Ask HN: Spending Tracking Tools

Hacker News Discussion ↗

From simple spreadsheets to sophisticated budgeting apps, people are split on how much automation they want in tracking personal spending. Many favor manual or semi-manual approaches (spreadsheets, plaintext accounting, self-built tools) to increase awareness, reduce reliance on third parties, and avoid privacy risks from aggregators like Plaid, while others prefer automated services such as YNAB, Monarch, LunchMoney, Copilot, and Tiller for convenience and bank integration. A recurring theme is that no single tool fits everyone: some prioritize strict budgeting and real-time limits, others just want aggregated views or long-term projections, and many end up combining apps with custom spreadsheets to get the control and insight they need.

Manual and Spreadsheet-Based Tracking

  • Many prefer spreadsheets (or simple custom apps mimicking them) for maximum control, privacy, and flexibility.
  • Manual entry is seen as a feature: it adds friction, increases awareness, and curbs impulsive spending.
  • Common patterns:
    • Export CSVs from banks, then categorize and pivot in Excel/Sheets.
    • Daily or weekly manual entry and review, sometimes shared with a partner.
    • Cronjobs or scripts to generate reports or trigger email/SMS/Telegram/ntfy notifications.

Envelope / Zero-Based Budgeting Tools

  • YNAB is widely praised for changing spending habits and stress levels, especially via its rules and envelope approach.
  • Some still use older non-cloud versions or self-hostable clones like Actual Budget and other YNAB-like apps (e.g., Buckets, Moneywell).
  • Critiques: learning curve, subscription cost, and lack of certain features for some workflows.

Mint Replacements and Aggregator Apps

  • After Mint shut down, users migrated to Monarch, Copilot, Quicken Simplifi, LunchMoney, Tiller, and Quicken for Mac.
  • Monarch and Copilot are viewed as solid Mint-like aggregators; some highlight Copilot’s strong UI and subscription handling.
  • LunchMoney is praised for rules, multi-currency, API, and responsive development, but lacks native mobile apps for some; bank coverage can be an issue.
  • Tiller bridges automation with spreadsheets by feeding data into Sheets/Excel.

Plaintext / FOSS Accounting

  • Plaintext accounting (hledger, ledger-cli, beancount, etc.) attracts users who value files over apps, double-entry rigor, and powerful reporting.
  • Challenges include file organization and naming consistency.
  • GnuCash looks powerful but is reported as daunting or confusing by some.

Privacy, Integrations, and Plaid

  • Some avoid aggregators entirely due to distrust of Plaid/Yodlee-style access, preferring CSV exports.
  • Others note integrations are improving when banks support OAuth or read-only access, but many banks still require full credentials.

Categorization, Granularity, and Automation

  • Categorizing transactions is seen as the most tedious part; current tools use heuristics, not LLMs (with a few experiments mentioned).
  • Many want finer-grained insight (e.g., item-level breakdown of Amazon/costco receipts via OCR and linkage to transactions), which participants say doesn’t really exist yet for consumers.

Budgeting Philosophy and Behavior

  • Some argue tracking after spending is “too late” and advocate budgeting first, allocating pay on arrival.
  • Others, especially high earners, see less need for strict budgets and focus on broad tracking or net-worth projections (Projection Lab, simple trackers).
  • Several tools and even a (now-defunct) card concept try to constrain spending in real time or signal when daily/discretionary targets are exceeded.