I do it once a year in January on a crummy day when I have nothing better to do. We are now retired so it is helpful to see what our cash burn rate is.

Excel spreadsheet and we have meetings every month to go over it. But we don't put every single small expense on there to scrutinize: more of a general look at spending for various bills + credit card spending (we pay that in full monthly).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't listen to all these olds. Just run all your bank and credit card statements through AI and you got a budget.

I definitely do this but do you pay for data privacy or is your data used to train models?

I have a home server that runs a budgeting container called Actual Budget. For $15 it sets up links to my bank accounts so they are all pulled in and analyzed. There's no such thing as data privacy with AI or the cloud, you want privacy you have to go back in time to hosting your own apps and data.

C’mon. There’s a huge difference between feeding your data into AI versus having downloaded your bank statement into a cloud service you pay for.

AI is much worse. People believe AI is a sentient being so ask it for personal financial advice and therapy suggestions. It collects and stores far more intimate details than the cloud data pulls.

I can’t imagine not knowing how I am spending my money. Quicken all the way. For years. It is not so much for a budget but just to know where it is all going.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't listen to all these olds. Just run all your bank and credit card statements through AI and you got a budget.

I definitely do this but do you pay for data privacy or is your data used to train models?

I have a home server that runs a budgeting container called Actual Budget. For $15 it sets up links to my bank accounts so they are all pulled in and analyzed. There's no such thing as data privacy with AI or the cloud, you want privacy you have to go back in time to hosting your own apps and data.

C’mon. There’s a huge difference between feeding your data into AI versus having downloaded your bank statement into a cloud service you pay for.

Anonymous wrote:Don't listen to all these olds. Just run all your bank and credit card statements through AI and you got a budget.

Yeah I’m not giving my login credentials to an AI agent, and I don’t want to download all the statements to load into Claude every month.

Anonymous wrote:we don't have a budget. we just max out our retirement accounts HSAs, and roth IRas, save another 35% of our take home salary and then do whatever we want with the rest.

I have too many competing needs for my money, so I must budget and watch expenses somewhat carefully. There are the routine household bills and expenses, the normal grocery and gas expenses, the ever-climbing expenses related to my teenagers, which swing wildly from month to month. Car servicing (we just spent $1500), vet visits, medical bills. So I must pay careful attention to all of it. I use YNAB, which has been a lifesaver and I can see where every cent goes and make adjustments.

Anonymous wrote:Claude is my therapist, financial planner, paralegal, travel planner, admin assistant.

Claude’s PR machine.

we don't have a budget. we just max out our retirement accounts HSAs, and roth IRas, save another 35% of our take home salary and then do whatever we want with the rest.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't listen to all these olds. Just run all your bank and credit card statements through AI and you got a budget.

I definitely do this but do you pay for data privacy or is your data used to train models?

I have a home server that runs a budgeting container called Actual Budget. For $15 it sets up links to my bank accounts so they are all pulled in and analyzed. There's no such thing as data privacy with AI or the cloud, you want privacy you have to go back in time to hosting your own apps and data.

Anonymous wrote:Like a few others have said I don't. I just live frugally day to day and check my bank accounts weekly. I've never had any problems.

+1
If you're a good consumer, this is not really necessary.

Claude is my therapist, financial planner, paralegal, travel planner, admin assistant.

Anonymous wrote:You can feed your pdf statements into Claude and then do all kind of analysis. I used to used excel but Claude has turned out to be better. Claude even have me a plan that has so far allowed me to cut my spending and save more.

Love this idea. I am not sure where to begin. What prompts do you use to track spending and create a plan? TIA

Anonymous wrote:Don't listen to all these olds. Just run all your bank and credit card statements through AI and you got a budget.

I definitely do this but do you pay for data privacy or is your data used to train models?

Anonymous wrote:Don't listen to all these olds. Just run all your bank and credit card statements through AI and you got a budget.

Can you provide details on how you do this? I ask ChatGPT questions but that's the extent of my use. Thanks