Tools and Resources
READY WHEN YOU ARECash Flow
SPENDING SUMMARY WORKSHEET
(Excel / Google Sheets)
Understanding your monthly spending is one of the first steps towards financial wellbeing and an important puzzle piece in completing your financial plan.
I’ve been using Tiller for six years to categorize and track my spending. It takes me a few minutes every week to catch up on transactions and I do a deeper dive once a month to double check that my categories are on track. I love having all the data at the end of the year to easily see how much I contributed to my retirement accounts, or see whether I spent more on groceries than the year before.
Monarch is a similar idea to Tiller and has a nicer UI, but I personally enjoy how Tiller integrates with Google Sheets and I’ve gotten used to some of the specific reports that I couldn’t quite configure with Monarch.
I cannot tell you how badly I want to love YNAB. The interface is great and it’s nerdy as heck, but I just cannot get into this method of tracking/budgeting. Honestly, I’ll probably try again in January.
