Author Topic: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?  (Read 10129 times)

Kiwi Mustache

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I've been keeping track of my every cent of income/expenses over the past 12 months and have a decent idea of where my money is coming from and going to.

Is there any reason why I should continue this on? I naturally dislike to waste money on anything that doesn't derive the greatest happiness out of every dollar spent so it there any reason to continue on keeping track of everything?

For those of you that have done it once, have done it intermittently or have continued it for decades, why did you stop or why did you continue on doing it? What are the benefits and/or downsides of continuing vs stopping?

Megma

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #1 on: January 12, 2016, 06:31:14 PM »
I would keep going, expenses can fluctuate over time and it will be good to have several years of data to average when considering retirement expenses.

I'm also crazy OCD and like to see where it goes and trends (ie how much did my dog cost this year, did I spend on clothes etc). This is bad, but at the end of the month I will also use the budget tracking to see if I can "afford" x or y...can I go out for dinner? Do I have anything in my hobby budget? If there is still budget left, I might have a little treat, if not, then it's clear to me I had enough luxuries that month.

pbkmaine

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #2 on: January 12, 2016, 06:55:35 PM »
I only track occasionally, when I see outflows rising. For me, it's generally books. I have to remind myself that there are places called libraries where I can get books for FREE. For DH, it's eating out and technology. But we have mostly internalized the process. We are retired and live well within our means.

mspym

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #3 on: January 12, 2016, 10:08:46 PM »
I keep track of a subset of my expenses because I have a $300 per fortnight envelope that covers food/social/clothing/books, all the various misc categories. It gives me some flexibility on how I can to spend this money but there is a limit set. I then reconcile against cards every so often to get a bigger picture of how I am tracking but not very often- this way I am only keep track of the flex part of my budget.
I use the free version of Toshl, which exports to excel and can be reconciled against bank statement exports.
And this is something I seem to sustain after multiple abandoned attempts to track every penny, your money or your life style, as well as other budget apps.

yakamashii

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #4 on: January 12, 2016, 10:39:35 PM »
I've been tracking for nine years and enjoy having all the data, although I rarely need to go back further than 24 months to identify trends that show something meaningful in the present day.

I recommend you continue tracking, but maybe you can eliminate some categories or otherwise streamline the tracking process. Maybe even just have one column to track overall spending.

I've eliminated categories as the data becomes irrelevant/uninteresting/not a problem anymore in an effort to make the record keeping easier. For example, when I started, I had separate columns for spending on ice cream, alcohol (yawning money pits I wanted to quantify) and clothing (just assumed this was a good category to have). Once I curbed the ice cream and booze consumption, I folded them into the Food category. I never have bought many clothes, so I folded that expense into the Other category.

You can always resurrect categories in the future if need be. For example, I married someone who hardly drinks at all, so it made sense to bring back the alcohol category to be able to identify the spending there. We're going to split one bottle of wine per month in 2016, so now we know exactly how much we'll be saving over my usual beers and boxes of wine :)

I like knowing stuff like that. I think tracking spending will always be a part of our financial life.

former player

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #5 on: January 12, 2016, 11:10:20 PM »
For me, the time and effort involved in tracking every penny would be more of a issue than the monetary cost, and emotionally it would take me back to days of poverty when that level of tracking and planning was essential.   

I've lived well within my means without bothering to routinely track expenses for a long time, so those early hard days were probably internalised to an extent that will stick with me forever.   If the OP's spending has similarly settled into a satisfactory habit over the period that it has been tracked, then the effort of recording every detail probably won't make add much value.

Tyn

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #6 on: January 13, 2016, 04:59:47 AM »
I'm lazy and not in a huge rush to retire so I only tracked expenses for a few months to get an idea of what I spent on each category. Now I have a set amount that I save each month and if I have extra money left over at the end of the month I will put half towards savings and half towards a fund for additional expenses (e.g. replacing my current phone when it dies or going to a festival).  The only area I try to set myself a limit on is grocery shopping, my other elective spending is based on whether the cost is justified in the benefit that I will get out of it.

