From YNAB to DIY: Crafting My Custom Excel Spreadsheet for Personal Finance Management – Arbor Cogitandi – Yesterday, Fri, Jan 5
Understanding where your money is going is essential. At least, it is to me. As for my knowledge system, I like to have a place where I can gather all my financial information – is it essential to understand where your money is going, how you spent it, and how to plan for the future.
I was a heavy user of MS Money for years, and I liked this product. Unfortunately, Microsoft discontinued it, and I tried many solutions but was never thrilled with them. I used my banking system for some time, which was not bad, but it did not allow me to consolidate all my banking accounts and investments, as I have multiple accounts and credit cards. Since 2021, I settled for YNAB (You Need a Budget) and was relatively happy, at least enough to use it until now; with the new year starting, I wondered if I could replace it with a DYI system based on Excel.
But first, let me explain why I considered to switch from YNAB
I am not fond of the zero-based budgeting method on which YNAB is based. I need to understand exactly where my money is, in which account and when, and as a consequence, I am not using YNAB’s principles — even if I tried hard. But it never came naturally to me, so I never concentrated on the budgeting part (which is the essential part of the product) and only used the accounts register part.
YNAB does not support multi-currencies: you need to have separate, unlinked budgets for each currency, and it becomes impossible to have a global view if you work, like I do, with more than one currency. For my part, I am constantly switching between Swiss Francs, €uros, US dollars and sometimes GPB £. It becomes very tricky to manage all that in YNAB.
It is also difficult to follow investments in YNAB. I have stocks and ETFs. I’m not a trader, but I still have a few positions to follow up on for me and my children. You can create investment assets/accounts in YNAB, but the update is manual and time-consuming.
Auto-import functions are mainly limited to US-based banks and have limited support for European (and Swiss) banks. So I’m not using this feature, or only on secondary accounts where I have few transactions that I could input manually easily anyway.
Importing CSV, OFX, QFY or QIF files from banks is an option but requires so much reformatting to be recognised by YNAB that I manually input everything. I have to say that manual input isn’t wrong, either. It is a bit time-consuming, but it makes you much more conscious of where your money goes.
The cost… usually, I am not very sensitive to cost if a product fulfils my needs. However, as mentioned earlier, it has increased without adding valuable features for me. The UX is nicer and cleaner now, but this is not enough for me to justify the additional cost.
Why building my own system?
The sense of control and ownership I get from designing my financial tracking system is unmatched. I’m not at the mercy of a third-party service that might change its features or pricing on a whim.
This empowering ownership encourages me to engage more deeply with my financial data.
To note, for instance, that you cannot access anymore your YNAB data once the subscription is cancelled. I would have liked to be able to consult the information read-only in the application. The only thing you can do is export your data in CSV format, which is not bad, but I would have preferred to keep my YNAB account “dormant” and be able to consult the past data in the system itself.
I need to feel more secure about my privacy. I am the one to decide where my financial information lies — locally or stored in a trusted cloud service.
It is a learning opportunity as well. It’s made me think critically about my financial priorities and the best ways to track them, improving my financial literacy.
As life is full of changes, so are my financial needs. I expect that I can quickly and easily adjust my budgeting categories and formulas to reflect any changes in my income, expenses, or financial goals.
I can decide the level of simplicity or complexity in my system based on my comfort with financial tracking. This starkly contrasts budgeting apps’ learning curves or complexities that may not suit my preferences, as the YNAB budgeting method was for me.
Why Excel ?
I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for Excel. It’s been my go-to at work for managing budgets and, I’ll admit, occasionally for project management tasks (I know, I know…). I’m no Excel wizard, but I’m comfortable with it. Plus, there’s a bit of sentimental value there too—my late father meticulously tracked his finances using Excel. He had all these complex macros and VBA scripts that are still a bit over my head, but it got me thinking that maybe Excel could work for me as well.
The thing is, Excel offers a level of personalisation that you don’t get with tools like YNAB. It’s like a financial canvas that I can tweak, adjust, and make it truly mine.
I can set up unique formulas and analytics that reveal my spending patterns and trends over time. This kind of in-depth analysis is something I find more challenging with generic budgeting software, which often lacks the same flexibility.
Excel is cost-efficient for me. Unlike YNAB and other budgeting tools that require a subscription, my Excel spreadsheet doesn’t have ongoing costs, as I have the O365 subscription already. This aligns with my goal to reduce unnecessary expenses (did someone mention FIRE here?)
The system can be tailored to integrate with external tools (banking systems or trading platforms) more seamlessly than a third-party budgeting app. Microsoft even proposes some built-in functions to manage currencies and stocks (admittedly, not the easiest to use).
How did I get there?
Starting from scratch can be a daunting experience, especially with Excel. By chance, I’m not the first to think about creating my system, and good templates are available on the web or Reddit. I stumbled upon the Free Money Management Spreadsheet from Vertex42 and thought it would be a good base for my system.
I have already heavily modified it to accept multi-currencies and stocks and added pivot tables that greatly change the interface.
An example of the customized “dashboard” spreadsheet summarizing the accounts with Pivot tables.
It took me a few hours to customise and add the scheduled transactions I had already inputted in YNAB. On the other hand, that exercise allowed me to cross-check if the system would be robust enough for my needs this year.
Conclusion
YNAB is an excellent tool, and I recommend it to anyone needing a budgeting tool. But still, check if zero-budgeting is your thing. The good news is that YNAB has a generous trial period and plenty of very detailed tutorials. If you adopt it, it is worth your time and money.
If, like me, you need more flexibility and more features, or you are more adept at a pure no-budget approach (following exactly the amount I have in my accounts at any time), maybe you need another tool.
For my part, I will use that spreadsheet for this year and evaluate if I need to go back to a dedicated tool. However, I don’t think I will, for all the reasons I expressed earlier. Maybe one day I will be able to transfer all that to Tana, but the lack of formulas (and complex ones, at that) is a good reason for me to stick with Excel for the moment.
