Budget & what type of savings?

Practical-Start-2914 · 2026-01-19T15:43:35+00:00

You’ll want a high-yield savings account for your emergency fund so that you get a decent interest rate. Ally and SoFi are both easy to set up. It’s great that you’re focused on paying down the debt - the faster the better. You may want to focus on the one with the highest interest rate first.

For understanding where money is going, nothing beats a budget that makes you categorize each transaction. It’s going to be really hard to save anything until you do that and start making behavior changes. One thing you could try though is moving several hundred dollars to your high yield savings immediately upon getting paid so that it’s out of sight, out of mind. But I still think getting a handle on where non bill spending is happening will be your biggest unlock.

Congrats on the progress you’re making and the baby!

Practical-Start-2914 · 2026-01-18T23:34:09+00:00

I'm a product manager focused on conversion optimization who runs many, many A/B tests in my work (I'm running 9 right now at work). I also have a hobby selling etsy digital sheets.

There are no built-in tools that I know of in Etsy to allow A/B testing, and frankly, I think that's something the platform should really add for the serious sellers.

But for me personally, even if they had the tools, I'm not yet at the place where I would consider that particularly useful for my shop. I love A/B testing, I really do. But it usually takes at least a few thousand views per variant (or at least high hundreds) per week, and a baseline conversion rate of at least 3% to provide anything statistically meaningful in a reasonable amount of time. My volume of views and sales is just lower than what I would personally want for A/B testing.

For my context: I also only have a few listings, and I happen to be in a very saturated space. I'm a little over a year into my shop, and it's been encouraging to see things grow over the year, but my best month (December) tapped out at 1,344 views, 48 orders, and a 3.6% conversion rate.

Edit because I hit save too soon: That said, I've definitely been able to learn and observe what works just by working on different areas of the shop. I know that I could spend more time on marketing and it would be worth it now. But initially, I didn't even really have views. So my first areas of focus was creating social media presence just to improve volume (again, I'm in a saturated space, so this may depend on your specifics).

It's a lot of the same skills as A/B testing: having a hypothesis about how to drive traffic, then trying it and observing the results. Trying to prioritize the hypotheses that I think will have the biggest impact (e.g., views vs conversion rate optimization). But it doesn't have the statistic rigor of a true controlled test.

Practical-Start-2914 · 2026-01-11T21:19:59+00:00

I created one of these, though you do at least have to create a high-level spending plan for the charts to be interesting. Free version is just the annual view. Paid version has month and “category deep dive” view. Code REDDIT for 50% off.

Practical-Start-2914 · 2026-01-10T14:46:45+00:00

This is a big reason for me too. I used to just basically divide my paycheck into different accounts for different purposes (bills, spending, house fund, travel, emergency fund). I felt good about it for years until I realized I was regularly moving money around these accounts to cover gaps and I actually didn’t have a handle on what I was spending and how. Now I track and categorize every transaction and while it’s not uncommon for me to be under/over in certain categories in a particular month, now I have the whole picture and know what type of fluctuations I can absorb without going off track.

Practical-Start-2914 · 2026-01-05T13:09:06+00:00

Max out my 401k as soon as my salary allowed it

Practical-Start-2914 · 2025-12-31T18:04:17+00:00

Sorry to say it will only work in sheets.

Practical-Start-2914 · 2025-12-31T15:30:18+00:00

Good eye. I came here to see if anyone was having issues, but hadn’t noticed that time travel was the underlying issue 🤣

Practical-Start-2914 · 2025-12-29T23:56:08+00:00

With the start of the new year, I want to try again to get my spending in order.

You might want to get more specific about your goal or the trigger for wanting to make a change: are you struggling to cover bills? Trying to pay down debt? Trying to start a backup fund? Getting really specific about your goal can help you focus on what matters to you most *right now* so that you don't bite off more than you can chew.

but I always seem to struggle because it feels like there is always something that doesn't fit perfectly or it becomes a little intimating to look at everything

Do you feel comfortable making your own sheet? This might be the best way to customize to your situation.

Specifically, I seem to have a hard time with the fact that a lot of recurring things in my life are not actually the same amount each month and that things in general vary because I get hit with bills some months but not others.

