tracking your spends

GreyQueen

I've been tracking spends since 1997.

For groceries, I always used to note the total of each receipt in a notebook and total at month's end. The past few months, I've been changing my diet and wanted to see how that impacted on my food spends (went paleo, basically) so have a large repurposed envelope per month, write down on the outside exactly what I bought (sorted into categories) and the price, and put the receipt inside.

For other spends, I use an A4 hardback diary with a page for each month with an expenditure and credit column. The top entries are the fized costs such as rent, council tax, telecoms etc. Then there are entries for each purchase (I don't buy a lot of stuff). At the end of each month, I total spends by category and then total the lot and deduct it off my income.

They eventually end up on an annual excel spreadsheet, and I total the yearly expenditure for each category (autosum, I love you) and a weekly average for each category, too.

I doubt the whole process takes 15 mins a month, once you've established a system which works for you, it's second nature.

SophieLoui23

GreyQueen wrote: »

I've been tracking spends since 1997.

For groceries, I always used to note the total of each receipt in a notebook and total at month's end. The past few months, I've been changing my diet and wanted to see how that impacted on my food spends (went paleo, basically) so have a large repurposed envelope per month, write down on the outside exactly what I bought (sorted into categories) and the price, and put the receipt inside.

For other spends, I use an A4 hardback diary with a page for each month with an expenditure and credit column. The top entries are the fized costs such as rent, council tax, telecoms etc. Then there are entries for each purchase (I don't buy a lot of stuff). At the end of each month, I total spends by category and then total the lot and deduct it off my income.

They eventually end up on an annual excel spreadsheet, and I total the yearly expenditure for each category (autosum, I love you) and a weekly average for each category, too.

I doubt the whole process takes 15 mins a month, once you've established a system which works for you, it's second nature.

A bit off topic but I'm intrigued... What was the impact on your food budget when you went paleo?

emg

Another YNAB convert here. I can enter spends on the mobile app or just do a big export from my online banking. It has completely revolutionised the way I budget. Look at the mortgage overpayments in my signature, all completely down to using YNAB!

mathsus

I am currently using an ancient but beloved 2008 version of a program called Quicken on a dedicated old PC running Windows XP! Quicken has long gone from the UK but you can still buy US versions on eBay. I've got a US version so I have to remember to set up every account to be in £ and set all exchange rates to 1. I've customised it over the years to reflect my own spending and priorities and it's been a wonderful, wonderful friend since the 90s that has got me out of many disasters. I update it regularly at the moment as I'm coming up to some big financial decisions. It draws you marvellous customisable graphs, writes you plans and helps you budget. I suppose it's just a spreadsheet on steroids but I'm not good enough at Excel to do anything so fab on my own.

The reason I'm writing this is to ask if anyone knows of ANYTHING that comes close to the glory that was Quicken? I do need to upgrade.

SpekySquarehead

YNAB for me. Recent convert and I love it.

maryb

Microsoft Money. You can download a sunset version for free and it does everything I need. The budgeting tool is not that brilliant as it just divides annual bills by 12 and tells you you have overspent in the month you pay it even if you set it up as an annual expense. But I can do a cash flow forecast for the month ahead just by entering income and expenses with a future date and see how the balance changes and work out when I might need to transfer money.
The good thing is you can categorise your expenses and once set up it will automatically allocate a new payment to the category you used last for a particular payee. So you don't forget to do it. If it's the wrong category eg I got petrol from the supermarket petrol station rather than groceries I just click on the drop down menu and change it. I know YNAB is more forward looking and is about planning your spends but i need to have some idea of what i have been spending before i can do that

The reports it generates are pretty useful as well but I only tend to use one or two
I'm still using it with Windows 10 no problem even though they no longer support it. As you say Mathsus it's an Excel spreadsheet on steroids and you can export loads of data into Excel

jackyann

I am a huge fan of microsoft money, but it has become unstable on my computer, and as maryb says, it is no longer officially supported by Microsoft (why?). I am now using Bank Genie - seems good, 2 months in.

I write everything in it. In addition to my bank accounts, I have an account called "cash" into which I transfer cash when I take some out. I then write down pretty well every spend.
This is how I do it: any regular cash spends get put in as recurring: eg: eggs £2 weekly. It really doesn't matter which day exactly and it can be changed if I spend less or more one week.
For small amounts I write "shop" or "pub" and in the memo put which one.
If I have a day or evening out, I may call it "jackyann" and use the category "entertainment" or "spends".
Of course, I sometimes drift, and have to do "account adjustment" but I find it helpful generally.
I also round up/down so I am not dealing with every last penny.

Once you get used to it, you can change it around as it suits you. No reason you can't programme in a certain amount each week as general spends (way back I used to tuck £2 in a pocket of my purse every week for general spends)

I think it's about finding what what suits you best.

tgroom57

I've used an Excel workbook (spreadsheets) for the past few years. Each spreadsheet tab spans 3 months with bill categories in column A, dates across the top in row 1. I too start each week on a Friday - I've forgotten why. I have rows for household & regular bills and a couple of rows for food, travel, & various. I've recently started adding details of food spends as a comment to the cell vaue.

Besides doing the totals automatically, this gives me a sense of perspective (how much on treats compared to bills) and also helps me plan ahead when we have a 5 week month - like July. Part of the challenge is deciding just what I'm going to call a non-essential spend

GreyQueen

SophieLoui23, about 15% higher thus far. But the starting point was buttons; I spend about £60 a month on paleo-housekeeping instead of about £45 a month (singleton). And housekeeping includes non-food household consumables like t.p., wul, cleaning stuff.

SophieLoui23

GreyQueen wrote: »

SophieLoui23, about 15% higher thus far. But the starting point was buttons; I spend about £60 a month on paleo-housekeeping instead of about £45 a month (singleton). And housekeeping includes non-food household consumables like t.p., wul, cleaning stuff.

I'm incredibly impressed that you can stick to a budget that small! I'm a singleton too and try my best, but I'm probably spending circa £25/30 per week on non paleo meals.

Don't suppose you have a meal plan made up, do you?