How do you track your spending?

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Corona No, just very OS, but then I am 'knocking on a bit' :)My children even nicknamed me Frau Frugal as I try to get the best value for every tanner I spend :)

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117pauline wrote: »

If you get into the habit of writing down spends as they happen, you suddenly start to realise where money goes. I also noticed that there were certain people with whom I always "wasted" lots of cash and I even tracked it against my moods - really enlightening!

Good luck for 2014

That's a very good point about how our emotions can affect spending. Will definitely keep an eye on that. Thanks for sharing.

GreyQueen

chirpycheap, it's very hard to say to another adult, whether a stranger on a forum or your own spouse or offspring, what is a reasonable budget for personal spends.

One small example; I'm very happy with a 1 litre bottle of Finale shampoo out of Liddly and this lasts me several months. Cost is 89p. Someone else may only be happy with a premium product from a salon at several times the price. We're both entirely reasonable from our own points of view.

I'm a solo householder so there isn't a case of thine and mine when it comes to stuff used in the bathroom, but if you live as a couple, do you'll have some toiletry spends which are for the collective use; thinking of things like tp, bar or bottle soap for the sink, perhaps you share some shampoo/ bath product? Tissues?

And then most adults have things which are very personal such as a lady's make up and skin care products, a bloke's shaving gear or smellies. I'd put the shared products on the Housekeeping budget and the exclusive ones onto Personal.

I have categories which I sort my spending into which make sense to me; Rent, Service Charges, Council Tax, gas, electric, water, housekeeping, toiletries, homemaking (stuff for the home), clothing & footwear, computer stuff (i.e. consumables), ISP, phone, mobile phone, Food Out (anything from a chocolate bar to a meal out), Food Others (stuff bought to feed to friends), Charity, Gifts & Cards, Holidays, Entertainment (a cinema ticket or movie rental), Books (would inc newspapers and stamps), Transport (buses in my case),OTC medicines/ vitamins.

Pretty commonsensical. But all lives are different. I now have a category called Archery since I took it up two months ago and pay a tenner a week to go to a club..............:rotfl:But I don't go out the other 6 nights a week and I love it.

Money can slide away very easily on newspapers and magazines, coffees and little bits of food and drink bought outside the home. Holidays are pretty expensive, a lot more than the upfront price. Clothing is pretty steep if you buy new. Smokes and drinks, if applicable, take lots.

Some people use a heck of a lot of kitchen roll and some people like me use about one roll per 5 years. Do you pay for extra TV services or contract mobiles with bells and whistles you don't use?

Anyway, hope this maundering will be of some assistance.

strandedinaber

I use clearcheckbook.com. I pay £2.49 for it per month, and for that I can enter all expenditures from my mobile, tablet or computer, create budgets, track bill payments, run monthly/weekly/yearly reports on expenditures, track debt decreases (it automatically calculates the interest for me, although it gets a bit confused when you have different amounts on different interest rates), etc. My favourite feature lets me project balances to a certain date - so it takes upcoming bill payments and projects how much I'll have left at the end of the month. Most of those things can be done on the free version, but I like supporting smallish businesses when they provide a good service.

The only thing I have yet to figure out is how to manage when I pay for stuff by cash. At the moment I only withdraw a small amount each month for things like carparking, and everything else goes on the card so I can log it. That seems to work better for me, anyway. I'm sure my purse eats cash.

balletshoes

chirpycheap wrote: »

We are pretty good at tracking our regular bills etc but the bit that seems to run away with us is the supermarket shopping and cashpoint withdrawals. Do people work out exactly how much they are spending within those areas i.e. how much they are spending on different categories -food, clothes, gifts, toiletries etc? or just lump it all in together in a category which in our case should be entitled 'Black Hole'! What categories do people use to record their expenditure? How detailed should I go? We added up our monthly expenditure on the two and realised that we have no real idea exactly where it is all going but then we did wonder what exactly is a reasonable amount for two adults to be spending each week on food and extras? Maybe life is just very expensive these days but we need to sort it out as retirement is looming!

i do split up food shopping (which I don't then break down into anything further) from toiletries, clothes, treats, pressies - they are all listed in my little book separately. If I withdraw cash from the bank, I then list everything over £3 that I have spent cash on - believe me, it all adds up! For example, on a Saturday morning if I pop into town for a few errands I could easily spend £20 on nothing at all (a coffee, maybe a pastry, car parking, a few bits in Primark or the market stalls etc) - but if I list each part of that £20 I've spent, it helps focus me that I don't need to spending hardly any of that if money is tight and I need to cut back a bit.

lobbyludd

excel spreadsheet for me, I have columns with the date, the name of the bill or spend, the amount spent/projected and then the running balance. I know what I should be spending/have left over for 6 months into the future, so that I know if I spend X on DD's birthday I'll still be able to afford the car tax 5 months later. there is a second linked spreadsheet with childcare costs by month as that can change by hundreds depending on term times etc and is paid monthly whereas child benefit comes in 4 weekly, so needs tracking. I update it all twice weekly, checking bank balances online, and colouring things that have gone out green.

I don't use cash that much so easier for me to keep track of it all electronically. but it's quite clear I fritter, doesn't stop me but at least I know where it's all gone

gayleygoo

I am less organised than others who have replied here, but my system works fine for me. I have an A5 notebook where I keep financial info. On one page I'll do out my budget for the month (there are often birthdays and other events that need to be taken into consideration!), on the next page my meal plan for the week, on the next is my shopping list, then a page for recording spends. I only keep receipts until I've wrote the info down.

I separate my budgets into smaller categories, so as well as "food" I also have "household/toiletries...electric...fuel...clothes...personal spending...chocolate" so at the end of the month I can add them up and see where my spending is going. I keep some scrap paper in my bag so when I buy something that didn't come with a receipt I just write it down quickly. Hobbies, small treats like coffees out and magazines add up over the month so it's usually easy to see where the budget has been blown!

I also use No Spend Days as a way of controlling spending. If I don't need to buy anything on a particular day I might avoid buying unnecessary things just so I can write down the NSD!

I haven't done so well with keeping everything recorded this year but I hope to be better at it next year, so I can plan savings for holidays, clothes and christmas more efficiently. OH thinks we live within our means, but when it gets to winter and we have no savings for fuel, gifts, extra electric bills etc, I realise we haven't been planning well enough!

Domayne

I use an app on my phone called personal finance which is brilliant! You enter your income for the month and you can have up to 5 accounts stored on there so I have my current account, personal spends account, saving account and the debt account. I find its best to keep track by putting in my expenses as soon as I've spent it so I don't forget later, I find it alot easier and more convenient than dragging a pen and paper everywhere I go since I always have my phone with me

Domayne

Its really interesting reading how other people manage their finances though - I have no idea how to do a spreadsheet but that seems like a great way of keeping track! I also wish I could track my finaces to the penny too like some people here but im not that organised either :rotfl:

richardvc

irishjohn wrote: »

Microsoft money - wonderful money management software no longer on sale

I cannot believe that everyone here is PC literate and not using Microsoft Money Plus which is a free app from Microsoft.

Far easier to use than notebooks, pens and paper.

You enter your bills / direct debits etc once and enter your income and log receipts every time you spend and it will give you a running total of what you have left to spend.

Mine is automatically backed up to the cloud so I never have to worry about losing a book !!

I have used this for years and it really is the most simple and well organised money manager I have used.

This is the first thing I tell my friends to do when they say they have money worries - download it and start getting organised !