I don't have particularly expensive tastes or lifestyle so I don't think I'd gain much by tracking my spending closely and it wouldn't outweigh my dislike of doing it.  I do have a spreadsheet where I mark down upcoming expenses (e.g. gifts or transport to an event that I've booked) so that I can see if there are any months where I'll need to be a bit more careful with my spending.

lizzzi

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #7 on: January 13, 2016, 06:08:06 AM »
I got lazy and didn't do my YNAB in Dec. 2015. Oops! Got crazy on gifts, books, DVDs, and some pricey French perfume. (I smell wonderful though.) Didn't pay enough attention to what I was spending on groceries, either, although that was probably the least of my sins. I am frankly just irresponsible on books and DVDs...love 'Zon for that stuff...and the library doesn't have or can't get everything. So on New Year's Day I plugged in the numbers and went back on my YNAB budgeting.

Metta

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #8 on: January 13, 2016, 06:14:43 AM »
We've tracked our expenses for years and it is a source of joy and togetherness. It lets us know how close we are to our goals and when our goals should change (because we have changed). It also lets us see the inevitable ebbs and flows in our finances, which is something you cannot get from tracking for just a year.

kiwigirls

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #9 on: January 13, 2016, 06:31:01 PM »
If you don't mind the time it takes and you enjoying reviewing the data then keep doing it.  I have tracked our expenses for years - initially day by day as we spent it but now just at the end of each month I look back to see where it went.  Having said that I still need to do November and December....  When life is busy it isn't a priority because we mostly have our expenses under control and I have a sense for when we are spending too much. I should go and do it now instead of reading the forums!

FLBiker

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #10 on: January 14, 2016, 02:06:49 PM »
I have never really tracked my spending.  I use Mint, so I have a general idea, but I've never tracked accurately nor made a budget.  For me, a big perk of living well within my means (we live on ~35% of our income) is not having to sweat it.  If you like keeping a budget, though, keep doing it.

Lizzy B.

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #11 on: January 19, 2016, 11:17:02 AM »
I've enjoyed tracking over many years since I can see how well our efforts have succeeded and what we still need to improve on.

Each year, I get a little smarter about what and how to track. I use a program that downloads my transactions for me and even autocategorizes some for me, so there's not a lot of work for me. If I had to enter receipts, there's no way I'd keep tracking as closely as I am.

dantownehall

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #12 on: January 19, 2016, 01:10:24 PM »
I still track mine, but mainly just because mint makes it so easy - I tried spreadsheets, etc. before but couldn't make myself stick with them.

marty998

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #13 on: January 19, 2016, 01:56:51 PM »
track the big things only - bills/mortgage etc.

tracking every cent is not really the best use of time, nor is going to be very enlightening.

JAYSLOL

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #14 on: January 19, 2016, 02:03:15 PM »
I started tracking spending last January, and wrote down every dollar spent in 2015, it's been pretty useful (and actually kind-of fun).  As a side benefit, i always have a small notepad and pen on me, which has come in handy.  I've decided to keep tracking spending, because it keeps me accountable and motivated to improve my habits.  Continue to track in 2016 if you have found it useful as i have. 

Retire-Canada

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #15 on: January 19, 2016, 02:10:37 PM »
For those of you that have done it once, have done it intermittently or have continued it for decades, why did you stop or why did you continue on doing it? What are the benefits and/or downsides of continuing vs stopping?

I've never done it. Seemed like a fabulous waste of time.

I track how much I save. If I am not meeting my savings goal I'd dig into specific areas of concern, but tracking every penny never made sense to me.

Dicey

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #16 on: January 19, 2016, 05:01:59 PM »
I did it for a whole year and then stopped. I'm naturally frugal, so it just wasn't that big a deal. It was helpful, but not necessary for me to reach my goals. If you have plugged up all the holes and your savings rate is good and you're not tempted by bright, shiny things, you may not need to continue. And yes, I did get to FI and RE. Your mileage may vary, but don't let anyone tell you that tracking spending forever is the only way to get there.

JAYSLOL

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #17 on: January 19, 2016, 05:05:26 PM »
I started tracking spending last January, and wrote down every dollar spent in 2015, it's been pretty useful (and actually kind-of fun).  As a side benefit, i always have a small notepad and pen on me, which has come in handy.  I've decided to keep tracking spending, because it keeps me accountable and motivated to improve my habits.  Continue to track in 2016 if you have found it useful as i have. 

