How do you record your expenses?

Sayschezza

I use excel. Each month over the year has a column. Top is incomings as I have several pensions/money from oh/bank reward etc. Which are totalled up. Next is outgoings ie, dd's/holiday fund/Christmas &birthdays/food&spends. Totalled up.
Next row takes one from the other so I know what's spare.This is then added as a c/f to the next month incomings.
I work 2 years at a time so I know that in April next year I will have the money to pay for my big holiday. (Cruise)
If I could be bothered I would keep a list of each of my spends over the month but as I mostly use cash I know by my bank statement how much I have taken out in any month. Same it's the odd dc purchase. This I add in each month.
As it calculates ongoing totals it keeps spending in check as I know if I spend too much in one month it impacts further into the year.

boliston

the main thing that would put me off excel is that its not really a double entry accounting system like quickbooks (which i use) - being 'single entry' means there is not the same level of error checking as there is no balance sheet

Brambleberry

I love my spreadsheets :j

Yes they're detailed, yes there are a lot of sheets, 28 at last count in two workbooks, but it works for me. I budget by setting aside 1/12 of each bill, plus a little bit and paying out from different "accounts" in my system. Most spending actually only goes through joint or personal current accounts.

bolistonYou can easily set up formulae to get an overall balance, I'm not trained in bookkeeping, but mine has some elements of a double-entry system(ish) and a zero-based-budget approach.
Every penny is accounted for and the totals balanced and checked against account balances weekly. I've had to teach myself, but if you already understand double entry, then the hardest bit is done!

Schoolworker

I have a spreadsheets of all our monthly outgoing mortgage, bills, savings, kids activities Visa payments etc. I amend this on a regular basis when amounts go up or loans etc finish.
I have a notebook i note all income and outgoings so after payday I write in wages and then write all the outgoings from my spreadsheet and then I know my current amount we have for petrol, food and other stuff. Not just looking at the bank balance as council tax and child are go out near end of the month. It works for me. When I spend I write it up when I get home so I have a current amount. It works for me.

firebubble

My system is pretty low tech.

I have a list of monthly direct debits and the date they come out, mainly to remind myself so I don't get 'surprised'.

Then I have a spreadsheet by day, and then by category - this is so I can check what I'm spending. The categories are pretty detailed, mainly in the area of food, which is the area I find where costs easily escalate, so for example, I have 'home' (raw ingredients for proper meals eaten at home), 'eating out' (restaurant meals/takeaways) and 'drinks and snacks' (coffees and chocolate bars etc).

It helps me stay conscious of discretionary spending on coffee, for example, which is what I find tough to keep down.

joedenise

I use YNAB. Spreadsheet based but no need for all the formulae! All done by the app. I'm still using YNAB4 which I paid for outright. When (or if) is stops working I'll probably move to the web based monthly paid for version.

Denise

trailingspouse

Spreadsheet over here too.

As far as possible all our spending is via the credit card, so between the current account statement and the credit card statement we pretty much have everything covered. I log every income stream and every spend under the appropriate heading (salary, dividends, gifts, refunds, cashback for income; house, car, supermarket, clothes, holidays etc for outgoings) for each month.

I don't split the supermarket spend up - it all goes under the one heading, but I know that I buy more than just food.
I only started doing it in January, so looking forward to getting to the end of the year and seeing where the big money goes.

Fusspot

Thank you for your replies. I think it will help me to log direct debits, even though they can be seen on my bank statement. I think it must be very time consuming to record every single expenditure. Large items are OK but every cup of coffee or pound spent, logging that must be tedious.

buildersdaughter

I think it depends, Fusspot. I only tend to have one coffee a week out, so it really isn't. But if I had, say a cup of coffee every day, I'd set up a 'direct debit' from cash for the weekly amount. We go to the pub most weeks and spend about £10, so I do that.
I usually suggest that it's worth logging everything for a month or so, to get an idea of where the money goes.
But that is my choice (bit geeky) I could just set up, say £50 a week to cash and only amend it when needed.

VfM4meplse

bouicca21 wrote: »

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.

Believe it or not, it does help! But I agree that it is a lot of effort if it's not done daily.

I'm not a cash person, so scrutinising my cc balance online regularly is effective in reducing impulse expenditure