How I Track and Plan Personal Finances in Airtable

Why I track my finances manually

• There are many apps available to track expenses and I’m almost certain that this is the most convenient and accurate tool if you live in a country where the app is compatible with the banks that you use. Because I live in Trinidad, many, if not all of the apps that I’ve come across, do not allow connections with our local banks.
• Entering every expense and keeping to a regular “base update routine” has helped me to be more mindful of my spending. While I’m not a big spender generally, I tend to spend more than I should on things like food, in particular, sushi. Knowing and seeing that I’ve already spent x amount on sushi for the month, I tend to think twice before placing another order.

What I need in a finance planner

• Tracking of: income, expenses, savings, projects and transactions involving other persons.
• Budget
• Logging of recurring bills
• Asset tracker
• Monthly review of total income, expenses and savings

To Note

• This base is built specifically for my needs and therefore it’s certainly not ideal for everyone. Some of the tables, like budget for example, do not actually work as a budget in the traditional sense and are still being planned out.
• I built this base and started using it at the beginning of this month (March, 2022) and so, as I continue to use it, I will be able to tweak and improve on this initial system. This is a work in progress.
• The online Airtable community is quite robust and extremely helpful. By searching for ‘expenses’ or ‘budget’ in the Airtable Universe, I was able to see bases built by other people and to learn how Airtable works.
• Currency: Trinidad and Tobago Dollar (TTD)

Base Tour

The base currently consists of 8 tables: transactions, budget, recurring bills, debtors, projects, assets, monthly review and notes.

💵 Transactions

This is the main table which houses income, expenses and interpersonal transactions. The master view shows all fields (columns) of the transactions table.