Need to track my Expenses - Where Should I Start?

manindersingh

I have realized that I’m spending more than I thought each month, and I really want to get a handle on my personal finances. I’m looking for simple platform to track my expenses, or plan budgetingand identify spending patterns, and build better habits.

itsthelittlethings

I use Excel.

MEM62

Excel......

Albermarle

If you go to the List of different forums, you will see a section called.
Reduce Debt & Boost Income

Lots of spending tips there.

Stubod

Simple spreadsheet is probably your easiest solution. Every month download your current account, (any any other accounts you use), and record your income and your expenditure.

Some banking apps actually give you a breakdown, and will even categorise your spending for you.

Eyeful

1. You could do it the old fashion way. Many have done it for years because it works.
Keep track of what you spend each day in a cheap pocket note book. 
End of each week, transfer it to a spread sheet.

2. Use a credit card for all your spending.
 All the information will be in the statement they send yo at the end of the month.

Exodi

Excel, and if you spend a bit of time learning the functions and setting up the sheet at the start (e.g. creating categories, vlookups + pivot table) it can make future reconciliation very quick (dump your latest statement in - look at pivot table showing spend by category).

LHW99

Eyeful said:

2. Use a credit card for all your spending.
 All the information will be in the statement they send yo at the end of the month.

But make sure you pay off the credit card at the end of every month to avoid interest.

Alternatively do all you spending on a debit card from a single account and download the statement every month for your spreadsheet or paper.

I download transactions into Excel each month. I'm sure the pivot tables etc recommended by @Exodi are great, but I don't know how to do that, so I just work with what I do understand - adding up everything in a column basically.

booksandbikes

I just use Excel.

Mrs_Z

Another vote for Excel. Mine is a very simple worksheet (one for each month), with columns for categories of expenditure which are added up monthly. Then I keep another table of the same categories showing the previous months’ totals which are copied  and summed up as an average, so I can see at glance the average expenditure per category per month and also a small table showing the average totals per previous years. I record my expenditure more or less daily.
it only takes a couple of minutes (and I don’t shop every day!) and is a very useful tool to see how/if you expenditure changes or which categories you could possibly cut down on. My expenditure in socialising has rocketed since packing up full time work 😁 but I’m not complaining!

wmb194

MS Money with exports to Excel when needed.