How do you record your expenses?

Fusspot

I'm trying to set up a spreadsheet to record my expenses but am not sure how to go about it.


Do you list every direct debit or everything you spend? I know direct debits and transactions can be seen on your online statement anyway so is there any point in recording in separately.

bouicca21

I find the idea of a spreadsheet for expenses bizarre. I wouldn't want to spend time recording every bit of expenditure; I keep a careful eye on my outgoings and as long as I'm nowhere near the red I don't care.

OK, nowadays I have enough that although I need to be careful, I don't have to get seriously worried but i did it that way in the not so distant past when things were very tight indeed and every penny mattered.

What do you intend to accomplish with this spreadsheet?

kittieviolet

I use a notepad and pen. It helps me to keep track of how I am doing with my budget that month.

GreyQueen

Fusspot wrote: »

I'm trying to set up a spreadsheet to record my expenses but am not sure how to go about it.


Do you list every direct debit or everything you spend? I know direct debits and transactions can be seen on your online statement anyway so is there any point in recording in separately.

I suppose it depends on what you want to achieve.

If you just want to be sure that your bills going out on DD have been paid, looking at your statement should be sufficient. I'm on a very low income and have a control-freaky nature and like to know where every penny goes.:rotfl:

My methods are pretty elementary. I have a piece of paper where I add every grocery spend, keeping a running total.

I have an A4 hardback diary with a page for each month of the year at the back. If the diary I've bought doesn't offer this, I choose one with blank pages and just pencil in the colums I need.

At the top, I have my bills in order; rent, council tax, ISP, phone, gas, electricity, housekeeping (the figure is added once a month from the piece of paper mentioned above). Below that, I list every single expenditure (I don't shop much). On the right hand side of the page is any income. I also assign each expenditure to a category and total it on the right, and these totals match the categories on my spreadsheet - I transfer them over at the end of the year.

I like this method because I can clearly sort the essentials from the non-essentials, and know what my real cost-of-living is, and what is fluff, and could be cut back if necessary.

At month's end, I deduct expenditures from income and see how much is left over.

I've been doing this for 21 years and find it easy, fast, intuitive and helpful, but each to their own when recording (or not recording) their expenditures.

Siebrie

In the past, when husband and I just started out, I used an excel sheet. I would have each month, with always the same items at the top of each month (mortgage/rent, gas, water, insurance) and then individual expenses as they came up. I had it set up that it would automatically calculate the totals of these categories.

This was useful for if husband wanted to send more money to relatives far away, and I could show him how much they had already received; or when husband claimed that he spent hardly anything on (for instance) clothes, and I could show him he spen four times what I did. So, for me, it was a tool to make husband realise how much he spent, and that I was aware It has helped and I have stopped tracking.

Farway

I use old version of MS Money, very easy although auto bank & share price updates no longer work

A search will find free UK copy somewhere

C_J

I use an Excel spreadsheet for household expenditure to help me budget and save. For groceries and car fuel I keep a log on a free budgeting app on my phone, I find it so easy to tap the amounts into the app as soon as I have made any purchases. It is called “spending tracker” or some such thing.

K80_Black

I keep a spreadsheet, with categories for different things. I might spend £20 in the local corner shop, which is easy to see from my statement, but it could go into many categories (food, tobacco and toiletries for example). It's more to keep track than to budget as such, but it's easy to see where my money is going.

LameWolf

I use an OpenOffice spreadsheet (like Excel but freeware).

I have one page for direct debits, the money for which is allocated at the start of the month and marked off when they've actually been taken; another sheet for credit cards, another for other "earmarked" money, eg when it's getting towards time to buy my prescription prepayment certificate, I will allocate money for it beforehand, and the last for day-to-day income and expenses. I have a similar spreadsheet for my husband's money.

Every penny that comes in or goes out of this house is accounted for on these.

I do this because in the past money was extremely tight; it means that no bill gets forgotten about and then there's a sudden panic to pay it (we both have "less-than-perfect" memories, so this sort of safety-net is very reassuring) and it takes less time per day to maintain than it has taken me to type this post.:o

buildersdaughter

I loved MS Money and used it for years, but although it still works well on some platforms, I don't find it does on my computer, so I use a programme called Bank Genie.
As others have said, think about what you want to accomplish.
I have an account called 'cash' and yes, I enter almost everything. I do lump a few things together - I know that I spend £2 a week on coffee out, and usually buy a Big Issue. I lump 'market shopping' under 'housekeeping food' and change occasionally if I buy something else.
Yes, you can look at your account to see how much money is left, but if you want to budget for food, toiletries, charitable donations, fuel etc. then you do need a system to review your expenditure. For me, as I shop a lot at markets, this does mean keeping track of cash. I've just come back from a local fundraiser, and I do need to enter that I spent £x on christmas gifts, £y on coffee & cake (entertainment) and £x as 'charitable donation'.
I would begin by being obsessive, then you can learn what you can lump together, how much to call 'walking about money' or 'lunch money' etc.

Jaffapig

I will preface this by saying I do very little cash spending which makes it easier for me.

I have a spreadsheet which has a column which lists the names of all my major income and outgoings. So that would be 'Pay' followed by e.g. 'Energy bill', 'Car insurance', 'Council Tax' etc. You coudl put dates next to these if you wanted to keep track of that.

Next to this I put the expected value per month for each (what I expect to be paid on average each month, what my average energy bill is). This way I can get a rough idea of what I'm expecting to have left to save away at the end of the month if am a spending angel :A (I am not a spending angel :shhh:)

Then I have a column for each month (or monthly pay period anyway, I don't get paid on the 1st). And then I list what I actually spend that month on each category and deduct from my income.

This has become handy now that I've really got going with it as I can start putting what I expect to happen in the future months and plan for it. E.g. In January I will have to pay my annual road tax and car insurance and will probably put me at a shortfall for that month so I'll need to make sure I have some saved for that.

The really sexy bit of my spreadheet: What I've already described is just a quick summary of the month which is on the first tab of the spreadsheet. On tab two is a list of the days of the month in one column (1st to the 31st or whatever makes sense for your pay period) and then the headers of the other columns are categories like 'petrol' and 'clothes' and 'entertainment'. Then every now and again I look at my online banking statement and just plug in what I spent on each day in each category. The totals of each column can then be used to give the total number in my first tab with the monthly summary. This is so quick to do once set up that you could really just sit down for 15mins a month to plug these numbers in.

I really love spreadsheets! But this method might be a bit harder if you do much cash spending. I do have a column for 'Withdrawn in cash' but I don't track where that goes as I don't use much, it's usually on food anyway. I think there are apps that would help track that.