Do like many people did, take the control over your life, manage your expenses.
Do like many people did, take the control over your life, manage your expenses.
Many people are asking me how to use JustBudget. I must admit there are not a lot of documentations and it can't be confusing at first. But in fact, it is really easy. Here is some explanation.
To use JustBudget properly, you need to understand a few simple facts that lead to proper usage.
JustBudget has been built on the idea that people who can't keep money aside is because they don't know where it all goes.
Well, most people think they know. But fact is; it's very easy to lose track of where you spend how much. This is exactly where JustBudget is meant to be useful.
JustBudget is not following the "envelop" approach where you try to plan ahead and split up what you have in your buckets. JustBudget is asking you to input all of your spending. And after a few weeks of data, it will draw you out some congregated information. Add your incomes if you want to know how much you're saving or you are under. But spending is most important.
Category is meant to be like "Rent, Groceries, TV service, Games, Restaurant, etc". Note that I always split Groceries and Restaurant. Actually, I even split Fast Food from actual sit down restaurant. That helps me see how often I can eat in each of those for the same amount of money.
Location is where you spent the money or the company. Who you pay your rent to, the grocery store you are going, your TV cable service company, where you buy your games, which restaurant you went, etc. This is meant to split up your expenses into a second level of details.
Later, you will see which category and location are "popular" to you. Which one you go to the most and which one you spent the most. You don't have to change your habit too quick. JustBudget will show you a clear image of your situation. Then after a few weeks, you will start seeing what category might be taking too much of your budget than required. Then you will want to apply the changes that make sense to you.
After several months, your stat page will show you an evolution between months. I like this page very much. It shows you all your monthly totals per category and the difference between them. So if you spent more or less in a category than the previous months, you will easy know by a red/green color-coded number.
Inserting a proper date will give you more precise information. And the description can be helpful to you when looking back at your own stuff. I write why something cost more than usual, and gas price for a litre/galon for historical purposes.
Splitting your expenses into several “budgets” is meant as a high level separation. When using a separate money currency or when moving to a new city for example. But in most cases, it should not be necessary.
Remember to input your data as quickly as possible, daily is the best to not lose any precious information.
Hope this helps.
Mathieu
Hi everyone,
just to let people know I fix the help system, some might have wanted to email me but unfortunately it was broken for some time. this is now fix.
if you encounter any issue. please post your questions/comments into the help system.
for new users, please keep in mind justbudget has been thought as an "expense tracker". You write down what you spend and then it gives your a clear picture on your habits. When you see Starbuck in your top 5 popular locations with total spent amount of 2000$... you're thinking maybe I had prefer getting a new computer instead of this bad coffee.
happy budgeting
Sorry everyone. it is really not on this note I wanted to write this message today.
But Lets start with the good news. a few days ago, I spent the time fixing the issue with the calendar. you can set your expenses date and time again. I also fixed the QFX import function. it should work as expected for everyone(tm). please let me know if you encounter any other problem.
And just because good news never comes alone, I made a small mistake today causing the lost of one full day of transaction. All new expenses/transactions you might have entered between April 19th 2010 17h15 New york time and April 20th 17h15 is lost.
How sad as justbudget just entered his 61th month of activity...
Again, very sorry. it won't happen again. And happy budgeting.
Subject
Negative Balance
Question
When I type in my salary in an income entry, it shows a negative balance of that amount (e.g., I type in 2770, and it shows a balance of -2770). When I then type in my expenses, it reduces the negative amount by that number (so, income is 2770, gas is 40, balance shows -2730). So it seems the program is confusing my expenses and income. I really want to use this site, but I can't figure out how to get it to work.
Also, when I go to edit an entry, I can't find the way to edit the "reapeats" section.
Please Help!
Hi,
1 - Yes this is true. but this is only for per-page-total on the transactions list page. it is the way the system works, this total is mainly used when you do a search, actually. you can ignore it. "Home" page and "Stats" page are most important.
2 - to edit recurring options, you must edit the recurring record under the recurring expenses list page. at stored expenses in your transaction list are now just regular transactions.
have fun budgeting.
justbudget support team
In my last post I was talking about increasing blog activity and I left you all without any reply for two months.... How bad am I ???
Very sorry,... so here is a gift...
Biweekly recurring expenses (and more).
Yes I remade the internals of the recurring expenses system. and it is much better, much faster and much more flexible.
so many of you ask for it... and for so long. sorry I kept you waiting. Here it is now.
you can do, daily recurring expenses, weekly, biweekly, "twice a month", monthly and bimonthly.
have fun.
and thanks very much for using justbudget and for telling all your friends to do so.
I think I have been leaving my justbudget users in the blank for too long. I am really not blogging as often as I would wish. Sorry about that. I always intended to update the FAQ page on the site with the answers to the questions I receive. (by the way, many thanks for all your questions and comments and sorry for the delay).
Many of these answers would be useful to many users but unfortunately I never had the time to collect them all up and rewrite them properly into the FAQ. So I am thinking maybe I should just post the answer straight up on my blog (which is shown on the news page of justbudget). This way people can read them. It's google-able and information is never lost.
Another thing that might interest you is an article I found recently. I already talked about it on my regular blog. A friend of mine recommended me a personal finance related website. Get Rich Slowly which I found really interesting. Every page of the website invite us to read the "About" page which link to the origin of the website: A blog post. I highly recommend anybody interested in achieving financial independence to read this article first.
If you take a careful look at the "Step One: Prepare the Foundation" which includes 3 steps in its own. The second one of these is about cutting expenses. And I cannot stress this enough; The world as we know it keep pushing us to consume more and more, it's getting harder and harder to keep ourselves from buying all the new toys available.
anyway, the important point here is that if you keep spending, you quickly lose track of where all your money goes. Being always conscious can be stressful and very difficult. Just track your expenses somewhere so you can easily look them up anytime.
I love it.
So I am gonna start answering all emails directly on my blog very soon. stay tuned.
Hello everybody,
Today there is a small addition into justbudget. Something I wanted to do for a long time. As expected, it only took me a few minutes. Anyway it's done now.
When you create a new expense, you can select in which budget you want the expense to be inserted. This way, you don't have to switch budget before. I often forget to switch budget when I login and then I have to recreate my expenses in the proper budget. But now, I can just select it as I create the expense. It is also possible for you to edit an expense and change in which budget the expense is.
I hope this will be useful to other people.
Have fun and happy budgeting.
From Chris:
In a world where fast access is everything, this service is right on time. Its simple, easy to use and effective in showing your cash flows. Thank you JustBudget team for allowing one more aspect of my life to be centralized and organized online.
