Make expense tracking SO much easier! Using IFTTT and Google Assistant I can now say “Ok Google, Add $13.50 expense for Lunch” and it will save it to my expense tracker in Google Docs.

If This Then That (IFTTT) is an online app that connects two different services. It’s really useful for glueing things together to automate your life. For this, I use it to make expense tracking a lot easier for myself.In IFTTT, create a new applet.Choose Google Assistant as the THIS and choose “Say a phrase with both a number and a text ingredient” as the trigger.For THAT, choose Google Sheets and choose “Add row to spreadsheet” as the action.The phrase that I used was “Add # expense for $” and this seems to work well. I initially tried “Add # to my expense tracker for $”, but it confused the “to” for a “2” so it didn’t work correctly. Essentially, avoid the words “to” or “for” near the number and you’ll be fine.Also, you’ll need to say “Thirteen dollars and fifty cents” instead of “Thirteen fifty” so that it enters 13.50 instead of 1350 in your tracker.Bonus LifeProTip: You can trigger reminders based on calendar events! For THIS, use the Google Calendar and use the “New event from search” as the trigger. For the keyword or phrase I added “#Budget”. For THAT, choose “Send me and SMS” and put your “Ok Google, Add # expense for $” phrase in. Now whenever you have a calendar event with the #Budget tag in the title or description it’ll send you a text to remind you to add the expense. via /r/personalfinance https://ift.tt/2IQ8LJc