“And he said unto him, Well, thou good servant: because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities.” Luke 19:17
There are many small ways to reduce costs in our every day lives, so to help do just that each week I post a money saving “Tip of the Week”.
This weeks tip involves…Free Personal Finance Templates!
Have you been using Microsoft Money or some other priced Personal Finance software, but are now looking for an alternative? Manage your finances for FREE using Google Docs Personal Finances Templates!
I personally have been searching for months to find financial tracking software that works for me. I have toyed around with several, but have yet to settle on a solution that is perfect for me. There are a lot of great solutions out there… some are free, some are not.
A Few Priced Software Solutions
- Mvelopes – Applies financial software technology to the traditional envelope method of budgeting and is a popular choice among PF Bloggers. They offer a 14-day free trial and their prices are as follows: Quarterly = $39.60 ($13.20/mth) – 1 Yr = $129.60 $10.80/mth) – 2 Yr = $189.60 ($7.90/mth)
- Quicken – Touted as America’s #1 Personal Finance software, Quicken offers a variety of products ranging from $0 (online version) to $99 (business version).
- You Need A Budget - While this app is not free, they do offer a generous 60-day free trial; I know of at least a few PF Bloggers use this program to manage their finances.
- MoneyDance – Organize your finances, manage your budget, track your portfolio, or just automatically balance your checkbook
A Free Solution from Google Docs
I am not opposed to paying for software, but I am also not afraid to examine free tools to see if their offerings are sufficient for my needs. There are a lot of useful templates Google Docs inventories, and I am currently testing several and am impressed so far. I especially like the rating system, which allows me to see which templates have been more useful to more users without having to waste my time trying each one.
Currently Google Docs is offering three sections of Personal Finance templates.
Manage Your Expenses
This section mostly gives you a choice between Family Budgets or Personal Budgets, but also has several spreadsheet templates for Wedding Budgets and even offers a Home Improvement Spreadsheet.
Pay Off Your Debt
This section is currently offering payment calculators. Specifically there is a Credit Card Payoff Calculator, a Mortgage Payoff Calculator, and a Simple Loan Calculator.
Grow Your Savings
This section offers several tools to help you get you manage and grow your savings account including registers, ledgers, & calculators.
What do I use?
As I mentioned above, I have not settled on my perfect solution as of yet, but to-date I have toyed around with Excel spreadsheet tempates, paper journal budgets, free software, & trial software.
Currently I am testing out the 60-day trial of YouNeedABudget and have begun taking a serious look at using Google Docs Personal Finance Templates as a free solution to manage my affairs.
If you are looking for a free solution, Google Docs PF Templates has a strong offering that only stands to grow, expand, & improve as time goes on. I will certainly report back and let you know what I have settled on once I decide!
Click here to see all our past DFA Tips of the Week.
DFA is passionately dedicated to helping people break the bondage of debt & work toward financial freedom using biblical principles.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Pretty neat idea, Matt.
As an accountant by trade, I tend to find Google Spreadsheets to be decidedly inferior to Excel. That said, I bet you’re right that Google Docs should get the job done for simple budgeting purposes.
And I’m sure you’re absolutely right about the fact that more templates will be created as time goes.
.-= ObliviousInvestor´s last blog ..How often should you check your portfolio? =-.
I’m sure Excel is more feature rich. I have limited exposure to Google docs, but have been using their spreadsheets to manage the PF Blogger Weight Loss challenge. I have found them quite sufficient for that task, they definitely do any calculations I would need.
Are Excel spreadsheets what you use to calculate your budget?
Yep. We use Excel for all our budgeting. Nothing fancy really. (Though I do link between spreadsheets a lot, which I don’t believe Google Docs can do.)
.-= ObliviousInvestor´s last blog ..How often should you check your portfolio? =-.
Matt,
I’m an Excel person because I love to have an app that allows me to play around with the numbers, but I was interested in whether or not you’d ever tried out Mint.com?
I’ve heard a number of good things and think it might be worth your time to investigate . . . and it’s free!
I do have a Mint.com account, but I am a little weary of giving all my personal & banking info to a third party… otherwise I love what they have created there.
Do you use a combination of Mint & Excel spreadsheets to calculate your budget?
I use excel as well. I’ve tried others including Google Docs but I love that I can do pretty much anything I want in Excel. Granted, I’m not an advanced user but I like it…
Check out my budget template at http://www.debtfreedadof6.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Template-Budget.xls
.-= Jon´s last blog ..June! =-.
Mvelopes is a stronger budget manager than most other financial software titles, but it lacks all the features other financial software can offer. However, some other financial software is bloated with far more functionality than many find useful.
I believe a lot of people just want simplicity… especially now-a-days. That is why so many people enjoy a free, usable spreadsheet!