ᐅ How do you keep track of your household budget? Paper-based, software, or an app?

Hello everyone,

I’m new here, although I’ve been reading occasionally for a while.

My husband and I are planning to buy a house within the next 1-2 years. We have equity saved, and we are currently putting aside a certain amount each month while still living comfortably. So right now, it seems quite feasible. However, we are actively planning a family at the moment... which means that eventually one income will be lost (fortunately the significantly lower one) and additional expenses will arise.

Now we would at least like to get a clear picture of our current monthly expenses. This would help us roughly estimate whether, with one income, there would still be enough left for mortgage payments, especially with an additional family member to support.

So my question is: how do you keep track of your household budget? Paper? Software? App? Online? What experiences have you had with the different methods?
Maybe your insights can save me from unnecessary trial and error.

Thanks in advance for your answers,
starnight

In the end, it depends on personal preferences. I have kept a household budget book on paper and still do. I’m also someone who prefers writing things down on paper and having them in front of me rather than typing them into a phone or computer. I also tried using an app once, but I always found it took too long to enter everything.

Perhaps you should simply try out the different options — the effort and time you invest should be manageable.

Paper! .. is more patient
You can always carry a small notebook with you, and I find pencil scribbles faster than an app.
We’re talking about supermarket shopping and everyday expenses (loose change), where the battery would quickly run out.
You can enter these records alongside debits into an Excel spreadsheet at the end of the month (or try out an app).

starnight schrieb:
So my question is: how do you keep your household budget?

The FAZ once looked into this topic and reported that engineers tend to prefer using Excel. That was true—I use Excel myself.

We found a chart of accounts, adapted it to our needs, and now keep a sort of simplified double-entry bookkeeping (that’s how I would call it). The account categories are roughly named "Housing," "Household/Consumables," "Food," "Leisure," "Mobility"... I think the main feature of our household bookkeeping is that income, expenses, and the balance form a closed ledger. There are no unknowns [there is a small margin of error, and the accounting sometimes deviates by a few euros (a few dollars), sometimes losing, sometimes gaining]. I doubt this would be possible with paper systems (or rather, the computer simply provides an incredible help here; of course it used to be possible without it).

Edit: Of course, we also tried a few of the downloads, Excel sheets or stand-alone software. Somehow, none of them really suited us, or they were paid. Online tools are not an option for me—I like to be in control of my own data. Hence, the self-developed solution.

We don’t keep a detailed household ledger.

To still keep track of the numbers, I created an Excel spreadsheet with various categories. I first entered all fixed monthly, quarterly, or annual income items (salaries/child benefits) and expenses (insurance, daycare, vehicle tax, utility and maintenance costs for the house, membership fees, broadcasting fees). I also added monthly entries like vacation savings, reserves for car replacement, and house savings.

For variable monthly expenses, I initially made estimates (weekend grocery shopping multiplied by 4, cafeteria meals, car, phone costs, miscellaneous). I periodically cross-checked these by reviewing monthly bank statements and cash withdrawals and refined my spreadsheet over time. For phone and car repair costs, I calculated averages based on invoices over longer periods.

Since I recorded account balances (checking/savings/building savings accounts, etc.) at the start of the year, I can estimate how the balances should develop when considering monthly income and expenses. I occasionally verify this by cross-checking.

Ultimately, this is more of a budgeting system for me, where I only add extraordinary payments (extra mortgage repayments) or unusual income (tax refunds) separately, and I periodically compare it to the current account balances around the end of the month.

Thank you for your responses!
I’ve downloaded an app now and will also create an Excel spreadsheet to try both methods side by side.
I’m too lazy to write everything down by hand and then add it all up.
And online is also out of the question.