Ever since I read ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’ a good 3 years ago, tracking my expenses has been something I have wanted to do. But, as it is with life’s simple things, this simple looking goal proved elusive. I ended up having expense tracking systems which were 90% accurate – good but not good enough.
During the process, I experimented with the following –
1. Apps on my old Palm Treo (yes, very old)
2. Microsoft Excel
3. Google Docs
4. Conventional pen and paper
And none worked. It reached a point when I almost gave up on it. But, thanks to some honed persistence, I didn’t give up and some casual searching for iPhone apps lead me to Envelopes.
The app’s concept is incredibly simple. You have a bunch of Envelopes. You enter a budget and as you spend, you just put the amount in and voila.. you’re done. This is in contrast to frills offered in other apps eg: writing compulsory notes, ability to produce fancy graphs etc.
While I feel the app could do an ’email’ feature to send me all the numbers at the end of a month, I think it is near perfect thanks to it’s simplicity.
So, for those of you who use iPhones, you are $0.99 away from tracking your expenses..
And for those of you with Androids/other smart phones, maybe you would be able to find a similar app.. or simply ask Elliot to develop an app for you. :)
And for those who prefer the Nokia way of life, I have a simple suggestion – when taking your expenses in, just focus on the numbers. Don’t bother with the description (2 years later, you are not going to care about whether you spend $10 on eggs and milk vs bread for example). The important thing is to focus on the big picture i.e. the total expenses and trends and this app (for those who can get it) enables you to do just that.
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PS: I use the app slightly differently. The concept behind the app is you use it like money in an envelope i.e. put in $100 and keep withdrawing. That way, if you have a budget of $2,000, the main screen will show how much you have left.
I choose not to put in any money. So, my main screen just shows me how much I have spent. I find that much more effective, personally.
A Learning a Day 