let's have cake

A blog about things that make me happy, that I hope make you happy too.

[letshavecake-blog1]

Google Trips | Travel planning app

I travel a lot, and what I often struggle with when planning trips is trying to figure out exactly how I am going to maximise my time on the ground and fit in everything I possibly can while I am on vacation.

Until recently, the answer to this has been a meticulously planned spreadsheet - often down to the hour, with activities planned and scheduled according to opening hours, proximity to each other and weather, if applicable (if only I could be this detailed at work!). I’ll save pins on to my Google Maps so I can see where everything is in relation to one another, decide which cluster of places to visit on which day, and design an itinerary using this information. I have often thought, “How great would it be if someone designed an app that could do this for me?”.

Enter Google Trips. It was naive of me to think that Google hadn’t solved this problem already. It’s like Tripit, but because it’s Google, it integrates seamlessly into your Google Account (which I assume virtually everyone in the digital world has these days) and pulls information from your Account activity - not just flight booking and hotel information, but also any restaurant recommendations, places you may have looked up, and also has a feature that will design an itinerary for you based on your interests. I haven’t tested that part out yet, but safe to say my life has already changed drastically for the better.

Then again, if all you want to do on holiday is just lie on a beach and let the universe decide what happens next, then go for gold.

[letshavecake-blog1]

Monefy | Budgeting app

So I have tried a few budgeting apps in my lifetime, and they all work great for a few weeks before it becomes too-hard-basket and my spending goes haywire, yet again.

The problem for me seems to be the complexity, which is probably more a fault of my own than anything else. Really, all I want is an app where I can set myself a budget, easily track my expenses and at the end of each month see where I am spending the most money, and where I could cut back. I tried a plethora of very capable apps which I tried to use to the best of their ability, which included entering in all my various bank/credit card/cash balances to the cent, tracking all my transfers/work expenses/loans to friends and making sure they reconciled, and if it didn’t, then poo-poo, guess I should scrap it all and start again. In a few months’ time.

Monefy seems to do everything I need in a very simple and easy-to-use interface, which really is just to track my spending. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter if I record whether it came from my credit card or my bank account - it’s all money in the end, and all money that I need to pay back in some form.

Source: Monefy website

A tip I have is to leave out major recurring expenses, such as rent or mortgages, from your expense (and make sure you adjust your budget to compensate). These will distort your spending proportions, and underrepresent all the other incidental spends.

Do you have another app which you prefer to track your monies?

[letshavecake-blog1]

Hello.

Hello world. Thank you for visiting!

Before I let my newborn blog loose into the world wide web, I thought I would write a quick introduction about what it is. Which is nothing, really.

This blog is just a way for me to share things I have come across in my short existence that have made a difference in my life, big or small, which I hope you may find useful too. It may also contain random musings from my travels or daily life, or photos which are probably too amateur to post elsewhere. Basically, it’s just a random collection of thoughts which I decided to post on the internet. I hope you like reading it as much as I enjoy writing, and please, let me know your thoughts!

As for the name of the blog, it was meant to be a reference to “have your cake and eat it too”. But unfortunately “haveyourcake” was taken, so it became “let’s have cake”. Which I think is cute, and maybe even better tbh.

<3