How do you or did you track expenses?

[CountryGal]

kgtest - yes, having a column that shows the source is essential. Thanks for pointing that out.

 

[RonBoyd]

RonBoyd - yes that answers the receipt question. I have tried the scanning practice and failed. I probably could have gotten it to work eventually, but felt like too much work. Dumping all receipts into a basket seems the easiest. For disorganized me, they may get lost before they get there. The app I mentioned above has the ability to save "pictures" of your receipts as you enter entries.

Yes, Moneydance can add the receipt to the Entry, too... however, that still requires taking the time to scan the receipt.

 

[Fedup]

I start with my bank account. Deposits are income and payments are the items of the budget. I just want to get an idea but not specific about what I pay out. I want it to be simple, not too complicated.


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

 

[big-papa]

I use Excel. I have major categories such as Utilities, Insurance, Taxes, etc. Then within each Category I have things like Electricity, Internet, Mobile Phone (under Utilities). For the last 2 years we kept receipts and I entered them once per week. Starting this year, we keep receipts only for things we might return - otherwise, we pay for just about everything either by bank draft or via a credit card. That means all transactions are available electronically to be downloaded to excel where I can then sort and cut-and-paste.


Each month has its own tab. I have a master tab with a month-by-month budget since some bills only happen a few times a year. The budget is based off of previous year's expenses. I have another one where I roll up expenses vs. planned so I can see where we're above or below plan.

 

[Danmar]

Lots of ways to do it depending on what's important to you. We have about 40 categories grouped into sub totals by property (4), travel, other expenses not location specific. Use excel and have been doing this for about 25 years. Key point is I balance to my month-end cash balance every month so I know I got everything. Using dual currencies makes it fairly complicated.

Doesn't really matter how you do it as long as you do it. The OP probably should have done if for a few years prior to retiring, but better late than never.

 

[CountryGal]

Danmar I have been able to go back through most of 2015 and 2014 with expenses. However I don't have credit card detail. My old card was hacked a few months back and I haven't been able to get the transactions off it. I may have been able to when it happened, but I am just trying to do the exports now.


There is another app I have used that could also be used for receipts. Jot Not. You can take a picture with your phone and then save it or email it. Still.. more trouble than throwing in a basket.

 

[RonBoyd]

Interesting. Those that do keep track of their expenses seem to be doing it in a much more complicated, time-consuming way than I do. What a change from several years ago when a similar thread was active.

 

[W2R]

After not having any credit card for 15 years or so, I got one a couple of years ago.

I have been jotting down my credit card purchases in my spending spreadsheet as I make those purchases. Then I check at the credit card website every week or so to make sure I haven't forgotten something.

Just a thought - - if you don't make too many CC purchases, maybe something similar could be helpful? At least that is how I like to do it, YMMV. I only average about 4-5 CC purchases per month.

 

[pullmyfinger]

Pretty sure I'm the odd one here. I use a budget book and write everything in by hand every week or so:

Robot Check

Only started doing it about ten years ago, so I don't have decades of spending records, but it works for us.

I used to keep track in a notebook many years ago when I was single and plot it on graph paper every month like in "Your Money or Your Life".

Now DH keeps track using an Excel spreadsheet. He adds things daily as we make purchases, but we do not make many purchases so it only takes a few minutes. Categories are of course quite individual. One of our biggest expenses is food, not because we spend a ton, but because our overall spending is pretty small. We break food into categories like meals out, and groceries are further broken down into produce, snacks (meaning junk food) and a separate category for my diet coke addiction.

 

[timo2]

My bank has an online feature that allows one to add expected or planned expenses into the online register that shows what charges have cleared. This works great.

 

[Throwdownmyaceinthehole]

I use excel and copy/paste from my credit card which we use for almost every thing to get the points back, and then also my debit card. I then assign a category and use pivot tables to tie to my budget or I can pivot by month. We have always taken a weekly allowance of 100 bucks each, and I don't track where that went, it's just allowance. I can do pro formas to project annual expenses, and also charts. Which I then show to hub, and he could care less. He just wants to know how much is left.

He does a Friday morning report on investments which has become a coffee drinking tradition.

 

[scrabbler1]

I keep track of my expenses in broad categories and those most easily quantifiable. For example, checks that I write (or if I use ACH or another automatic, electronic payment scheme) can be allocated into a specific category or categories. My monthly co-op maintenance check includes itemized amounts for property taxes, mortgage interest, and parking fees, for example. Utilities such as cable TV, phone, and electric are also separate but I have been lumping together phone plus internet because they are billed together.


Income taxes are now paid by estimated payments or in April. Auto and home insurance are paid separately. I lump together all medical and dental costs such as premiums, copays, and deductibles.


Some expenses have to be separated from bills which include other expenses. Those include car repairs and maintenance bills because they are paid via credit card along with other expenses. I don't use my CC very often although more in the last few years than I used to because I pay for most of my groceries with a CC. I don't separate out my cash expenses unless they happen to fall into a specific category I keep track of. This was the case when I was working and had to put all of my commutation costs together.