Also, in December I went to Costco and they added a charge to renew my membership at the checkout even though i swore i renewed it over the summer.  Just went through my notepad from this summer... and yep I DID pay for it to be renewed.  Now i know the exact date and will be able to get the charge reversed next time I'm there.

Rural

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #18 on: January 20, 2016, 05:20:20 AM »
I tracked for all of 2007 and that really helped us to know what was up and stay firmly in track for a number of years. In the intervening years, I only tracked building and medical expenses for tax purposes. Now we're tracking again (started in September) because we felt we needed a better sense of things again, but I don't think we needed to do it for most of the intervening years. It would be sort of nice to have the data, but not nice enough to make it worth the constant effort.

Tabitha

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #19 on: January 20, 2016, 05:47:53 AM »
Did tracking change your behaviour? Did it help identify leaks?  I tracked everything in 1999-2000 and noticed a huge change in our spending patterns. It woke us up.  But in the next 10-12 years, we drifted backwards in some ways. I started tracking all again inJanuary 2014 and now have 2 years of data to identify new leaks.

Retire-Canada

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #20 on: January 20, 2016, 06:29:41 AM »
Did tracking change your behaviour?

Tracking my savings rate changed my spending. There is no way to fool yourself at the end of the month when you are not meeting your targets.

Spork

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #21 on: January 20, 2016, 07:15:41 AM »
I've been tracking for over 20 years. Yes you should keep tracking. There are always new trends.

I consider 1 year data to be relatively short term. It's when you get 5 and 10 year data that you see real numbers.

soccerluvof4

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #22 on: January 20, 2016, 07:19:45 AM »
We have been tracking for 3 years now and I dont see ever stopping. As people have mentioned expenses change and it also holds you accountable and creates challenges to find ways to see how you can improve.

Tetsuya Hondo

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #23 on: January 20, 2016, 08:08:18 AM »
I tracked for about 6 years, but quit. Initially, it was very useful and helped to hold me accountable for spending.

But, once I established good habits - specifically, the habit of questioning my need to purchase a thing - it didn't seem as necessary. At that point it became more trouble than it was worth as my monthly spending didn't change much anymore. Now, as long as I hit my savings goals, I'm not sweating the small stuff. However, if I were to miss my targets, then I would start tracking again.

Spork

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #24 on: January 20, 2016, 08:32:17 AM »
Just curious for folks that stopped: how do you track your savings without tracking expenses.

Savings = income - expense

Exflyboy

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #25 on: January 20, 2016, 09:02:24 AM »
Data is nice and useful if you need to keep withing budget.

if you live on well below what you make (either from a job or retirement savings) then there is really no need.

What is meaningul to you is the question.


Etihwdivadnai

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #26 on: January 20, 2016, 09:04:27 AM »
Just curious for folks that stopped: how do you track your savings without tracking expenses.

Savings = income - expense

You could just account for money that went into (or came out of) accounts that  you had identified as being "savings" accounts.

We did this for regular savings but noticed that we had to periodically skim an extra chunk of money from current [i.e. "checking"] accounts to stop any excess balance building up in there too. I.e. we had to make additional ad-hoc savings above and beyond the "regular" savings.
In this way we could choose to ignore our expenses. (Except we did not ignore them)

We started tracking all income / expenses / savings / total net worth in mid 2010.
We were able to approximately backtrack (for income / savings / total net worth at least) as far as 2006.
We have continued to track income / expenses / savings / total net worth each month.
It takes about an hour for each of us, once per month.

Dicey

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #27 on: January 20, 2016, 09:46:38 AM »
Just curious for folks that stopped: how do you track your savings without tracking expenses.

Savings = income - expense
I tracked my savings by watching my balances increase over time.  I spent less than I earned, had automatic savings via payroll deduction and swept any excess balance in my checking account into savings and then investments. When I was self employed and 100% commission, I lived on the previous month's earnings, kept a big, fat EF, and still swept the excess into savings/investments. Worked for me.

Metta

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #28 on: January 20, 2016, 01:28:30 PM »
Data is nice and useful if you need to keep withing budget.

if you live on well below what you make (either from a job or retirement savings) then there is really no need.

What is meaningul to you is the question.

We track spending so that we can see our cashflow and know what is going on. It helps us plan for the future. It's not really about figuring out how to save money or how to spend less than we earn. We could do that without tracking spending by just having our savings directly deposited into our savings or investment accounts (which we actually do).

