JJapan Finance

How are you keeping tracking of your expenses?

  • October 27, 2025

Till now I have been inputting the expenses/gains from my 銀行手帳 and receipts I collect into Excel but I am finding it to be increasingly tedious, time consuming and prone to having things beings unaccounted.

I've considered getting a 家計簿 application but I have concerns regarding their overall security.

As groceries account for the majority of my receipts, I've considered getting a debit card to be used only for groceries. Hopefully by doing so I can get have the total spent on food for the month rather than having to sum up each transaction myself.

by Toki_day

19 comments

  1. why would you feel a 家計簿 app is a security concern?

    I’ve been using the MOZE app for years, I’d recommend.

  2. I like using Ynab myself, its pretty fast to input the transactions using the mobile App and I get a comprehensive view on my budget

  3. I use Actual budget which is free and open source though you do need a way to host it or just run it on your own computer. Since you can host it yourself, you can choose where the data lives.

    I typically enter recent transactions by hand then import CSV exported from credit cards, etc to reconcile the budget.

    It is a bit of a pain with some services that exports their CSV with Shift-JIS encoding. I would need to open it with some other app to convert it to UTF-8 before I can import it.

  4. I use a Google Sheets spreadsheet that I have been improving/updating over the years. I keep track of all my income, tax, insurance, etc, as well as all the expenses, loans, investments, etc.

    This topic came up in this forum a couple years ago, so I made a copy of the spreadsheet with my personal info replaced with placeholders, and I made it public.

    Here’s the post with the link to the spreadsheet and the document explaining how it works: [https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanFinance/comments/1alrll6/spreadsheet_finance_planning_simulation_and/](https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanFinance/comments/1alrll6/spreadsheet_finance_planning_simulation_and/)

  5. Put everything on a credit card (earn travel points, etc.) and download the monthly data as a CSV file for import into Excel.

  6. Wife and I track non-discretionary expenses/spending with google sheets (utilities, supermarkets, dining out, house-related expenses like repairs, etc.). And we only update that every 2-3 months. I don’t track taxes or health premuims, nor any car expenses (I pay attention to those, but they’re not logged), nor any personal travel or other spending. My investments are all in one account, so I just log in there to check. I’m not sure how the wife approaches her end, but she still works some and files the blue form on her own (she knows bookkeeping), so I trust her on it.

  7. An open-source app called [Cashew](https://cashewapp.web.app/). It’s pretty good, looks streamlined and not cluttered, doesn’t need to connect to any external accounts. But that’s also a “downside”- you have to input everything manually. I personally can, but I admit it’s pretty tedious and not all people can stick to the habit.

  10. There are a zillion apps that do this well. I’ve been using Zoho Expense and like it a lot. The mobile app scans the receipt and automatically categorizes it, etc. Works well for me. It reads Japanese not too badly.

  11. I use a mobile app called 1Money and put in there manually.
    Small-stuff I miss I just put as “unrecorded stuff” (which happens every month, but that is a しょうがない)

  12. In Japan you have MoneyTree, MoneyForward and Zaim.

    I’ve tried them all, Zaim is the best.

  13. I have 2 credit cards and 1 bank account.

    I download the CSVs manually once in a while, and then run a script that merges them, classifies each expense and produces a spreadsheet.

    Sometimes I write down big expenses that can’t be identified manually, for example, I withdrew a lot of cash from an ATM to buy a used bicycle. I would write that down and next merge will still have that information.

    Things such as grocery shopping that I pay in cash, I don’t keep track, it’s too much work.

  14. I use money lover app. You can’t link it to Japanese banks, but I developed a habit of adding every expense manually in 3 taps. 

  15. Google sheet version 20+ years. Supplemented by Zaim app. Or moneytree or whatever you like.

  16. I use Money Forward. These apps are in general quite safe because they only ever get read access to your data and you should never be giving them your account login details directly. The normal process when linking a bank account or credit card is that you’ll log in to your account on your account provider’s website and then approve your finance tracking app for read-only access to certain data. If the app’s security is compromised, attackers may see your purchase data but they won’t get your bank account or credit card credentials

  18. A few have said it already, in my case, I use MoneyTree. Recently started using the paid version, and I enjoy it. The only issue I have is I can’t automatically record PayPay purchases in it, but otherwise everything else is completely fine. I also have my monthly budget set up in Notion (including fixed and non-fixed expenses), and for my weekly budget, I just use pen and paper.

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