Tracking Cash Spending

For me, part of spending less money is limiting myself to spending only cash. I know that a lot of people like to stick with the envelope system to make sure that they are spending their cash from the correct category, but that really doesn't work well for me. I hate having a bunch of envelopes to keep track of and I feel like it clutters up my purse.

My solution is to track my cash spending on my iPhone. I use the Spend Lite app which is completely free. The Spend Lite program only lets you track daily or weekly budgets. If you want to track bi-weekly, monthly, semi-monthly or annual budgets you will have to pay $0.99 for the full Spend program.

I love that this app automatically puts my budgeted money into the proper category on the specified day. Plus I can export my spending records via a csv file in an email from my iPhone to anyone I choose. You can also password protect your file with a pin. That way if someone else picks up your iPhone you don't have to worry about them seeing your financial information. And, if needed, you can transfer money from one budget to another.

I also setup a "budget" to track my extra income. For this category my budgeted amount is zero and whenever I make extra money I do a deposit to that category. I love it. You could also use this to track your monthly savings and so forth. I can easily zero out this account each month or keep a running total. It's also super easy to see how much "extra" money I've made.

The one thing that I don't like about this app is that you can't rename a category. For example, I have a category "Food" and it should really be "Household." I would love to have the correct name on this, but I can't figure out a way to change it.

I love the Spend Lite app and the fact that it's free only makes it better. Since it is free, if you're looking for something like this and have an iPhone or iPod Touch, why not download it and try it out?

I will note that I do not use this app for tracking my bank accounts. I track them in a completely different application which is the subject for another post.

For more Frugal Friday Tips, head over to Life As Mom. And if you have any recommendations for iPhone apps that you love, I would love to hear about them. Feel free to leave me a comment with the name of the app or email me.

Google Calendar on my iPhone for Free

Note: I didn't realize that there was a Back to School Theme for this week's Works For Me Wednesday when I typed up this post. However, back to school typically means more activities to keep track of, so this could still be a good tip for the back to school season.

I have been using Google Calendar for months now. So when I finally got my iPhone I was very excited to see that I can sync the iPhone Calendar with my Google calendar. This way I can update my calendar either from my iPhone or from Google Calendar online. I've also setup my Google Calendar so that my hubby can access it. That allows him to update my calendar and it automatically updates on my iPhone. I love it.

Plus you can setup alerts so that it emails you and/or pops up an alert on your phone. I love the pop up alert. I set it to remind me a few minutes before an event when I think I could easily get busy and forget it. For example, I have setup pop up alerts for 5 minutes before a tv show I want to watch. You can turn the alerts on on off for each event, so don't feel like you're going to constantly have alerts popping up on you.

I also like to use the pop up alert to remind me in the mornings about what we're doing for dinner that night. That way I remember to pull what I need out of the freezer before I head off to work. Before I started doing this I was always forgetting to take dinner out of the freezer. Now I have my reminders. I've gotten to a point that when my husband wants to make sure I remember something he tells me to put it in my iPhone. Yeah, he has no faith in my memory.

The best part is that you can do all this absolutely free. Setting up Google Calendar is free and so is using the sync when you do it the way Google instructs. There are several apps out there that you could pay for that accomplish this, but Google has the instructions right on their website. They walk you step by step through how to sync your Google Calendar and/or Contacts with your iPhone. I have both of mine synced and love it. I highly recommend it. And remember, do it the free way. Don't pay a third party app to do something you can do yourself for free. And this will work on the iPod Touch too.

For more Works for Me Wednesday, head over to We Are THAT Family.

Favorite iPhone and iTouch Apps

Last night when I sat down at my computer to write today's blog post I had a little extra time so I started checking out some other blogs. Naturally I had to check out Works For Me Wednesday which led me to this post over at No Ordinary Moments about favorite iPhone and iTouch apps. Her post led me to one at Scribbit on the same thing. So instead of writing I spent my evening chasing links on blogs and reading posts. Then I headed over to the App Store where I got sucked in to checking out some of the recommended apps and looking around for any other interesting ones. Hunting for Apps is addictive I tell you.

All of my surfing last night did give me the idea to start writing about some of the apps that I have found and loved. So in the near future you can look for some posts from me on iPhone and iTouch apps that I love. There really are a lot of great apps out there to help you get organized. I have been trying for years now to put together a Household Notebook and never seemed to be able to get everything together for it. Now my iPhone is turning into my Household Notebook and more. Since I've started using my iPhone I feel so much more organized and in control. I love it and I want to be able to share the things that have worked for me with everyone. So I am excited to start writing about some of these apps and how I use them.

If you have any apps you would like to recommend, feel free to leave a comment with the info. I need to keep feeding my addiction.

Loving My iPhone

Ever since the iPhones came out I wanted one, but I resisted because I didn't want to spend the money on the data plan in addition to my monthly cell phone plan. Well, recently I had some trouble with my cell phone and wound up having to replace it. Even then I resisted the iPhone, but hubby pushed me towards it because he knew how much I wanted it. I wound up getting it and I have to say that I love, Love, LOVE it.

There is so much that you can do with your iPhone. Seriously, there are apps out there for just about anything. Right now I'm using various apps to track my food and exercise, track my spending and keep my shopping list. There is also an application for my to do list, for Facebook, Twitter, Craigslist, ebay and more. I'm still trying out various apps and figuring out what's going to work for me.

In addition to all the apps, it also links to my Google Calendar, Contacts and Gmail so I have the ability to check and update my calendar no matter where I am and I can send and receive emails from anywhere. It's wonderful. I feel like I am constantly tapping away on my iPhone. Hubby says that I'm addicted. Personally, I just love having so much information and organization right at my fingertips. It's heaven for someone like me who is a wee bit OCD.

Since I am still trying out various apps, I didn't want to comment on any specific ones, but I will be posting about apps I find that I love. So you can look forward to some posts on that in the future.

For more Things I Love Thursday, head over to the The Diaper Diaries.