How do you keep track of small monthly expenses?

Rob5342

I split things into pots in Monzo and have a pot I empty each week and then check the app every time I spend something. The trends feature shows me how much I've spent on each category and at each retailer. All direct debits come straight out of my bills pot, then I normally go shopping and fill up with petrol each time I empty a weekly pot, and then the rest is fun money which I just need to make last a week and can keep track of with the app. I have a spreadsheet with all my regular bills, subscriptions, savings amount and weekly pot amounts on which I use to determine how to fill the pots when I get paid.

CrickJon

I am 53 and when I turned 50, I started to properly record all our spend to get ready for understanding what we will need in retirement.

Every month I sit down and go through the bank statement and categorise into bills (by type), subscriptions (what), monthly consistent costs (monthly property grounds fee, haircuts, phones, window cleaning etc), then variable costs (Amazon, car non-fuel, car fuel, all food related spending, all eating out spending incl coffees, garden/house/diy, health and then at the end leisure/general where I tend to dump random stuff, including clothes spending.

I also have a one offs section split out for holidays/travel related and miscellaneous.

I watch the trend for all these lines and if anything goes up out of the ordinary, me and the wife keep an eye on it or take action to reduce something.

UKX69

We just use a credit card for absolutely everything and check the outgoings regularly and pay it off at month end. Job done!

boingy

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82145328#Comment_82145328

Coffee is one that catches quite a few people out. I used to work with a chap who turned up every morning with a large Costa coffee that he bought en-route. One day he commented about how little spare money he had. So I asked him how much the coffee cost then multiplied it by 20 and we were both equally shocked at the monthly cost! (I can't remember the numbers but it was comfortably into three figures)

Rich1976

oh it is scary indeed and once you factor in any food it’s even worse.

kimwp

I categorise my spends for the month into a spreadsheet (after the fact).Anything that is becoming an out of control monthly habit, i keep an eye on for a while until it becomes sensible again. If I want to keep tight control, then I'll use virtual pots, funded according to a frequency that's easy to manage eg a three times number is fairly easy to track: three left, two left, one left. (So a three-a-week coffee spend would be topped up once a week, but three a month coffee spend would be topped up once a month)

mta999

I carry two credit cards - one for the big stuff for example food shop, petrol, car repairs whatever. The second one is for incidentals

Every month I get a fully itemised statement and can see exactly what I have spent in both categories

ScratchyCat

I have a Spending Tracker app on my phone. Its only any good if I record my spends, I've slacked this week. Now I need to remember the spends I didn't have receipts for. Fortunately only a couple. I ask for receipts for most shops I do.

I still get paid in cash by some clients so I use that to pay for shopping, petrol etc. The rest of the cash I pay in to my bank account via the post office every couple of weeks.

No credit card. But I do pay for some things with bank card.

I dont buy coffees etc. Essential shopping only as I am hard up currently.

I keep all receipts in my purse of all my purchases then transfer to an enevelope every few weeks. At the end of the year I can get those receipts out and tally up with a calculator and compare with my spending tracker.

horsewithnoname

I used to keep a spreadsheet and note everything I spent. Again with the fancy coffees, I couldn’t believe how much I was paying for them. Now I don’t do it because having seen where I was wasting money, I now only buy what I need or something I really want.
I was spending 200-300 a month on coffee, and I’m going back a good number of years. I was ashamed of myself when I worked it out 😬

DjangoUnchained

i use an excel spreadsheet, try and update it every day or so. Only started tracking about 8 months ago, was a real eye opener, especially takeaways, snacks , littlke things that add up.