Never good at tracking spending/budgeting

[walkinwood]

ER is a risky endeavour and we all try to reduce / understand that risk as much as possible.


Since you use credit cards for everything, keeping track of your detailed spending is easy. I use Quicken, but other money management/budgeting software also allows you to download transactions from credit card companies directly into the software. Keep categories simple & few. It may take some time & effort to get started, but maintaining it doesn't take much time at all. I do it once a week - maybe - and then about once a month (or two) I do an "expense report" and we eyeball it to see where our money is going.



It is an easily learned skill and one that will serve you well when you're on a "fixed" income. It becomes a zero sum game. What you spend on item A, you don't have for item B. Knowing where your money is going and whether it is giving you the appropriate satisfaction is important to know.

 

[NW-Bound]

A nice thing that comes out from tracking expenses is that I can look up past records if I forgot when we had the house painted, or bought that pool pump to see if it is still under warranty, etc..., without having to dig up various files.

It is really painless. I hit "auto download" once each day on Quicken, and that's mainly to capture any trades or dividend payouts. Then, looking at the expenses, I would enter a personal note of "pool pump" to that particular charge. I can later search for these keywords to find out when I bought it. And of course, I would be sure to have that pool pump classified under "Home Maintenance" so I could see if my homes are truly money pits.

PS. Just searched for it. Yes, on Oct 14, 2014, there was an expense of $1454.62 with the above label. If I ever needed any info, it's all in there.

 

[audreyh1]

We started downloading transactions and assigning categories in a Quicken almost 30 years ago so tracking has been super easy for us.

When we started planning for retirement, it was very easy to project spending on this historical data, plus of course I had to estimate how thing might change.

I still have a budget for planning purposes, but it’s not very rigid. It’s more of an inflated “wish” budget that we usually don’t exceed, but it does let us set aside funds for charity and gifting.

The historical repository in Quicken is very valuable. I’m often looking up things or running reports to answer a question.

 

[Fireup2020]

DH is both impressed and amused by my OCD spreadsheets...take the advice here...find a system that works with the way you think so you will actively USE it. You’ll thank yourself soon!