How do you track your spending?

getmore4less

Another vote for Money.

Can take a while to set up to do full net worth racking and realistic projections with long term estimated lifespans of things like whitegoods(eg: new dishwasher every 12 years ish).

It has most things built in, budgets, tracking, assets, inventory, net worth reporting... (not sure if share downloads still work)

it also has a database so categories and accounts can be totally independent(but integrated) so you can track better.

Doing split transactions in spread sheets/notebooks is a bit of a pain.

jax1305

until recently i just used a printed sheet with money in/out so that I knew how much money i really had not just what the bank balance said, so all direct debits were accounted for at the start of the month and I know how much there is left for the month
now that I've divorced, moved house and become a single parent, I needed to get a bit more organised!
in order to budget effectively for big annual spends like car/house insurance, I've calculated how much each would be annually and set aside an amount each month to cover it. Also saving a regular amount each month for extra things like son's clothing, birthdays etc
to deal with daily spends, I've gone for excel - there's columns for food for me, food for son, food for both of us, toiletries for each, household items (wash powder, kitchen roll etc) and larger house items (a considerable amount due to house move and not having essential things like a drill and saw!) and miscellaneous.
as soon as I spend, I either keep the receipt or make a quick note, then put it into the spreadsheet as soon as possible. it's all to easy to spend a few quid here and there and three days later you can't remember where it went! so immediate data input is paramount.
i will probably refine the system as time goes on but it's been very useful so far to see where the money goes.
interested to read of apps/software for doing this kind of thing - might look into that to see if it will be any better than how I do things - the advantage of using excel is I get to tailor it to how it best suits me.

Scarlet1982

Having seperate accounts has really helped me manage my finances.

I have one just for my household bills, one for personal spending and a saving account which I use to pay for annual bills. I transfer a set amount each month into the 3 accounts and know exactly where I am.

I also use an app on my phone to keep track of my spends. I use account tracker on the iPhone it allows me to track all my accounts and o/s loans so I know exactly where I am. It also allows me to forecast into the future and export info to a spreadsheet for me to munipulate.

Abbafan1972

I am currently using Microsoft Money on my laptop, but I'm getting a Chromebook for Christmas, so is there a good alternative. I don't want to be tied to just using Money on my laptop, my laptop is quite old and takes ages to boot up.

I need to track 2 accounts, be able to enter in debit card receipts and cash withdrawals. Also, I want to be able reconcile accounts against the online transactions.

Does anyone know of a good alternative please?

Midland45

Another vote for MS Money. I've used it for years, it's really easy to set up all your Accounts, Bills, Deposits and Transfers between Accounts.
The fact it's now also free really makes it a no brainer, for someone starting out from scratch wanting to control and understand their finances a bit more. Really is the easiest way to keep an overview of your finances.

DarkHorse

Personally I use Yodlee.com. It is free to use, and connects directly to your accounts, so there is no need to enter any transactions, all you need to do is classify each transaction.

I was using Microsoft Money for many years, but I don't like having to be tied to MS systems.

I can use Yodlee.com on Windows, Android, Linux.....just about anything that can connect to the internet with a browser.

https://moneycenter.yodlee.com/

Teacher2

I have kept an oversight of my spending for thirty two years since my husband and I met.

Firstly, my husband and I pool our resources so there are never any nasty surprises.

I buy a paperback accounts book from W.H. Smith.

In the front cover I list all the constant expenditures: council tax, utility bills, direct debits, insurance payments and a sum for a 'house fund' and a 'car fund' as a monthly global sum.

In the main body of the book I write in my husband's salary and my pension and add them together. Then I subtract the monthly global sum for the bills. I also subtract anything I am saving for monthly like a holiday - or even just general savings.

Throughout the month I subtract all the cheques and credit card slips I spend on a weekly basis. Therfore I always know roughly how much we have. If we go into the red I record the transactions in a red pen which is a real incentive to rein back spending immediately.

It is a simple method but very disciplined and effective. It often makes us a bit low when we 'do the book' but we are generally cheered by feeling on top of our finances.

We know people who do not do this or who have tried and been unable to keep it up. They are not generally on top of things.

Another thing you can do with this book is NOT add in payrises or odd bonus sums of money. If you have learnt to live with what you have you can bank the surplus and put it in a savings ISA or other account.

Good luck with whatever system you choose. Getting a grip of your spending is the first step to prosperity. Knowledge is power.

pincinator

This is going to sound ridiculous and I have not really told anyone about this before, but I promise it only takes a couple of minutes a day to keep up to date once you have it set up, and also looks great...

I have been keeping track of every penny I spend for about 4 years now, and have recently changed my method since turning 30 and feeling like I need a long term plan. I use a mac and an iPhone for this, but I used to use an excel spreadsheet in dropbox and just do it on my computer when I got home:

I have a spreadsheet created in Numbers which has all my spending in it, in four columns:
Date | Thing | Cost | Category

I write down all my spending in a notebook or keep receipts, and at the end of every day (or during the day if I get a moment) I open the spreadsheet and pop in all my spending, whether it's at the supermarket, rent, travelcard, a coffee or a quid to a guy outside the tube station. I categorise these as:
Food/Home | Eating out | Personal stuff | Day/night out | Gifts | Utilities | Transport | Extraordinary | Holiday

Next to this table I have one which adds up all the things in each category, divides the totals by the number of days since I started doing this and shows me how much I am over/under per day/week/month/year if I carry on like this. I have a box at the bottom which contains my actual income and the amount I can spend, which I use to compare with what I am actually up to. The per year expected surplus/deficit can be a bit of a well-needed shock if you have a spendy week...

And then I have a little pie chart at the top which shows me the %age I spend on each thing, and a bar chart with the equivalent amounts per week. I find this pretty helpful, as then I know if I am spending too much on eating out, for example, and should be making more packed lunches etc.

I also keep all the same information in another sheet on the same spreadsheet, week by week, with a few more calculations on it.

Hope this is of use to someone, sorry it's a bit long...

I attach a link to a (blurred) copy of the main page, where you can see that I bought a sandwich from Pret because I was late for work, and I bought my mum some fancy pyjamas for christmas. Also the red at the bottom of the right hand table implies that I am a little over budget.

dropbox.com/s/6i6nt2a1mbd51j0/Expenses_blurred.png

suse*

I used to use quicken years ago and loved the pots features so for things like car tax etc you would create a saving goal for it and put the money away each month. In reality it was just in your bank account still, but I found this a lot easier to understand in a way knowing how much money had been saved in the year for each saving goal.

I have been trying to use ms money but I can't find a similar feature to be able to do saving goals. I want to easily see if I have 1000 in an account say what different budget categories that money is made up from, so I don't spend something by mistake that I had already allocated for something later in the year like car tax / insurance say.

I am not sure if I just have missed a function within money, or if I need to try some more products still.

I found this link earlier reviewing some software but these are ones you'd have to pay for so not so mse. If I could find some that did the function I needed most though I'd be willing to pay for it I think.

http://www.which.co.uk/money/bills-and-budgeting/reviews-ns/personal-finance-software/what-is-personal-finance-software/

suse*

I think I have found something that works sort of the same as how quicken did and this video helps explain it. I will have to see if I can get a voucher or something to get the software cheaper after the trial if I can set it up so it works how I hope it will.

http://www.youneedabudget.com/suppor...avings-in-ynab

Just posting this in case it is helpful for anyone else.