#586 : The search #MondayMusings

This weekend, the plan was to sort out a few things - The electrical wiring in my home, the bookshelf, my to read pile and my finances.

The Electrical writing - God bless my electrician to have sorted out the mess of a wiring some other harebrained electrician did. Can't possibly thank them enough for giving me time to finish off Erich Segal's Love story.  The frequent toggling of electricity had made it impossible for me finish off the work I carried from office. I was in no mood to do it on Sunday. However, the mess he left behind took up most of my time. I spent a good hour picking up cut wires, sweeping and moping off all the dust accumulated.

The Bookshelf - I still hadn't arranged the pile of book I brought back from my mom's place. I haven't emptied my book shelf there yet. It's been 8 months since I've been married and a piece of me still can't believe that I ought to move everything here. I've left behind enough clothes, books and some of my accessories too. These books finally found a place below my tiny side table.

The To Read Pile - I have this habit of taking screenshots/pictures of books other people read and talk about. My social media feed is filled with posts about books. I had accumulated about 78 such photos. I decided to sit down and write it all down in my journal so that I can actually look up, buy and read. I had debated between making a note via Evernote and writing it down. Writing won hands down. The prospecting of using the beautiful ink pen and feeling it glide over the perfect journal I own seemed way too much enticing to give up on.

The Finances - My mother has this habit of maintaining a journal to keep track of all our family's investment. However, long gone are the times when she used to keep track of daily expenses. It's become too tiresome to keep track of cash and card bills seperately. Her habit has rubbed off to me and given that I've been employed for the past 5 years, I decided to sit down and check my finances. I concluded that I needed an App or some way to track my money. Here are some features which I wish were available

1. Picking up expenses from SMS alerts - I own an iPhone, iOS wont allow apps to read message texts unless I've jail-broken the iOS and installed the app as a system app. I do not want to connect my bank accounts by giving out my net banking credentials.


2. Multiple account tracking - I need all my money in one place. Not that I own much, but I need to see what little amount is left cumulatively.


3. Cash Expense - I need to track expenses into two categories - Digital expenditure and Cash expenditure. Having multiple categories like grocery, movies, food, fuel etc will really help.


4. Receipt management - I have this habit of stashing away all receipts into my wallet. Would be nice to store them as photos before trashing them.


5. Expense Report - Money in, Money out - Just numbers will do. Fancy charts would be a plus.


6. Budget controls - I would like the data to shout out to me if I exceed the budget!


7. Multiple users - It's just essential if your partner is also working and you split the expenses.

If you look closely, I've not mentioned savings tracking to the list. Thank god for my financial adviser Mr.C Ravikumar to have partnered with an app development company to come out with the perfect savings tracking app. That app can help track SIPs, Insurance. stocks, Bonds. PPFs. RDs, FDs and what not! You name it, the app has it! He updates all the paper work done to invest on the app very regularly along with reminders to renew. I'd probably be all lost and confused trying to track complicated funds.

I couldn't find a single FREE app for iOS which satisfied all this criteria! If you know of any, please do let me know!

PS. Thanks to Corinne @ Write Tribe/ Every Day Gyaan for inspiring me to write today :)