Track your expenses

Starting with 1st of September, I decided to track my expenses.

Why to track expenses?

I treat it as a small experiment. In past I tried it for a few times but I quickly dropped this idea. Now I want to better control my expenses and check if I can save more money by cutting some unnecessary spending. Therefore I decided to take a 30-days trial and strictly track all my expenses in September.

What expect from tracking expenses?

Actually, I decided to try this habit to see how beneficial it can be for me. For sure I will get a better overview of my spending, which will help me to improve my savings. I also feel that keeping in mind I track every single penny will help me avoid unnecessary shopping or spending money in different useless ways. We will see. I will post about my experiences on the beginning of October.

How to track expenses?

I want something simple. I know there are a lot of good tools for tracking expenses, both desktop and online, but as long as I don’t know if I want to permanently track my money, I will stick to spreadsheet. I made simple table with four columns: date, description (on what I spent money), amount and tag. Tag is there because I want to have a possibility to group similar spending, like food, health, sport, car etc.

During September I don’t want to focus too much on saving as much money as it is possible. I will try to spend my money in similar manner as I always did. In future I will be able to compare my average expenses with results from months where I would incorporate some frugal, money saving habits or, in general, become thriftier.

photo credit: irina slutsky