How do you keep track of your spending

Apodemus

Sea_Shell wrote: »

... it's a bit of a hobby really...

I think this sums it up! If your money is also a hobby (as I suspect it is for many of us on here) then complex systems are no hassle. For those who see money management as a chore that simply doesn’t work. Sadly, there is a psychological thing at work, too: as with all hobbies, it is fun and easy when all is going well but can become a chore or a “forgotten project” when things are not going so well!

moxter

Like others here I use a spreadsheet. Nothing too fancy, about 30-odd categories and then a pivot table to track things from month to month. It's the trends that are important (I can see I've done quite a lot of eating out in the first few months of this year, for example, but that I'm not doing as much drinking in the pub as I did last year).

I keep my use of cash to an absolute minimum to make tracking things easier. Takes a few minutes each month to whizz through a bank statement and categorise everything.

It's also a ready reckoner to quickly compare spending to earning - particularly handy is monthy pay fluctuates a bit, as it does in my case.

The problem I have is that my wife (who earns significantly more than me) is rather slack about her spending and is a bit shy to let me do the same with her account.

mandySaver12

Apodemus wrote: »

I think this sums it up! If your money is also a hobby (as I suspect it is for many of us on here) then complex systems are no hassle. For those who see money management as a chore that simply doesn’t work. Sadly, there is a psychological thing at work, too: as with all hobbies, it is fun and easy when all is going well but can become a chore or a “forgotten project” when things are not going so well!

This is so true, I've recently become a bit obessed so look forward to totalling up my numbers to see the end result...

Malchester

Why not use simple free software that does all the calculations for you. I use MSMoney. I know it is no longer supported but you can do all sorts of reports, lists etc, and set up categories and sub categories depending on the amount of detail you want. The software can be downloaded free and allows as many different bank / savings accounts as you want, and caters for transfers between accounts easily

Apodemus

mandySaver12 wrote: »

This is so true, I've recently become a bit obessed so look forward to totalling up my numbers to see the end result...

Of course, it is only the executors who get to work out the final total!

trailingspouse

I created my own XL spreadsheet, as I found the commercially available ones didn't have the flexibility I needed.

I find it useful for spotting things like the amount of money we spend on food over and above our normal weekly shop, or how much my OH's ebay habit or my book-collecting is costing us. I find it's the small amounts that add up - you know if you've gone out and spent £600 on a book (it only happened once...). If you spend £60 10 times, it comes to the same amount but it's harder to spot.

The first page shows the total for the year so far, in each category, then other pages give the detail month by month. So for 'house' the first page will show the total to date for mortgage, utilities, insurance, cleaner, capital expenditure and so on, and then the house page will show the month by month totals for each each item. As well as tracking expenditure, over time you can see how things have gone up, what you paid for gas last winter and so on, which generally helps to get a 'feel' for how much things cost relative to each other.

Moneycat

Nothing fancy for me, I have 2 simple Excel spreadsheets – updated monthly:

1) Bills + expenditure
This I use to track all the monthly bills (one tab per month) – mortgage, council tax, etc. Mainly because I tend to pay them all and then ask OH for a lump sum at the end of the month for his half. We have never got round to opening a joint account and in the past we got paid on different times in the month, so it was easier to do it this way.
On this spreadsheet I also have a tab for my personal monthly spending – but only to give me an idea of the average monthly spend. This is calculated very simply: salary – savings (I set aside a fixed amount every month) = spending money for the month. If on the day before payday there is any money left, I do a ‘clean sweep’ into the savings account, record this so with this information, I can track the monthly spend plus calculate an average monthly spend of the year. My aim is to retire early, so I want to know how much my current life style is costing me. I’m not interested in going into more granular level on separating food/clothes/holidays/going out etc. I have a good idea of the areas where further savings could be made if it became necessary.

2) Assets & Net worth
On this sheet I keep a record of all of the separate savings accounts and the total. Then take away the oustanding mortgage fro that gives me the net worth. I’m tracking this as I have a figure in mind I’d like to get to before (early) retirement.

My affairs are relatively simple as there are no debts apart from the mortgage. Any credit card purchases are paid in full each month.

whall3y

I've now discovered Buxfer.com and it seems even better than MoneyWiz

mandySaver12

Moneycat wrote: »

Nothing fancy for me, I have 2 simple Excel spreadsheets – updated monthly:

1) Bills + expenditure
This I use to track all the monthly bills (one tab per month) – mortgage, council tax, etc. Mainly because I tend to pay them all and then ask OH for a lump sum at the end of the month for his half. We have never got round to opening a joint account and in the past we got paid on different times in the month, so it was easier to do it this way.
On this spreadsheet I also have a tab for my personal monthly spending – but only to give me an idea of the average monthly spend. This is calculated very simply: salary – savings (I set aside a fixed amount every month) = spending money for the month. If on the day before payday there is any money left, I do a ‘clean sweep’ into the savings account, record this so with this information, I can track the monthly spend plus calculate an average monthly spend of the year. My aim is to retire early, so I want to know how much my current life style is costing me. I’m not interested in going into more granular level on separating food/clothes/holidays/going out etc. I have a good idea of the areas where further savings could be made if it became necessary.

2) Assets & Net worth
On this sheet I keep a record of all of the separate savings accounts and the total. Then take away the oustanding mortgage fro that gives me the net worth. I’m tracking this as I have a figure in mind I’d like to get to before (early) retirement.

My affairs are relatively simple as there are no debts apart from the mortgage. Any credit card purchases are paid in full each month.

I should add an assets section to my spreadsheet to see how my investments are doing

cfw1994

Another vote for Quicken! Even set up a WinXP virtual machine on my Mac to allow me to keep using it.

Also use Excel to keep track of investments, pensions etc.

Feel quite sad how often I update it, but then I guess it is simply a bit of a hobby too.