How do you all track your spending?

a_silver_lining

I have an ap on my phone. It allows you to put in your own categories. I find it a lifesaver as I can tap in amounts as I pay for them and so don't think I've forgotten to put anything in gives me a really accurate idea of which areas I'm overspending in.

nikongirl

Different things work for different people, but many years ago I discovered an app called Daily Money on the Palm Pilot.

I now use a similar app on the iPhone called Daily Budget. You tell it how much income you have, what your fixed monthly expenses are and how many days until your next income date and it divides your expendable income into a daily allowance. You track your spending through it and if you underspend on one day, that day's budget gets 'rolled over' to the next day and so on. You can also set savings goals over a given time period and it automatically subtracts the required amount each day. I like the quick reward of seeing my budget go up each day if I'm good.

I've played around with my own use of the app and now every 7 days I put the overspend into my savings account, starting the week again with my standard daily budget. Savings so far this month - £220!

There are other, similar, apps but this is the nicest to look at, IMHO.

I try to only spend using my debit card rather than cash because I can then track all my transactions through my statement. I know that doesn't work for everyone but it does for me.

blisteringblue

FireWyrm wrote: »

You carry on, and you will be the one sitting pretty with the zero mortgage and savings in the bank long before your friends have twigged how to get their cheque books to balance.

I'm a little late to the party but I've never been so switched on to something in my life. I want to be retired at 60 (55 if I can really bust a gut but our crazy mad stupid old lifestyle could have put a stop to that) so that only leaves me 15 years.

Just entering a DMP for 60K on cards , luckily I've a good wage and oh is retraining to teach so extra income eventually and fully expect that to be done in 4 years.

Obviously the credit rating is done for the whole of this "retirement" process so I need to go solo and make my money work. My pension pot is good (the only switched on money thing I've ever done in my life) so I only really have to concern myself with the the debt and the remaining mortgage (100k).

Absolutely loving my first play with YNAB. It is going to be exactly what we need. We have never budgeted in our life. If we wanted it it went on a card, or heaven forbid the mortgage.

Totally love the instant access on your phone. It's already setup on my iphone and wifes Android. Although she said she wasn't impressed, the nerd in me thinks she is

Budget Away Friends :T

Muser1

Is ynab suitable for technophobes? I'm more of a pen and paper kinda gal than a spreadsheet one.

ellisthomas86

I use Replicon for keeping track of my expenses, making reports out of it, managing the invoices and bills as well. The tool being hassle free is also featured with a calendar based and user friendly interface to manage the spendings go in a better way.

FireWyrm

Muser1 wrote: »

Is ynab suitable for technophobes? I'm more of a pen and paper kinda gal than a spreadsheet one.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with pen and paper if it works for you. The nice thing about YNAB is that it is pretty easy to use and more of a big excel spreadsheet for people who dont want the hassle of trying to work out formulas for cells. You could replicate all that it does in Excel (barring the automatch against imported data) and even then, not an issue for someone who knows what they are doing. YNAB just makes it pretty and autocalculates for you along with automatching incoming data if you want to do that. It syncs with DropBox so you have your budget with you all the time and you can input transactions directly on your phone which will sync up.

My advice is to download the trial and see how you get on. There is plenty of help available on the web.

joedenise

davenport151 wrote: »

Do be aware though that months do not fit into the exact 4 weeks. I tend to check agead to see how the month falls and arrange budget accordingly.
This also works to advantage/disadvantage for me as some months I fall short on contract hours some over. I set a sum for each month that covers both.

I find it better to divide the money into 5 each month then when it's a 4 week month put the 5th week's money into savings for bulk buying of meat, toiletries etc or you could put towards annual bills. This means that you are always prepared for 5 week months without having to worry about it.

Hope someone will find this useful.

Denise

Willowpop

joedenise wrote: »

I find it better to divide the money into 5 each month then when it's a 4 week month put the 5th week's money into savings for bulk buying of meat, toiletries etc or you could put towards annual bills. This means that you are always prepared for 5 week months without having to worry about it.

Hope someone will find this useful.

Denise

I rather like this idea. Wonder if I could afford this. May try for the next few months.

saving2704

joedenise wrote: »

I find it better to divide the money into 5 each month then when it's a 4 week month put the 5th week's money into savings for bulk buying of meat, toiletries etc or you could put towards annual bills. This means that you are always prepared for 5 week months without having to worry about it.

Hope someone will find this useful.

Denise

Thats actually a really good idea to split by 5 - might try that myself

joedenise

Willowpop wrote: »

I rather like this idea. Wonder if I could afford this. May try for the next few months.

The way I look at it is that you have to afford it in 5 week months so why not just think of every month as being a 5 week month!

Denise