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How do you track your finances?

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  • tiddles
    tiddles Posts: 438 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    I track all credit card and bank account transactions in a notebook, and write up monthly budgets and daily spending in pencil in my Paperblanks page-a-day diary, which also contains all sorts of to-do lists and notes - I love this way of tracking our finances and life stuff, and it works well for us!
  • dreaming
    dreaming Posts: 1,213 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    A notebook and pen is just a spreadsheet by another name, in my opinion.
  • Organgrinder
    Organgrinder Posts: 767 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    dreaming said:
    A notebook and pen is just a spreadsheet by another name, in my opinion.
    If I tried to use a notebook to do what my spreadsheet does I think even one update would take a week!

    Well not quite!

    The recent change to interest rates for example!

    That said, everything currently seems on track still.
  • dreaming
    dreaming Posts: 1,213 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    dreaming said:
    A notebook and pen is just a spreadsheet by another name, in my opinion.
    If I tried to use a notebook to do what my spreadsheet does I think even one update would take a week!

    Well not quite!

    The recent change to interest rates for example!

    That said, everything currently seems on track still.
    Well, to be honest I do use fairly extensive spreadsheets with multi links and formulae because I have several accounts to track, although I am in the process of winding some of them down. I commented mainly because I have seen some comments (on here and other platforms as well as in RL) which seem to judge spreadsheets as something either exotic and/or cheating in some way when it comes to budgetting. I was just pointing out that notebook and pen uses the same method of recording income/expenditure etc. as a simple spreadsheet and works perfectly well if that is one's preference. As you rightly say, you can do a great deal more and more easily with a spreadsheet.
  • One very simple spreadsheet and a notebook,  :)
    Saving To Keep Ahead Of The Game — MoneySavingExpert Forum

    December 2025 Target for Annual Bills and Travel Account 2026  £7000. Current Total £4000.
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