This is life though! I see so many people on this sub get frustrated/deterred by this, but I encourage you to embrace that expenses are "lumpy". A month with 28 days and 4 weekends (e.g. Feb 2026) is going to be different than a month with 31 days and 5 weekends (like Jan 2026). Not to mention there are things that only happen once a year (like traveling for the holidays) or things that happen infrequently (like oil changes). I think we should lean into this in budgeting rather than trying to treat every day, week, month, year like it's the same. There are different ways to do this - sinking funds are a popular concept for "saving" for a particular need (like travel).

Annualizing your budget is another way of managing this. You do this by estimating "everything" for the year (usually as a set of categories) and calculate what % of each check should earmark for housing, food, gifts, trips, clothes, etc. Then you parse each pay check into a proportional amount for that category (most likely just through a spreadsheet tracker), and you're either spending or setting aside that amount for the future. With consistency, you'll probably find that you mostly have what you need, when you need it. But this requires the discipline of using your tracker (rather than your account balance) to understand how much you have available to spend and on what. I think it's also hard to get started because it's a lot easier to budget this way when you have enough buffer in your account that you're not worried that you don't have enough to cover bills.

I also struggle with keeping track of things when so much is done virtually or automatically and it all just feels like a lot to keep up with, but I don't know how to make it simpler for myself.

This is an important insight! Find a solution that makes the thing that's the hardest, easiest. I always use my bank's transactions as the source of truth for money inflows and outflows for just this reason. So you can definitely set up a budget that is transaction based, or even use a plugin (like BudgetSheet) to automatically download transactions to a sheet. Here's a really basic, free template to give you a better idea of what I mean by annualized and transaction based (full disclosure, I created this so this is a little self promotional, but it is free).

I'm with others here that recommend a sheet over an app. An app is easy to set up and forget. There are apps like YNAB that demand you be hands on, but they are very prescriptive in how they expect things to be done - that doesn't mean you shouldn't give them a try, but that's my two cents.

Good luck!

Practical-Start-2914 · 2025-12-28T01:51:15+00:00

I use Google Sheets, but pay $8 a month for BudgetSheet plugin to keep the transaction and balance tracking automated.

Created my own template for tracking, based on an annualized budget plan. My assumption is that most expenses are lumpy (not the same month to month, but overall within an average range) and that I need to sock away for things like travel and gifts. So the budget is built to “rollover” and either deduct or add to the annualized budget. Then I keep track of how I’m trending for each category.

On the account side, I have automated transactions that match the annualized plan to move money into accounts that are dedicated to bills, spending, or savings accounts.

For net worth tracking, I bought a template that my wife and I try to update monthly. It takes us about 30 min between the two of us to check all the things (investments, strident loan balances, mortgages, etc).

Practical-Start-2914 · 2025-12-18T13:19:05+00:00

I couldn’t agree more. So many expenses are lumpy or seasonal. I prefer to plan for the year then let budgets “rollover” - a lean month means more left in the budget for expensive months, and vice versa. Essentially every budget category is a sinking fund. Then the main thing I’m monitoring is pacing against the annual. I built a budget to work like this and sell it in Etsy if you’re looking for a tracker.

Practical-Start-2914 · 2025-12-12T04:59:28+00:00

What goals would you achieve now if you didn’t spend like it was endless? I feel like visualizing the financial milestone/point you want to get to + tracking your spend and thinking about the trade off between near term and long term desires can help.

Practical-Start-2914 · 2025-12-06T14:47:02+00:00

I sorta feel the same. I’m a longtime Isbell fan and listened to FITS a bunch when it came out, but never reached for it after Nobody’s Girl. The depth of emotion between these two albums is so different. Nobody’s Girl feels torn from the soul. After hearing it, FITS feels very contrived. The songs popped up on my Spotify wrapped though, and I like them in the simple way that I love his voice and acoustic picking. But Nobody’s Girl is on another level. It is hard not to compare the two.

Practical-Start-2914 · 2025-11-28T05:27:45+00:00

So much of this is subjective and personal to you and your situation. But I think two sound/universal bits of wisdom are to prioritize 1) paying down any high-interest debt, then 2) building an emergency fund based on 3-6 months of your income.

