What do you track?

[peggy]

So I'm within the five-year mark for ER (depending on returns the next few years), and I don't track much at all.

I've done occasional monthly expense tracking (about once a year) as a "snapshot", and I track my net worth once a year.

What else do y'all track and how often?

 

[bow-tie]

I track expenses - monthly. I figure I have a better chance of controlling what I spend moreso than what I can make on my investments.

I update the long-term portfolio one a quarter to see where we are and how we've done. Some of my shorter term savings I track more closely... to see when I can pay off the house....


I like the saying I heard in grad school about tracking/measuring - "If you can't measure it, you can't control it"

 

[retire@40]

...What else do y'all track and how often?

The most important thing to track is net worth. Second most important items to track are income and expenses.

Tracking net worth on a monthly basis gives you a feel for how well you are doing in getting to your goal.

Tracking income and expenses helps you determine why your net worth is what it is.

 

[Lena]

I track everything. I am an accountant, so I don't know how not to.

Also, I heard somewhere that you have to "mind your business", so I do. I like to know where our monies going. My DH jokes that I run our family monies like a business, well, you better believe it, I do.

I probably do a little too much, but I have very detailed Excel spreadsheets for everything.

Lena

 

[uncledrz]

We track expenses on a monthly basis (hard to know if your income will meet expenses if you don't know your expenses).

Track income on a yearly basis. Look at investments anywhere from daily to yearly, depending on the investment.

 

[TromboneAl]

If you use an application like Quicken to download your checking account and credit card transactions, it's quite easy to automatically track all of your expenses.

 

[retire@40]

If you use an application like Quicken to download your checking account and credit card transactions, it's quite easy to automatically track all of your expenses.

Not quite "all" expenses, but the majority. You still need to keep track of any cash expenses manually through Quicken. Those "lattes" tend to add up after a while along with all those other miscellaneous cash expenses, for those that have those sort of nasty expenses.

Although I have to admit, I don't use as much cash as I used to. The bulk of my expenses are either direct-debited from my checking (including my credit card payments), or they go on the plastic.

 

[Martha]

Net worth, more or less.

We have had several failed attempts at tracking expenses. The primary way to limit expenses has been limiting the amount of money in the checking account.

 

[Cut-Throat]

I track everything in Quicken. The odd expenditure like coffee and other cash items get tracked in a 'Misc Cash' category. Not that much gets spent in that category, so it's no big deal. I even try to put Small items on a credit Card - Even Fast food places take credit cards now.

I rarely focus on 'Net Worth' because you really can't control this. Once you set your Asset Allocation, you are better off not tracking Net Worth, lest your emotions make you do something Stupid. You could stash away $30K in a year and the Market could help you lose $100K - And you'd have a loss of $70K for the year on your Net Worth. If you focused on your Net Worth too much, you would be tempted to start fiddling with your asset allocation at exactly the wrong time.

Pay attention to the things you can control Like expenses, Budgets. These are items that you can control and will have an effect on your Net Worth. And a tighter budget will allow you to allocate more to your Savings which in the end will affect your Net Worth. When the market is down and you are aware that your portfolio is probably dropping, this is the perfect time to Cut back on expenses and stash more to savings. Stocks would be lower and a better buy!

So track what you can control directly! - Remember the Rich Save money first and spend what's left over, the poor Spend their money first and Save what's left over!

 

[Khan]

Daily weekly monthly quarterly yearly

Net worth
Expenses
Gas/electric/water meters

 

[peggy]

Thanks for all the replies! Much appreciated.

From what y'all are saying, I probably should be tracking the expenses more closely, but the net worth is about right.

And, C-T -- we already do the pay yourself first thing, to the tune of about 20% of gross income. Interestingly, after taxes, savings is our largest "expense," even topping housing (14%).

Now to convince the hubby to track. LOL

 

[48Fire]

I am 2 - 6 years from er, and have started to be much more diligent about tracking expenses. I review them all in Quicken by category monthly. I have also started an annual review which targets where expenses can be reduced. Last year I dropped some insurance on my car, and dropped life insurance. Next year, we are targeting the house. I track net worth, too, but try to focus more annually on drawing any conclusions.

 

[Linney]

Now to convince the hubby to track. LOL

There are ways, there are ways!! For example, my husband is equipped with a cash-back Visa card on which he charges practically everything. He has a small amount of cash each month for the little things and this simply get allocated to "Misc Cash". I download the Visa transactions straight from our credit union into Quicken, apply categories and then run the built-in cash flow reports -- ta da, expense tracking made easy.

The only things my husband has to do to help is to (a) charge almost everything on the Visa, and (b) keep the receipts so I can see what was charged in order to assign the categories. He is awesome at (a), in fact I am frequently amazed at what he is able to charge. (b) can be more challenging for him -- occasionally I'll have to follow up with him about an unintelligable or missing receipt.

 

[Cut-Throat]

There are ways, there are ways!! For example, my husband is equipped with a cash-back Visa card on which he charges practically everything. He has a small amount of cash each month for the little things and this simply get allocated to "Misc Cash". I download the Visa transactions straight from our credit union into Quicken, apply categories and then run the built-in cash flow reports -- ta da, expense tracking made easy.

You do klnow that if you memorize the payees in Quicken, that the categoies are assigned automatically on a re-peat Payee. Mot of the time when I download my Visa Transactions, everything is categorized automatically. Tracking expenses is pretty much on auto-pilot for me. 8)

 

[runchman]

For a long time I tracked all my expenses in Quicken, then decided it was a complete waste of time since I never really did anything with the data.

