Keeping track of all expenses-help?

Competsoph

Hi!

Not sure if this is the best forum tab to put this under but i've recently become a homeowner (Woohoo!) and would like to create some sort of spreadsheet or use some sort of app to keep track of the bigger expenses each month. For example, my mortgage/bills/large expenses etc.
I'm a bit of a !!!!!! for figures and being able to track things over time. It's more of an interest thing but also helps me to understand where my money is going each month. Hopefully over the years it'll help me keep up to date with switching and ensuring I always get the best deal.

My question is does anyone else do this? Or could share their set up/app which they find works for them?
TIA

TheMightySwordfish

https://emma-app.com/

Ellie78

Do you want this as a means of keeping a detailed running budget each month or just somewhere to make a note of dates and amounts?
If you need the former there are loads of budgeting apps like YNAB (you need a budget), Ace Money, MS Money. 
If you want something simple I'd just make your own basic spreadsheet in excel or google to keep track of things. 
You could try the free trial of YNAB to see if you like something more detailed? 

Eco_Miser

I do this and more using a set of LibreOffice Calc spreadsheets (other brands available).

Everything paid by Direct Debits or Standing Orders has a sheet detailing what is due each month (for CouncilTax this is very simple, for the credit card there's a line for each purchase, and totals for each month).

A second document has a sheet for each month listing all the expected payments out (from the sheet above, and one listing cash and debit card purchases) and payments in (from another sheet listing my pensions and dividends), and calculating the running balances.

The above was developed over many years; just start with a simple list and let it grow to suit you.

Competsoph

Thanks for your ideas. I don't necessarily need a 'budget' because i'm unsure what I can afford (if that makes sense!). I can afford everything more than comfortably, I more mean that I want to keep a running total of what is paid to where, mainly for my own interest and amusement. 
I'll have a look into those things you guys have suggested, thank you!

Bogof_OAP

As of this morning my NatWest app has a brilliant new feature, that lets you keep track of your spending by categories, i.e. Bills, Shopping, Groceries, Eating out, Travel, and loads more.  If it allocates a spend to the wrong category you can change it, and it then moves any other spent items for the same payee to the new category.  As I say, it only appeared when I logged in this morning, but I can see it being very useful.  You can set yourself a budget against each category too if you want to.

Roger.Wilco

Competsoph said:

...
I'm a bit of a !!!!!! for figures and being able to track things over time. It's more of an interest thing but also helps me to understand where my money is going each month. ...

My question is does anyone else do this? Or could share their set up/app which they find works for them?

If you're really a !!!!!! with figures & really want to keep track of your finances - dip your toe in the world of accounting...

• MSMoney - old but free - no longer supported but good enough for 95% of people.
• GNUCash - opensource & runs on everything - supported but an acquired taste - but can be as complex/detailed as you wish to make it.  Graphs are basic and analysis needs a calculator from time to time.
  
• MoneyDance - commercial software - fully supported and is easy to use and has great graphing/analysis tools.
  

I personally use GNUCash - have done so on-&-off for the last 10(ish) years - works for me.  Times when a calculator is required - use LibreOffice-Calc.  Both Opensource and zero monetary cost - but may need some effort to master.

Reckless_Saving

Hands up I'm also a data junkie, I've been tracking my saving/spending life for over 20 years using ms money, a free sunset edition is still available, updating it is light touch (5mins per week) and monthly/yearly I'll scan over a few reports/charts.  It's amazing looking at a historic chart of your net worth and being reminded of events in your life that contributed to rises and falls, I've certain changed my spending habits because of it.

There's an active community of MS Money users of the sunset edition helping people out, some offering tools to aid getting data in/out of the app.  Personally I'm using the data export tool and looking at ways to transforms that data into a dataset that can easy take advantage to modern data analyst tools like Power BI which has a free desktop version.

pennyalb

I have a bit of an obsession with tracking my income, expenses and savings data as well. Healthy obsession though, I would say. I use Excel to track my income and overall monthly expenses. I love the way I can use whatever formulas I want on Excel and really customise the spreadsheets how I like. I also use the Monefy app to track everyday spending.