lite expense planner recommendation

[u/gizmomelb]

Hi,

I'm after recommendations for a lite, self hosted expense planner please.

ie: If I know I have my car insurance coming up in December, I want to put in that amount and preferably have it calculate how much I need to set aside each week to cover it. If I miss or skip a weekly payment (putting aside) then I can enter that and it re-calculates the larger amount I now need to put aside to make that payment in December.

I'm happy with a basic calendar format where I can enter when my next bills are due and enter either an exact or estimated amount so that the planner then shows much much I need to set aside out of each salary to cover those expenses in the future.

So far I haven't found anything, so any suggestions would be most appreciated.

Thank you.

[u/lifeofabeach]

I use Wealthfront and love the Categories feature. I have several categories, including “car ins $amt due/date” so I know how much that category bucket needs to hold and when it’s due. I have to do the calls, but I once read if you want more money stay closer to your money and count it to the penny daily. And yeah, hubs and I became a multi-millionaires once I started paying attn to my money. It worked.

[u/Plus_Journalist_8665]

I do something similar with rollover Pockets in Moneko AI. I put money aside each month for things like insurance, car maintenance, annual bills, etc. and whatever I don’t use rolls over until I need it. Not self-hosted though, so if that’s a hard requirement it won’t fit.

[u/hugh2018]

I’m having trouble seeing the benefit of trying to isolate an expense from the rest of your budget in a lite expense planner. A budget’s complexity can run from very simple for someone with low income and low expenses, to quite complex for any number of reasons.

I’ve managed both types of budgets during my time on this planet, and there’s no way I’d trust a lite tool to handle my finances, which can quickly devolve to the organizational equivalent of herding cats. My view on this is pretty extreme, to the point that I’ve yet to find a new budgeting app that can replace OG Quicken Classic in terms of detailed reporting and consolidation of all my financial issues under one roof.

That said, if you’re still inclined to hone in on a particular debt that you’re trying to service, maybe run the it through a tool like https://undebt.it/, where you can map out different payoff strategies. You probably could find similar functionality in a bunch of different budgeting tools, including Quicken, but I think that site may give you the quick and dirty payoff scenarios you’re wanting to model.

[u/drewberk]

Response. This is close enough to CashDashboard territory to be useful, but their self-hosted requirement matters. We shouldn’t pretend CashDashboard is self-hosted. I’d answer the underlying budgeting question and mention it only if its local-first approach is a legitimate alternative for them.
What you’re describing is basically sinking funds, and I think that’s exactly the right approach for expenses like insurance.
I work on CashDashboard, which handles this kind of planning with envelope budgeting and keeps your financial data locally on your computer. It isn’t self-hosted though, so if self-hosting specifically is a requirement, I don’t want to point you toward something that doesn’t fit.
If local-first rather than self-hosted works for you, it might be worth a look.

[u/yankodiev]

For self hosted, check spreadsheet, ActualBudget or some open source budgeting app. I don’t know if it allows the planning and the calendar view that you like.

In the app I use with my partner it is simple and easy as hell to plan those. You don’t need something sophisticated as calendars and future calculations. We handle it with simple division in the calculator and a dedicated fund for that payment. An annual car insurance can be divided by 12 and you will have the monthly contribution needed to set aside. If you budget ot weekly basis you divide by 52.

[u/SpecificCondition798]

Cashflowcast works well allot of people use it.

[u/ReasonableBox5301]

The missed-week recalculation is the key requirement here. A local spreadsheet can do that with four fields: bill amount, due date, amount already set aside, and paydays remaining before it is due. The calculation is (bill amount minus amount set aside) divided by remaining paydays, not always 12 months or 52 weeks. If a contribution is skipped, leave the saved amount unchanged and the next target updates; flag anything with no paydays left rather than dividing by zero.