Spending diary.....

sistafromanothermista

Afternoon

A lot of the tips suggest a 'spending diary' i have been down to A today and bought a 40p pad of paper to start.
How do you lay it out? as in columns etc? i started by listing it but it looks a right mess and i don't think i'd be able to keep a close eye on it (or even understand it come the end of the month )
I have tried google and images but can't seem to find anything.
Any tips?

We have 2 bank accounts 1 current where all the dd's come out of and another account for child ben, maintenance and this is the account which pays the kids dinner money and sometimes shopping. This is making it harder to work out the layout of the columns etc any help on what you do and how would be appreciated

sistafromanothermista

Any ideas?

thoughts_please

I have recently re-started my spending diary and mine is just a small notepad. I wrote in the front of the notebook what my budget was and then I organise it 'monthly' i.e. since I'm paid on the 15th of each month, I put a title '15th May - 14th June' and then list my spending under it, something like this:

Budget
Supermarket/ food £160
Petrol £100
Extras/ entertainment £40

15th May - 14th June
15/05/12
Sandwich £2
Coffee £1

16/05/12
Supermarket food £40
Petrol £20

etc.

Note - I only use my spending diary for these kind of spends - I have a spreadsheet where I log more ocassional spending such as presents or clothes.

Hope this is helpful - it's just what I do and I'm sure there are better ways to do it!

Then at the end of each 'month' I add up the spending in my categories and check if it's under/over the budget I had set. x

mildredalien

You could just use the notepad to literally write down everything you buy in cash or on card (maybe three columns - description, cost, running total?) and check the totals against the money you should have left over each month after all your DDs and SOs come out of your account. It's up to you whether you do one notepad for each bank account or just total it all up together.

sistafromanothermista

Thanks
I was also being a bit of a numpty and found a site called spending diary . com but it looked as if it was all in dollars. It's not i am rubbish when it comes to excel or anything like that but this one seems really really easy!!! even i can do it

I will also keep a paper one just in case though...

rising_from_the_ashes

I have a spreadsheet where I log every spend and it also includes all monthly payments such as d/debits, transfers to budgeting pots etc etc

I don't therefore use my spending diary to keep track of how much should be in my account / d/debits coming off etc & purely use it for things purchased either by cash or on the cc on a daily basis (which is my downfall!)

It has got a lot simpler now I've been doing it for a while and I now have say

Friday 1st
Canteen - £3.50 C
Saturday 2nd
Mr A - £35 *
Mr A - fuel £30
Sunday 3rd
NSD

* this would then be individually listed on the spreadsheet so I can take things out and put them into the relevant budgets (I could spend on groceries, dog, cat, electrical stuff & clothes in Mr A!)

I do probably 99% of purchases on the cc (cleared in full each month) as I'm terrible with cash - so the very few cash purchases will have a big C beside them. HTH

Barbeduk

Hi, mines all handwritten in the diary, every Friday I note the current balance of the account, the direct debits due to come out over the week, any uncleared cheques. Then during the week I update debit card payments that will need to clear. Like rising I rarely use cash as I have pared the spending back so much. I run the accounts on the minimum needed to service the outgoings, any extra went to the debt, now it goes into the savings account to save for annual bills and a new boiler.

I do check all the accounts daily, just can't break the habit!

Good luck sista, I always enjoy reading your threads.

Lexxi

I just googled spending diaries and this was one of the threads that has come up. With it being quite recent I thought I would ask my questions here, hope you don't mind OP?

I have a little A5 diary so I am going to write down all spends in this to keep track and then transfer it to a spreadsheet. I haven't put a spreadsheet together yet, I'm not quite sure what I would need to put in it though, I want it to be quite basic until I get my head around things. Do people list each item or just the store? Like if I nipped out for bread and came back with allsorts would you write down each item or just that it was food?

And, does anyone account for penny jars? I find I can't account for money at the end of the month but I tend to empty my purse into the penny jar and either raid it if I'm skint or count it up after a few weeks/months. Sorry if that's a really odd question

badger_

sistafromanothermista wrote: »

Thanks
I was also being a bit of a numpty and found a site called spending diary . com but it looked as if it was all in dollars. It's not i am rubbish when it comes to excel or anything like that but this one seems really really easy!!! even i can do it

I will also keep a paper one just in case though...

If you go into settings (top of the screen near the right) you can change it in to ££

Barbeduk

Lexxi wrote: »

I just googled spending diaries and this was one of the threads that has come up. With it being quite recent I thought I would ask my questions here, hope you don't mind OP?

I have a little A5 diary so I am going to write down all spends in this to keep track and then transfer it to a spreadsheet. I haven't put a spreadsheet together yet, I'm not quite sure what I would need to put in it though, I want it to be quite basic until I get my head around things. Do people list each item or just the store? Like if I nipped out for bread and came back with allsorts would you write down each item or just that it was food?

And, does anyone account for penny jars? I find I can't account for money at the end of the month but I tend to empty my purse into the penny jar and either raid it if I'm skint or count it up after a few weeks/months. Sorry if that's a really odd question

Hi, when you say all spends, do you mean anything on top of the rent/mortgage, other direct debits? I'd log the supermarket shopping as 'groceries' but keep all the receipts for the month, then go through them to see how much unnecessary stuff is on there. Log every debit and credit card spend and what it was for. Log every cash spend. And yes, count that money before it goes in the change pot, you could be putting much more/less in there than you think.

KitKat00

I used to write it in a notepad but I tend to lose bits of paper if I write it so I switched to using Excel for my spending diary. I actually didn't realise that many people did it so to know there is a diary online is quite amazing. I put things in every column, groceries, clothes, toiletries, rent, petrol, extras (like presents and treats) otherwise I get confused