I ended up with about 25 categories in my spreadsheet although some of them disappeared over time and others appeared more recently. I don't sweat the small stuff for the most part. The only time I did sweat some of the small stuff was when I stopped working in 2008 and had to assemble an ER budget based on my then-working spending patterns. Then, I tried to figure out items such as money spent on lunches at work.


It has all worked out just fine.

 

[wrl11]

I have used Quicken for 10 years, importing credit cards, brokerage and banking accounts. I try to charge everything on the cards to ease tracking, I pay it off every month. Amazon is the toughest, I buy alot there and its time consuming to break it up into the categories since amazon often breaks up orders and ships and charges an order a different times.

Quicken is great because you can do alot of different reports to examine spending in different ways, and investment accounts and lots of budget views.

Only problems I have are 1. when I have subcategories, a few of the subs come out as main categories in reports, very annoying. 2. it keeps trying to suggest long closed and deactivated accounts when transfering or paying money.

 

[rvbound]

I'm surprised more people don't use Mint.com. With mint I can track my expenses and net worth on a daily (and sometimes hourly) basis. I've tried Quicken a number of times and just found that it required too much manual entry and downloading of files, etc.

 

[explanade]

If you search for other threads, some concerns about the security and privacy of services like Mint is discussed.

 

[Closet_Gamer]

I've gone thru 3 distinct budgeting phases, each centered on spending my time where is matters:

1). Cash Flow Stage

Right after college, deep in debt...sat down beginning of each month and budgeted to the dollar everything coming in and every expense that would go out the door. Money left at the bottom was for beer. Usually about $20. I would watch every dollar that went out each month, to the dollar, as it went out.

2). Savings stage

I would budget monthly using "pay-myself-first" savings as the first line item and then figuring what we needed/could spend by category. Would pull credit card reports into MS Money each month and cross check with the the spouse how we were doing on spending by category. That went on for 15 years or so.

3). Wealth Building Stage (now)

I find my time is better spent worrying about asset management, taxes, and multi-year investment planning. I have budget categories that carry year-to-year and don't change much. In December I pull down the last 12 months from credit cards and pull cash withdrawals from bank statements to sanity check that the categories haven't gotten out of whack or our behavior gotten too soft. I then use these as top down budget guidance for the following year as I build our financial/investing plan.

But then I turn my attention back to investing and assume that our behaviors will keep expenses in line thru the next year. Whether we spend $50 or $75 per month on Cheetos and beer is now far less relevant than ensuring I manage our deferred comp and investing rhythm properly.

 

[nvestysly]

We started keeping track of every penny over 16 years ago when we attended a series of seminars related to "Your Money Or Your Life." The book was written by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin.

As noted on this thread there are lots of tools to keep track of expenses. The most important think to do is the actual act of doing it. I've seen lots of people utilize smart phone apps, spreadsheets and other software but you have to find a method that allows you to record every expense - whether it's a check, a credit or debit card, cash, etc.

For me and DW that means we each use a small spiral bound book - small enough that it fits in a shirt pocket - and we write down everything. And I do mean everything.

Do this for a few weeks and you'll begin to see which categories make sense for you. As some said, less than 10 categories works for them. For others, dozens of categories works. Don't get hung up on the categories at first, just record the expenses.

Our method of using the spiral bound notebooks works for us. From there I put the information into Quicken. A friend uses a smart phone app and it works great for him.

Here's a picture of over 16 years of data for two people - old school I know. Use an app if that's better for you but you have to record every penny IMO.

 

[hesperus]

I certainly don't want to enter every transaction manually. We keep our checking and expense accounts at wells fargo, and they have a money map function that tracks everything that goes in and out of expense accounts. I use bill pay there, too so everything goes through there. It even categorizes the expenses pretty well. It tracks our average expenses over 6 and 12 months. That's all we really need to know.

 

[nvestysly]

I certainly don't want to enter every transaction manually. We keep our checking and expense accounts at wells fargo, and they have a money map function that tracks everything that goes in and out of expense accounts. I use bill pay there, too so everything goes through there. It even categorizes the expenses pretty well. It tracks our average expenses over 6 and 12 months. That's all we really need to know.

I understand that and this method is not for everyone. A smart phone app works reasonably well too and there are a variety of other methods.

The single biggest reason we use the spiral notebooks (and I've also used Pocket Quicken until that product was discontinued) is to record every single expense as quickly as you can after it occurs. The act of writing the expense down immediately, or perhaps at the end of every day, provides a tactile feedback about where your money is going.

I don't want to go on too much of a tangent but the ideas in YMOYL (mentioned in previous post) are to achieve a Zen-like connection between you are your money. You spend life-energy making money, or investing, etc. Spending money, and knowing immediately what you spend it on, provides loads of feedback. Regardless of what method is used I highly recommend using a method that incorporates immediate or near immediate feedback. Looking at expenses once a month doesn't provide the same sense of where your money goes.

 

[hesperus]

You spend life-energy making money, or investing, etc. Spending money, and knowing immediately what you spend it on, provides loads of feedback. Regardless of what method is used I highly recommend using a method that incorporates immediate or near immediate feedback. Looking at expenses once a month doesn't provide the same sense of where your money goes.

