a goat or a cow. Not only that, you can add your own images and music. Neat huh?

Another one makes it to popular Gmail! Now Gmail has incorporated lightweight To-Dos. This can be very handy with reminders, expenses tracking, or bill related reminders, that is if you have no software for that. But to me, this extension is best used as well- to dos list– if you are crazy over lists and deadlines, that is…

Jaxtr is now offering free international calling and yes, free text messaging worldwide… Another reason to ditch either your mobile or landline. To register, click here.

Source: CNET

Springpad is a free set of online notebooks that will help you organize, share and tackle life’s tasks and events. I have been using Springpad for weeks now after I have read about it in Life Hacker. Springpad is like having an entire drawer of lists and notebooks where one can keep an entire list of lists, check lists including calendars.

I am currently using their Menu Planner, Emergency Contacts, Weekly Chore Planner, Grade Tracker, Receipt Tracker and Project Budget. Everything is nifty and though it is still in beta, the site is fast loading and you can easily print out your lists for those who wants to keep track with their lists without going online.

So sign up now and try Springpad. One of the wonderful things about it is that…. yes, its free.

After using Microsoft Money for perhaps 3 years, I have switched to Quicken after getting a Macbook years ago. Quicken is a nifty software from Intuit. It help me create my budget and at the same time, monitor my spending, and my various bank accounts including my debit cards.

From Quicken I can generate my monthly spending reports. I can also consolidate all my accounts in one report for ease in viewing. Not only that I can also make my own budget and generate reports accounting my budgets against actual spending.

One of the advantages of Quicken is that you can download your accounts directly to Quicken. I have tried this years ago, but found that there are technical difficulties with the process. I surmised there are system incompatibilities with our banking system with Quicken’s system. Due to this difficulty, I have to manually input bank transactions into my Quicken. This is the reason why I maintain a folder for my receipts, especially ATM receipts for easy reconciliation with my bank statements.

I bought my Quicken through Intuit years ago and it cost me little over $50, fortunately, you can now access Quicken Online for free. You can now manage your accounts online. Even more, you can link your credit card accounts in your Quicken account. To try out Quicken online, visit their site and sign up!