HACKER Q&A
📣 cjwit

Software for Real-World Budgeting?


This feels like it should be a solved problem, but all of the personal/family budgeting software that I’ve found in the past assumes that incomes and expenses are consistent. Any recommendations for programs for folks who, for example:

- Get paid for 9 months or for gigs that are scheduled ahead of time and therefore known - Have regular things like kid activity expenses that may not be at regular intervals, but are certainly able to be planned in - Have to deal with income oddities like reimbursement tracking that is linked to expenses over previous months?

My spreadsheets over the past 10 years work, and I’m tempted to build them into something more automatic. But I can’t imagine that these types of things haven’t been handled before without getting into expensive software made for companies. Thanks!


  👤 solardev Accepted Answer ✓
You Need A Budget used to be well-loved before they moved to a subscription model, but I think the underlying principle is still the same: you manually enter incomes and expenditures to keep on top of them. You create expense "buckets" that you have to fill with income by allocating funds for them.

https://www.ynab.com/


👤 resbaloso
Have you tried Lunch Money (https://lunchmoney.app/)? I found it through HN. I've been very happy with it.

I think their discord community can help you with your specific questions.