Manual loan info and forecasting

I use an excel spreadsheet to track my loans/ items on finance, along with the dates they’re due to be completed which will in future months increase my monthly budget. I’m not too fussed about having to add loan info in manually, however a forecasting tool which takes this into account for future months would be very useful. I didn’t really understand the purpose of the current loan function if you can’t connect it to the loan payment transaction to decrease monthly, it seems kind of pointless but I’m a newbie so would be keen to hear how others use it :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

2 Likes

I’d love something like this. I use Emma to help manage my money to clear my debts but no app or service so far has really nailed the important parts of working to clear debt, and so I still have to supplement with a good old excel spreadsheet. If I change a repayment how does that impact due date and when I am projected to clear balance are really useful.

Good old excel! I bank with Halifax & on the app it does give you a repayment calculator but obviously you can only use that with their loan, but I do have other things like car payments and council tax repayments etc which I have to log the date it’s due to finish and my spare money will go up! Hopefully they add a forward month function and you can amend it manually-even that would be useful

Interesting ideas here! What do you think it would look like in the app? Where would you want it placed etc?

For me I think it would work best on the analytics page, so you can simply scroll ahead like you would scroll back to see previous months. It can auto generate based on the most recent month or most recent 3 months just to give a likely estimate and then you can manually update it if you know about future changes or what to set goals for yourself to reduce your budget somehow, I think reducing the budget on a category on that actual month you’re in is more personal and you’re always going to think of reasons why you probably can’t hit it, where as if it’s already been set as a target previously it becomes more accepted as a goal. For example if I had a £30 payment that’s due to finish in 3 months time, when you guys introduce pots (I saw them say this is on the way :stuck_out_tongue:) then I can set the forward rule that from August that £30 then goes to a new pot which I would like to start but can’t currently afford to- let’s say a holiday pot. Even with pots they should have a similar function because again I want to know how long it’s going to take me to save X amount so I can be realistic with what I’m putting in to hit my goal! The loan part I understand until that connection is made from the bank to update the info there’s not much you can do on that front! But I would have thought if you can input the interest rate and the amount then it calculate from your payments out of your account then that would work as a non official guide?

Also they shouldn’t call them pots they should call them envelopes as that’s what everyone’s going crazy for at the moment and every bank has pots :blush:

Oooo okay, so basically work out that you have X left to pay and it’s going to take X amount of time to pay off - and then when it’s paid off use that money to add to a savings pot of your choice?

So true, have seen lots of people talk about this!