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Personal finance software has changed quite a bit since the days of excel and Quicken. One of the bigger splashes, Mint has been part of my life for over a year now and it’s really made managing finances a much more tolerable task. Is it for everyone, probably not. However, I’m into simplicity and frugality so it works for me. My wife and I are able to enter our various accounts and set budgets and group expenditures automatically to see where it’s all going. It’s also good for trends and goal setting. The charts it generates from all of your accounts makes it extremely easy to see what’s going on. And having an iPhone app to get a quick glance when you’re on the go is super helpful (especially when I’m traveling).
Another tool that generates a ton of valuable data is Foursquare. Sure most people think of it as a game rather than a tool and it certainly started that way for me. However, once I got past the mayor-getting sprees that I was on in the early days (I’m currently mayor of absolutely nothing), and started seeing the real-life benefits, it became an automatic thing for me. Games get boring and tossed aside, valuable tools get used and become habit. It all depends on how you use it. My rules for checkins are simple: 1. am I spending money or 2. is this a place I’ll be at for a while. Do I check in at every bodega or convenience store I go to? Not at all, but if I’m at a place that I might want to remember someday, I’m checking in. Not everyone uses Foursquare the way I do, some check in at work, at home, at the subway station, at the park, at the pharmacy, at their boss’ office (“I’m the mayor of your desk! Give me a raise?”)… I imagine they’ll get bored with that at some point. I like clean structured data and by checking in like I do, I’ve got a lightweight journal being created with minimal effort.
So how do they work together? Well it’s easy. Pull up your Foursquare history next to your transactions on Mint. Did you take $100 out at the ATM? Where did it all go? Hard to remember over the course of a few days, but easy when you’ve got your journal right there. Having uncategorized spending makes it impossible to budget. Using these two together makes it almost too easy not to.
