Personal Finance (Not Investing) • How do you keep track of your personal finances?

'Books
Misc Shopping at Amazon
Car
Pet
Dentist
Groceries
Phone/Internet
Restaurants
Vacation

I then WRITE DOWN in a small notebook the amounts I've spent on these categories for the month, as well as non-credit-card spending like my mortgage and utilities.'

But why?
No argument, but how does it help anything if you spend $10 more on pet food or books that month?
(Unless, I guess, you're close to the edge.)

When I first started tracking my expenses, I did live very close to the edge, and it helped me to see exactly where my money was going. (This was in the pre-Amazon days, before the temptation of constant one-click shopping and free delivery). I had to budget tightly to fit in a yearly vacation for several years after I first entered the work force.

Now that I am a free-spending retiree, I suppose I could stop tracking expenses by category, but it does help me in 2 ways:

1. I take pride in having a low (relative to my peer group) grocery bill every month.
2. I'm actually trying to spend MORE money on vacations each year, so I do need to know what I spent on vacations the previous year.

Thanks for asking!

Statistics: Posted by PhoebeCoco — Tue Jul 30, 2024 2:46 pm — Replies 160 — Views 13450

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