Tracking spending-attention to detail

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-22-1999
Tracking spending-attention to detail
3
Thu, 01-20-2005 - 11:52pm

A lot of posts I have read lately have been asking questions and looking for help that I think can begin to be answered by tracking our spending. Yes, it can be a pain to pay attention and write down where every nickel, every penny went, but it sure does illustrate where it is all going....where it all went in black and white (or on the computer screen if that is your choice). Once you know where and when you have spent it, you can begin to see your patterns, your current priorities, your most frequent purchases, your total daily, weekly, monthly spent amounts. You can even write down those near-misses: The thing on sale you thought you had to have but talked yourself out of....the Starbucks you didn't buy but snowflaked instead....the healthy lunch you brown bagged at the last minute instead of buying a more expensive, greasy one later.

I think I am beginning to see for myself that I need to pay attention to details that I wasn't before, and tracking my spending is an exercise in paying attention to those details.

I went to a financial seminar sponsored by my company years ago. One of the things they talked about was "plugging up leaks" in the pipeline of our finances. The leaks were things we spent money on that were wasteful and were draining our ability to hold onto our own dollars. It was emphasising about paying attention to details in our finances. Small things do add up to make a difference ....hey, our whole snowflaking thing!!!!!!!

I hope that a couple folks or even just one person reading this will try expense tracking just for a week or a month....just try it.

I have a notebook that I use for tracking...I just write down the date,the amount and the store or what bill I spent the money on. (and if I charged it, I note that, too) At some point I will compare this month to January last year.....hmmmm....wonder what I will find. Now that will be something to write about here! LOL!

That saying, "the devil is in the details" comes to mind.....and it is true.......

Let's start paying attention to the details. Let's see what we find out about what we are doing with our money! We may find a place to start making changes.

Littlesbigs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 01-21-2005 - 6:38am

I have so been wanting to do this. Now my husband is no better at spending than I am. And I can not possibly get him on board with me. I've tried and tried. He spends and never tells me. I had a month where we were missing alot of $ and he forgot to mention it. So I'm hoping I can get him into some financial counceling with me. I really want to track our spending.

~Tris

Avatar for klmonto
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Fri, 01-21-2005 - 8:32am

This is a little OT but interesting.

KRISTI, mommy to:  

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-25-2004
Fri, 01-21-2005 - 10:07am

I know my leaks that need to be plugged are where food is concerned. I actually did track it using my online banking of debits (dh and i only use our debit card we don't really carry cash) and boy was i surprised at 2 dollars here on a big mac and 10 dollars there on a sat. night when we'd rather eat out than go to the store :(. When i showed dh how much we were 5 here and 10 thereing we were doing he couldn't belive it. And my other downfall is drycleaning. A lot of dh's work clothes HAS to go (wool, silk linings, etc.) but it's caused us to also send things that we could do at home if we have to.

Seeing that has caused me to pause now where those 2 things are concerned. I'm still trying to work on it.

I like what a previous poster mentioned about the grandma's book back to '43, wow that must be intresting to look at!