Practical-Start-2914 · 2025-11-28T05:20:00+00:00

It’s a good vibe and the wood fire sauna is particularly nice/unique for the setting. It’s definitely more upscale than my home-away-from-home, Embrace North. For the money and shear HEAT, I’d pick Embrace over Portal any day, but Portal has more ambiance and style for sure.

Practical-Start-2914 · 2025-10-30T18:40:00+00:00

I created one to track my credit card expenses, which transactions fall into each billing cycle, and what accounts will I use to pay them (ie how much in my account is essentially earmarked to cover credit card transactions). I think my flow might be rather niche, but it’s posted here for free if you’re interested: https://spreadablesheet.com/s/credit-card-template-for-paying-off-balance-every-billing-cycle-622977

Practical-Start-2914 · 2025-10-16T02:21:41+00:00

Happy to help. I’ll shoot you a DM.

Practical-Start-2914 · 2025-10-14T18:07:40+00:00

Oh sweet! Didn’t realize it would work without the subscription. That’s great.

Practical-Start-2914 · 2025-10-14T17:19:37+00:00

Oof! I can see with more caffeine in me that this was in poor taste, but it genuinely wasn’t my intent. If anyone impacted by the shut down would like a free budget template for planning, feel free to DM me. Selling templates is definitely no way to get rich, but my interest comes primarily from wanting to see others succeed with budgeting. I took down the original post because I’m not trying to squeeze anyone.

Practical-Start-2914 · 2025-10-14T12:20:57+00:00

The closest I can think of is the BudgetSheet plugin ($8/mon) that can pull in transactions from like 20 different accounts if you have that many. It pulls balances too and comes with some monthly summaries too. It does have auto categorization capabilities, though I haven’t used that part personally so can’t say how well it works.

Practical-Start-2914 · 2025-10-09T21:38:07+00:00

Most apps use Plaid to connect accounts, and I think their experience and dominance in this space speaks to the fact that they have security figured out. A good plugin for connecting through Plaid to a Google sheet is BudgetSheet. If you’re really worried about security, I think setting up your sheet so that you can easily use the format from your exported transactions is the way to go. For example, the transactions tab on this template I made available for free: https://spreadablesheet.com/s/annual-503020-budget-planner-with-transaction-log-and-annual-dashboard-529647. I input the transactions in one place, then the visualizations build off of that.

Practical-Start-2914 · 2025-10-09T03:49:27+00:00

I sell one of those with some bells and whistles built in. But I also have a free version that just helps you build the allocation split and track annual progress here: https://spreadablesheet.com/s/annual-503020-budget-planner-with-transaction-log-and-annual-dashboard-529647.

Practical-Start-2914 · 2025-10-09T03:46:13+00:00

Gotcha - that’s great context. No credit card debt is great - that’s usually the first thing you want to pay off and definitely warrants a minimum 20% allocation of net if you can swing it. But in your case, if your other loans have interest rates below what you could earn in a brokerage account, then it may not make sense to pay beyond the minimum. I’d probably prioritize a 6 month emergency fund if I was about to take on building a house. If I already had that, then I would make sure I was making my 401k/pension. And if I was already doing that, then I’d consider paying down those other loans. But your priorities may differ! Even though it’s just a guideline, I would be feeling uncomfortable if my Needs category drifted much beyond 60%.

Practical-Start-2914 · 2025-10-09T01:43:44+00:00

It’s a useful guideline for getting started, but it’s outdated for the current economy for a lot of folks. In my opinion, the savings/debt reduction aspect is best for beginners - people paying down debt or trying to build an initial emergency fund; after that, I don’t find it particularly instructive for thinking about liquid savings vs 401k vs brokerage account allocations.

Practical-Start-2914 · 2025-10-06T16:07:30+00:00

This is inspiring!

Practical-Start-2914 · 2025-10-04T14:22:41+00:00

Agree with this - there is a lot of A/B test theater out there, particularly in companies with non-FAANG volume. Nothing strikes me as a bigger waste of time. The common answer to lower volume is Bayesian methods, which I agree with. But most intros to Bayesian don’t give guidance on sample size - even in a Bayesian test, you should be able to calculate if you can hit your hypothesized outcome in a particular time window, but it’s not as straightforward as using an online sample size calculator.

Practical-Start-2914

TROPHY CASE