I simply used a classical Excel spreadsheet. Honestly, even a physical notebook is okay. I don’t think any particular app will be so convenient that it all of a sudden makes you go through with it when it didn’t work before. The most important thing is to establish noting your expenses down as a habit. So e.g. every evening after dinner, you sit down and write down all your expenses of the day, plus check your bank account for any expenses. 1-2 months can already be enough as long as you are aware of the yearly peaks to have a general overview.
For visualization, creating a Sankey diagram helps a lot, which can be done on dozens of websites. When seeing such a diagram, you get a pretty good idea of how your expenses are distributed and if some area might need some cutting down, plus seeing how big the cut from donations actually is from your budget.
I simply used a classical Excel spreadsheet. Honestly, even a physical notebook is okay. I don’t think any particular app will be so convenient that it all of a sudden makes you go through with it when it didn’t work before. The most important thing is to establish noting your expenses down as a habit. So e.g. every evening after dinner, you sit down and write down all your expenses of the day, plus check your bank account for any expenses. 1-2 months can already be enough as long as you are aware of the yearly peaks to have a general overview.
For visualization, creating a Sankey diagram helps a lot, which can be done on dozens of websites. When seeing such a diagram, you get a pretty good idea of how your expenses are distributed and if some area might need some cutting down, plus seeing how big the cut from donations actually is from your budget.