2022-12-06 On using my own spreadsheet to track expenses

The rationale

We should be tracking our own expenses. But admittedly, it can be very difficult to find time for this.

A decent population of people probably end up, choosing the more convenient option, referring back to their mobile banking app to find transactions. I think that certainly is a valid approach, especially when some of the apps actually already break down the spending into categories, so one gets an idea of where exactly one's money is going towards.

However, for my purposes, I feel that the methods of convenience, are somewhat limiting. I want to know exactly how much I spend in a month, and how my account balances change along the way. And I want a way to be able to record all of this in an off-line, privacy, friendly, and fully customizable environment. While some of the banking apps, have export features, for example, a CSV sheet, and I don’t think these are particularly human readable especially if I want to more better understand my transactions.

The process

First, one has to figure out how much information should actually be on the spreadsheet. Will it just be simply date, item, transaction value? Or will there also be additions, such as transaction category, cumulative total of balances, specifically, which account the money comes out of? The possibilities are arguably limitless with a custom spreadsheet.

Second, one has to figure out exactly which app to use? For starters, Google Drive is probably a somewhat dicey choice, seeing that it requires an Internet connection, and the absolute trust that Google will not abuse one's data (we all know how that goes).

Third, one has to consider how the needs of data recording change. Perhaps in the first year, there’s only really one bank account to keep track of. But then, perhaps in the next year, there’s a second bank account to keep track of. Will that require cross checking across two banking apps, or will this, perhaps be better served by using the custom spreadsheet to allow checking of two accounts and balances at once?

My implementation

Version one of my financial spreadsheet started in 2013. It was admittedly, quite bare-bones, mostly containing info on date, transaction, details, transaction value, and a cumulative total column of transactions. Despite the bare-bones implementation, I actually found it was very useful, and this was during a time, when banking apps, or even desktop views were very limited. notably, I did not actually have a bank account, so I definitely had to track things manually. 2013 was also the time I mostly paid in cash, so that maintain accurate record of my cash transactions, I had to enter transactions manually. I was happy that I was able to track my transactions down to the last cent. Over time, I started to add things to the financial spreadsheet, for example, conditional formatting, so I knew which transactions were credits, and which transactions were debits.

Version two of the financial spreadsheet started in 2014, when I actually had a bank account in Australia. The banking app in Australia was actually pretty decent, and allowed me to see my transaction date, transaction, description, transaction value, all at once. However, scrolling through multiple transactions and trying to search for a particular transaction, was not very easy. I found that it was much easier to do this through my spreadsheet.

I cannot recall when, but sometime around 2014, my computer data got wiped out in a somewhat freak accident when I try to install Linux on my Mac. due to this, I sadly made the move to put the spreadsheet on Google drive, though, fortunately this only lasted one year. The cloud syncing was useful so I could see my transaction information while I was out, and add transaction information before I forgot, in the case I arrived home tired. eventually, I then moved it to iCloud Drive, which was a bit more satisfying for my privacy concerns. However, eventually, I decided to make the move entirely out of cloud syncing for these financial transactions.

After the above transition out of clouds syncing , I more or less remade my entire financial spreadsheet again from scratch. I recall that in 2014, because I started a new job, I made a dedicated sheet within the spreadsheet, just to track my earnings. I was also able to create a small table that calculated my earnings per hour, and my work hours per specific teaching category. Again, I find that this is the benefit of the spreadsheet: full customization, including tracking, metrics, such as hours, worked, salary per hour, and total earnings. I find this was much easier than manually entering in values into some app, which may not have necessarily shown the info I wanted all at once.

Since 2015, the financial spreadsheet has it also include multiple bank accounts, two sheets for tracking currencies (US dollars and Australian dollars), and a separate sheet transfer credit card transactions that includes multicurrency support. this certainly was not something I could achieve with other banking apps, including full cross-account support with multiple currencies, and the customization that I wanted. It might actually be something similar, such as those banking apps, like Mint, which do aggregate multiple accounts together, but without a proper off-line and desktop view, and the somewhat questionable privacy policies of these companies, it was something I was not able to sign up for comfortably.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, I even made an entirely separate spreadsheet file just for stock market transactions. Again, I find it highly customizable, including being able to calculate the return on investment per year, and track which of my stock market transactions have actually performed the best.

Oh yes, that I also mention it is completely free to make your own spreadsheet? One just needs the time. But it certainly beats any of these subscription model apps that exist these days just for the sake of convenience. Or at least I think that’s the case.