The starting point of getting my financial information organised was to try and track my expenses and income – yes the dreaded Budgeting word
I have done comprehensive research on how to do this – many of the financial bloggers tell you to do a spread sheet and track you expenses – this is too cumbersome
Yes -there are many apps out there that will also do this for you but the answer I believe is installing an accounting package
Why do this?
Well if you are going to run your personal finance like a business and be your own director of finance and monitor the building of your balance sheet – you need an accounting package
The package I am using is called Saasu as it is relatively cheap and has all the features I need to build my balance sheet
There are many accounting packages out there including Xero – you can choose any accounting package you want but you will definitely need the following functions
- auto bank feeds so that you do not have to code your income and expenses each month
- built in budget facility
- cost effective and good support for the package
I have found this in Saasu and have downloaded all my bank account information and am coding all my credit card and cheque account info into the package – really easy to do
Lessons for your kids
I explained to my kids that research is important in order to find the best solution to help one build a system to make your financial life easier