Now my philosophy is to hit the savings goals first, automatically, say with 401k deductions, and not give a rats *ss about where the rest of the income goes.

For me it provides the balance with saving for tomorrow, while enjoying today.

Could I retire a couple years earlier if I religiously tracked all expenses? Yeah maybe, but then I wouldn't be enjoying that apple fritter from starbucks that I got this morning

Hats off to those that are disciplined enough to track where every cent goes, I'm sure you'll 'get there' quicker than the likes of me. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

Oh but I do track the net worth and investments on a monthly basis. Figure if that is cooking along well, all is good.

- John

 

[frayne]

I track all monthly expenses as well as investment gain/loss on a monthly. Also compare net worth month to month using the Fido full view page.

 

[maddythebeagle]

glad you started another thread on this...I have been tracking expenses for 3-4 months now as an exercise....not sure that I will be doing in the long run (mabye for 6 months to a year on everyday spending) just for long-term planning purposes....other than that...track net worth, income during the year for tax planning, and my taxable investments need tracking (would like to get to the point of only doing that once a year)...

 

[Goonie]

A couple of years back, I started to track EVERYTHING.....Every red cent. After several months, I stepped backed, looked at where it all went (or didn't went ). I made adjustments to my spending/saving....I now look things over every once in a while (lightly) to make sure income/savings/investments exceed out-go, and I'm far less stressed and just a happy camper!!!

With the initial tracking, I learned (taught myself) to be quite frugal. I bought (buy) what I "need", and things I "want" I add to a sort of wish list.....afer a a few weeks I'll look at the list, and see if I still want it. Usually the whim has passed and I toss it off the wish list (to make room for the next impulse).

(As a side note: I never do without something that I REALLY want....I just don't impulse buy anymore! Now I'm more like a little kid with a paper route. I save my nickels for that one VERY special toy! That way I think I get more satisfaction out of my purchase! )

Current "tracking" is done with online banking, my checkbook register, and a ledger book for bills paid & investments made....that's all! It works for me. 8)

 

[Cut-Throat]

Yeah maybe, but then I wouldn't be enjoying that apple fritter from starbucks that I got this morning
- John

Sure you could. Tracking your expenses does not mean depriving yourself of anything! You just have the added benefit of knowing where it went.

Like I say I have one bucket called 'misc cash' - So I don't know where every cent goes. I let Quicken do the tracking for me. It's no extra work at all and the data is there when I want to learn something. When you buy everything on a credit card and download to Quicken, it tracks itself. So why wouldn't you

 

[deserat]

I used to be much more anal about my tracking - tracked every cent if possible everyday. Now I still track just not to that specificity. What I've done is identified that amount of money that I must save to meet my long-term goals and current living expenses and if there is leftover, it can be spent or invested. I've been doing this for over ten years now, so the frugality is a habit....I have good price/value points in my head as to what I would spend for a particular type of item or category and let that guide me to whether or not to buy.

In the beginning, though, it was important to track for the external measurement and to learn the internal management.

Deserat

 

[runchman]

When you buy everything on a credit card and download to Quicken, it tracks itself. So why wouldn't you

For three reasons:

1. I'd rather be messing around in my workshop than looking at quicken
2. I'm saving what I feel I need to be saving w/o adjusting my spending, and
3. Knowing what I spent and where has a 99% chance of not affecting my behaviour, so I don't see the point.

But that's just me, I can see it being a perfectly useful tool for others, just not worth the bother for me. I'm just not that 'microscope view' oriented.

- John

 

[maddythebeagle]

I agree tracking every cent seems to only make sense if you have a behavioral problem that needs fixing, newly retired and need the reassurance, or wanting to put some real numbers with your long-term planning...I am trying to think of anything else...maybe if you are just obsessive, but that's ok, too

 

[runchman]

Well, I think tracking everything can tend to make you spend less as well. I've had spurts where I'd track everything (albeit short spurts), and it does make you think twice about that second coffee at work.

 

[Linney]

You do klnow that if you memorize the payees in Quicken, that the categoies are assigned automatically on a re-peat Payee. Mot of the time when I download my Visa Transactions, everything is categorized automatically. Tracking expenses is pretty much on auto-pilot for me. 8)

Cut-Throat -- I haven't used memorized transactions (what, this process can be even easier? sweet!)

I pulled out the manual but it wasn't very helpful on how to set up and use memorized transactions when downloading data from a bank/C.U. A couple quick questions if you have a moment: (1) the Memorized Transactions List lists payees as well as dollar amounts -- what if the dollar amount is always different? (2) when does the automatic categorization take place -- next time I download?

Any tips would be much appreciated! thanks

 

[Linney]

There are some very interesting opinions on this topic of tracking. I'll freely admit to being a bit obsessive about money

I started the tracking process after reading one of the classic money management books (Your Money or Your Life, I believe). At the end of the first year, I totalled up the spending by category and then my husband and I sat down and looked at how we had spent our money and asked the questions from the book --> did we get our value for this money spent? When you look at a single expense you can say, oh why not, its only $25. When you add up the yearly total and ask yourself if you really got $400 worth of value out of it versus something else you might have chosen to spend the money on --- for us, that could be several terrific dinners out or a weekend of fun in Seattle --- then your thinking starts to change about those "little" expenses.

We don't bother to budget. But we do look at our spending once a year and determine whether we feel we got our money's worth or whether we want to change some of our behavior. Seeing the dollar value DECREASE in the utilities and household misc categories and INCREASE in the recreation category is success in my book!