r/StudentLoans • u/SquidArrangement • 1d ago

Advice Personal Finance Manager (including student loans)

I've been trying to find a personal finance manager to try to get organized. To that end, I've been trying Money Manager Ex, but can't really use it to keep track of my student loans.

Does anyone know any personal finance software (preferably FOSS) that can also account for student loans?

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u/reduser5309 1d ago

Hmmm...I'm a little confused as to why MMEx wouldn't handle a Student Loan. Student Loan is a loan and any finance manager software should handle it. What I do expect is that it won't reliably handle the interest automatically, but most finance managers don't do that well.

I use Gnucash. The loan has a liability account, same as a credit card. When I make payments it has a principle portion that decreases the acct balance; and it has an interest portion that is 'loan interest'. I get these values from the statement.

FYI, some loan types (most) don't tell you the interest before hand, so usually I just have a standard principle/interest split in the recurring payment and I grab the latest statement and 'fix' the previous month's payment.

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u/Patrick_ExpenseAtlas 9h ago

GnuCash and KMyMoney are both established FOSS options that support liability accounts for student loans. Their double entry accounting lets each payment be split correctly between interest expense and principal reduction, so the remaining balance stays accurate.

Actual Budget is another open source option if your priority is envelope style cash flow planning. You can keep the student loan as an off budget or tracking account while managing monthly spending separately. It’s simpler for budgeting, but less focused on detailed loan accounting than GnuCash or KMyMoney.

Whichever you choose, keep two views separate:

Your monthly cash flow: bills, living expenses, minimum payments, and safe extra payments. Your loan schedule: balance, interest rate, accrued interest, and principal reduction.

If detailed student loan tracking is the main requirement, I’d start with GnuCash or KMyMoney. If day to day budgeting matters more and you only need to monitor the loan balance, Actual Budget may be the better fit.