Tracking spending is all about figuring out our priorities, getting a sense of what is going on, and coming closer together as a couple. It's about predicting the future so that we can make a good plan for each year in January. It gives us the opportunity to ask things like:

"Why do we have this extra charge from the doctor?"  answer: "Oh, didn't I tell you. I'm having a problem with xyz. That's for the prescription." response "I didn't realize. How can I help?"

"Why is our grocery bill so high this month?"  answer: "That was the cost of entertaining your colleagues last week."  response "Oh, well next time don't bother with the fancy wine. They have no taste anyway and can't tell the difference."

"Can we afford to live for a month in Gila again?" answer "Let me check the spreadsheet from three years ago when we did something like that. It will give us an approximation of the answer."

"How much can we expect to get next year from the <Teaching Gig only available every three years>?"  answer "If it pays more or less the same, we will have $XX extra in the budget next year."

Zikoris

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #29 on: January 21, 2016, 03:37:24 AM »
We've been tracking with Mint for about four years now, and it's great. Very little effort required, and it's easy to spot trends, see any areas that you could work on, and compare categories year over year. I also like being able to pull specific information in seconds, like how much we spent last year on restaurants  ($272) or travel ($9404). I recommend continued tracking if you find that sort of information valuable or interesting.

Tabitha

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #30 on: January 21, 2016, 05:40:56 AM »
Did tracking change your behaviour?
Tracking my savings rate changed my spending. There is no way to fool yourself at the end of the month when you are not meeting your targets.

Tracking is helping me develop new targets.  In 10 years we doubled our income and doubled our savings rate. That's not a good thing - there is some serious lifestyle inflation there. While perhaps not relevant to the original poster Tracking is helping us to revise our spending and increase our savings.

shadowmoss

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #31 on: January 21, 2016, 07:25:28 AM »
I started tracking by making a spreadsheet with multiple worksheets, etc.  The process taught me a lot about my spending and my priorities.  That was back in (thinks back...) early 2000's after I read Your Money Or Your Life.  I did it off and on for several years, adapting the spreadsheet each year, which showed me how my life changed during that time.  I stopped about 5 years ago.  At the same time my spending/saving went out of control, as in I upped my spending and have not saved.  So, this month I pulled out the spreadsheet again.  In 2 weeks I am aghast, as categories I thought that 'oh, I don't spend much on that, I can this one time buy it' have ended up being more that I thought I spent in a couple of months, and the past 2 weeks haven't been that out of the ordinary.  Obviously my mind wasn't recording things as efficiently as I thought.  My bank accounts reflect that.  So, I'm back tracking every cent, and wish I had continued.

One thing I can honestly say is that I stopped because it was too painful to look at some of my expenses, I wanted to just ignore them.  I just didn't want to face what was going on.  I should have.  Take that as a warning, and look at why you are asking if you can stop tracking.  Is it because of the time, or is there some voice wanting to not look so carefully at what is going on?

ender

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #32 on: January 21, 2016, 07:37:17 AM »
Data is nice and useful if you need to keep withing budget.

if you live on well below what you make (either from a job or retirement savings) then there is really no need.

What is meaningul to you is the question.

When we got married, we started tracking with YNAB so we could have some idea what our married finances actually look like with real data (not "we should only spend $X/year!" hypothetical data).

This also helps with some planning, since we are saving for a house so we can estimate a lot more accurately what our are real expenses are. We also spend a few hours a month on a budget date closing out the month, updating our yearly budget planner, and planning for the next month.

YNAB (or even Mint) makes it super trivial to track expenses, too. YNAB is a bit more work, but more useful. Mint will still get you there, though, if all you want is spending trends.


zephyr911

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #33 on: January 21, 2016, 07:39:09 AM »
I've never bothered, and I've found that just focusing on a few obvious areas of excess and pursuing a general change of mindset was enough to cut spending dramatically. In a little under 2 years I've gone from a fluctuating 10-20% SR to 70-75% without ever tracking details.

It sounds like tracking costs has been helpful for you, but I think you'll know if/when you're past needing it. MMM generally doesn't bother, except as an annual curiosity.

ender

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #34 on: January 21, 2016, 07:49:24 AM »
I've never bothered, and I've found that just focusing on a few obvious areas of excess and pursuing a general change of mindset was enough to cut spending dramatically. In a little under 2 years I've gone from a fluctuating 10-20% SR to 70-75% without ever tracking details.

