<prompt> Human: I see personal capital is a popular one and mint.com, both which seem nice but I have some specific caveats. I live overseas, Japan specifically, with accounts both in the States and abroad. Which means I cant really sync up many meaningful accounts with Mint. Personal Capital scared me off because it seems there is a pay component to the whole deal, though I feel like this must be for a particular service of theirs and not the general use case but I couldnt find clarifying information regarding that point.I settled for BudgetBakers, its not bad I like it actually. It is convenient because I can input anything from any of my accounts, and the UI doesnt limit me on that front, unlike Mint for example. However, the downside obviously is that I have to enter everything, an inconvenience Ive accepted. So back to the question, what are you nice folks using? What tips tricks do you have to share for using this type of software, do many people use excel instead? What do you got PersonalFinance, lay it on me!  <response>: YNAB or You Need A Budget is a great tool that is recommended a lot. It is a manual budget system with the option to link accounts but it isnt necessary. You can try it free for 34 days. Like an excel document, you must enter each transaction in manually. You create budget categories, how much you want to spend on certain things each month, and allocate every purchase to those categories. Ive just started using it so im giving you the opinion of a beginner with the software. It is very easy to use and I imagine after the first month more features open up because you will have a monthly history. There is a phone application as well to help ease the tracking of transactions. Manually entering transactions, in my opinion, isnt a negative aspect of the software. It allows you to realize how much you are spending and how often you are spending. You think about your purchases more carefully and can set goals for special purchases that might not fit into other budget categories. That is my initial reaction, ive been using Mint as well but I have noticed that some transactions dont appear for many days and unless I check my bankCC transactions I wont remember what they were because it is automated.Id say the only negative of YNAB is the monthly fee of 5 I think. I understand they have prepared this software and constantly update it but I am still deciding if the recurring fee is worth it or if I want to purchase an older version with a one time payment. 