+1
It's almost too easy with debit/credit cards to lose that connection with the intrinsic value of a dollar. Good point, and it wouldn't be a bad exercise every once in a while to track our every expenditure for 30 days in a notebook. Would give us a sort of reminder just how fast it can slip out of our electronic wallet.

 

[Meadbh]

As noted on this thread there are lots of tools to keep track of expenses. The most important think to do is the actual act of doing it. I've seen lots of people utilize smart phone apps, spreadsheets and other software but you have to find a method that allows you to record every expense - whether it's a check, a credit or debit card, cash, etc.

For me and DW that means we each use a small spiral bound book - small enough that it fits in a shirt pocket - and we write down everything. And I do mean everything.

I could never be disciplined enough to keep a notebook and pencil with me constantly and write every expense into it immediately, as you do. It could be socially awkward. However, like you, I do record everything. My strategy is to reduce effort by automation, as follows:
(a) put all my utilities and regular payments on automatic debit
(b) charge everything possible to one credit card (I now use fewer than 10 cheques per year)
(c) collect all receipts and transfer them at the end of each day to a Ziploc bag labeled "current month spending"
(d) document any unreceipted cash transactions (1-3 per month) on a Post it note in the Ziploc bag.
(e) check my current and credit card accounts online every 1-2 days
(f) download data from current and credit card accounts to Excel expense spreadsheet at the end of each month. Spreadsheet is preloaded with regular recurring payments, e.g. Strata fees. Reconcile with the contents of the Ziploc bag. Shred all receipts unless needed for warranties or tax returns.
(g) repeat.

 

[braumeister]

(c) collect all receipts and transfer them at the end of each day to a Ziploc bag labeled "current month spending"
(d) document any unreceipted cash transactions (1-3 per month) on a Post it note in the Ziploc bag.
(f) download data from current and credit card accounts to Excel expense spreadsheet at the end of each month. Reconcile with the contents of the Ziploc bag. Shred all receipts unless needed for warranties or tax returns.

I automate things even a bit more. I use Moneydance on my computer for all financial stuff. It also has an app for my iPhone that syncs via Dropbox. When I'm out and about, I can take just a few seconds to enter a purchase in the phone app (and even take a picture of the receipt if I like). When I get home, it has already been entered into my Moneydance file.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

I only track in detail a few variable categories - household, groceries, entertainment and restaurants in an Excel spreadsheet by month. Everything else is either fixed or in the "it is what it is" category. Expenses like vet bills and car repairs I put an annual amount in the budget and I don't worry if we spend more or less in a given year, as they all usually average out. Expenses like car insurance and the water bill just get budgeted for annually. They don't change that much during a given year so we don't track those kinds of expenses in detail.

For Amazon items I get gift cards from get paid to apps or use credit card points so within reason everything I want from Amazon does not cost us anything out of pocket. I'm also an Amazon Vine reviewer so I get a lot of electronics and household items for free. I try to play beat the budget each month. Like this month I have a lot of comp event tickets, restaurant gift cards and groceries stockpiled so I'm going to try to use up the stockpiles, not spend much at all on the little stuff and use the money instead for some new furniture or home improvement type project.

 

[RonBoyd]

I could never be disciplined enough to keep a notebook and pencil with me constantly and write every expense into it immediately, as you do. It could be socially awkward. However, like you, I do record everything. My strategy is to reduce effort by automation, as follows:
(a) put all my utilities and regular payments on automatic debit
(b) charge everything possible to one credit card (I now use fewer than 10 cheques per year)
(c) collect all receipts and transfer them at the end of each day to a Ziploc bag labeled "current month spending"
(d) document any unreceipted cash transactions (1-3 per month) on a Post it note in the Ziploc bag.
(e) check my current and credit card accounts online every 1-2 days
(f) download data from current and credit card accounts to Excel expense spreadsheet at the end of each month. Spreadsheet is preloaded with regular recurring payments, e.g. Strata fees. Reconcile with the contents of the Ziploc bag. Shred all receipts unless needed for warranties or tax returns.
(g) repeat.

This is very similar to my routine except I do it weekly. Another difference is "e" in which I rely on Personal Capital (and some others) to monitor my transactions. such as:



BTW, braumeister is doing what I should be doing... and as soon as I "get around to it," that is exactly what I intend to do going forward.

 

[Meadbh]

I automate things even a bit more. I use Moneydance on my computer for all financial stuff. It also has an app for my iPhone that syncs via Dropbox. When I'm out and about, I can take just a few seconds to enter a purchase in the phone app (and even take a picture of the receipt if I like). When I get home, it has already been entered into my Moneydance file.

This is very similar to my routine except I do it weekly. Another difference is "e" in which I rely on Personal Capital (and some others) to monitor my transactions. such as:

View attachment 23186

BTW, braumeister is doing what I should be doing... and as soon as I "get around to it," that is exactly what I intend to do going forward.

To those of you using software that uploads your data to the cloud, do you have any concerns about security?