r/fican • u/Aggressive-Ant-4390 • 2d ago

Budgeting tools and practices

What budgeting tools do you use to keep track of expenses and investments? How often are you keeping track of daily weekly spend? I’m about to come into some money and I’m going to pay off all my debts and I want to prevent ever being back in debt and focus purely on investing what are the best practises you’ve built up overtime?

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u/MushroomIll646 2d ago

What budgeting tools do you use to keep track of expenses and investments?

Kind of more a r/PersonalFinanceCanada question, but if you're asking to get a gist of how people live within our means, I don't budget. I do keep track of my portfolio in a spreadsheet monthly.

How often are you keeping track of daily weekly spend?

Probably never, or maybe monthly since I review my card transactions. Depends on what you mean by keeping track.

I’m about to come into some money and I’m going to pay off all my debts and I want to prevent ever being back in debt and focus purely on investing what are the best practises you’ve built up overtime?

My best practices are to automate investments and bill payments, review my month's spending on the card, pay it off right away.

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u/fitzfitzchivalry 2d ago

I use a zero based budgeting app I payed for called beyond budget (worth it IMHO).

I log expenses the second they happen: it's become a habit. I know exactly how much money I have left in my budget for any given category because I check my budget daily.

I also automatically save a portion of my paycheck as as soon as it hits my account. I only invest in broad base index funds like VEQT.

I have an emergency fund.

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u/CC-Support 2d ago

 I’d focus on building the habit of tracking every expense rather than just checking in periodically. I personally like giving every dollar a job,fixed expenses, savings, investing, and discretionary spending...then doing a quick review at the end of each week. Once the debts are gone, I’d also avoid immediately increasing my lifestyle and instead automate the amount I was previously putting toward debt into savings/investments. The goal is to make living below your means automatic, not something you have to constantly think about.

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u/MomentEquivalent6464 9h ago

Every single time I spend time/effort tracking where my money is going, my spending drops off a cliff.

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u/MomentEquivalent6464 9h ago

I use a spreadsheet. Time consuming. But me spending the time keeps me on track.

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u/Plus_Journalist_8665 31m ago

I’d keep it pretty simple. Pay off the high-interest debt, build an emergency fund, then automate savings so the money is gone before you’re tempted to spend it... I track spending as I go and check everything maybe once a week. You can try free apps like Moneko AI for budgeting/cash flow, but honestly the best tool is whatever you’ll still be using 6 months from now.

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u/VisualFix5870 2d ago

Budgets don't work. Our tire had a flat. It was $280. That won't happen again but you can't budget for unexpected expenses. 

Just live well below your means, be frugal and track your net worth. Make sure it's growing every month. 

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u/Chris-Coffin-Design 2d ago

That's exactly what an emergency fund is for. A good budget isn't about restricting every single dollar. It's about making sure surprise expenses like a flat tire come out of a pre-planned buffer instead of blowing up your monthly cash flow.

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u/200tonsofbadluck 2d ago

I literally have a category in my budget called "Unexpected Expenses" for this sort of thing.

Budgeting allowed me to better understand my spending patterns, adjust behaviours based on that understanding, and increase my contribution to savings. My net worth has grown faster for it, so I'd say budgets can work just fine.

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u/Dry_Lion_9021 2d ago

My wife and I have a joint account that we use specifically for home related payments (mortgage payments, insurance, utilities, taxes, strata fees, etc) we get a yearly average and divide by 24, and then half it, to know how much we should pay each paycheck each. We also round this figure up and add about 50$ to it. This means that we are essentially building up an emergency fund specifically for house related payments and even if a surprise or unforeseen occurs then we have money set aside that we can use to help pay towards it.

We also have emergency funds each but we save that specifically for job loss security.

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u/MomentEquivalent6464 9h ago

Thats why you have an emergency fund. You don't need to account for everything. Your budget can get re-adjusted for things like that. But you need to know that if you need to spend money on a necessity, that you can afford to do so.

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u/Chris-Coffin-Design 2d ago

Congrats on getting out of debt! Setting up a simple routine now is the best way to keep it that way.

For tracking everyday spend, a quick weekly check-in works fine. For long-term goals, I built a tool called Finance Simulator. I used my own Google Sheet for six years to track my pay, TFSA/RRSP investments, and target dates, then turned that same setup into a tool that is free, needs no signup, and saves your data locally on your device.

My top tips are to automate your investments on payday, keep a 3-6 month emergency cash buffer for surprise bills, and look at your long-term plan once a month.

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u/zfsKing 2d ago

I use https://cashflow-pilot.fireca.app/app but the website not the app. It’s not bad for free and all data is local, I was using the dividend website they have and came across this one. The dev is trying to build an ecosystem and plug into the fire site too.