It sounds like tracking costs has been helpful for you, but I think you'll know if/when you're past needing it. MMM generally doesn't bother, except as an annual curiosity.

Well you are tracking spending to some extent then - you are just doing it the other way (income - savings - taxes = spending).

I think that's still valuable as while it might not show specifics it definitely shows trends.

tomatops

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #35 on: January 21, 2016, 08:42:25 AM »
I track mostly because I am curious and I like to see trends in spending. It also serves as a nice way to see if I am at all improving on my savings rate (currently 60% per month, aiming for 65%).

zephyr911

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #36 on: January 21, 2016, 01:24:30 PM »
Well you are tracking spending to some extent then - you are just doing it the other way (income - savings - taxes = spending).

I think that's still valuable as while it might not show specifics it definitely shows trends.
Right, I just meant that detailed tracking and analysis of categories hadn't been necessary to attain the desired overall trajectory.

But this is an area where we each do well to tailor our approach to our personalities. Only OP knows what works for OP.

With This Herring

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #37 on: January 21, 2016, 04:33:54 PM »
Like you, I am a natural saver.  I really hesitate before I spend money on anything but food, utilities, and housing.  I have been tracking my spending since 2009 and intend to continue indefinitely.

It is nice to have a good, long historical record to identify trends.  Additionally, it allows you to better predict what a certain major lifestyle change would do to your finances.  Getting hitched?  New kid? Moving to a new area?

BrickByBrick

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #38 on: January 21, 2016, 05:11:17 PM »
I use YNAB to track my expenses (nearly everything) against the income from my job.  My main job is not my only income, but I like to keep the comparison so as not to overly inflate my savings ratio.  Plus when I see that my expenses are rising against my main income, it's more readily noticeable and tells me I need to do something about it.  That and by using sub-categories it's easier to explain a change in expenses - and suggest ways to reduce it (even if it means stop doing that thing).

cats

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #39 on: January 21, 2016, 05:53:54 PM »
When I was in grad school I simply had savings targets and as long as I was meeting them I did not worry too much.  Maybe I could have done better with tracking expenses but I'm not going to beat myself up over it now.  I switched to tracking in Mint in 2012 (around the time I finished school).  If you have shared finances, tracking is really helpful for figuring out where your money is going (not in the sense of blaming one or the other person for "bad" spending, just because it's the best way for both of you to get the information).

In 2014-2015 we noticed a bit of an uptick in our monthly spending.  Some of it we could explain with rent increases, but this past year we also identified a few other more "discretionary" areas that we thought could use a little tweaking.  Result is that in 2016 we have some shared and individual goals for reducing expenses further.

One thing I think tracking is useful for in our case is that our income IS a lot larger than our expenses, so just having "savings targets" without any sort of expense tracking doesn't necessarily force us to be aggressive--we can easily max out 401ks and IRAs and add quite a chunk of change to non-retirement funds without thinking much about it (last year our savings rate was over 75%, with very little active effort to curb spending on our parts).  However, reviewing our finances reveals that we are definitely sometimes making sub-optimal spending choices--not so much in the sense that we buy luxurious things, but that we sometimes buy luxurious things that don't really make us any happier or healthier.  For me, a big reveal of our tracking has been that I eat out during the week a LOT more than I would have thought.  A good chunk of this eating out occurs during stressful weeks at work--I wouldn't have really thought of myself as a stress eater, but it turns out I am.  Just knowing that helps a lot when it's 2pm and I don't want to deal with our buggy model and am thinking I might just run over to the drugstore for a snack--money aside, I now KNOW what I am doing is a response to stress and that it's not good for me (I'm not saying that always makes me stop doing it, but it definitely serves as a deterrent at times).  This year I decided we should set a monthly "food" (grocery + dining out) budget and for January at least, it's definitely kept me from engaging in that particular self-destructive behavior, because I don't want to blow the food budget and let down my husband.

We've also found it useful for being able to go back and review "big" expenditures if we are thinking of repeating them.  For example, we last did international travel in 2013.  We have a vague idea of how much we spent but it's nice to be able to pull out the data and use it as a reference point for planning some international travel this year (our big takeaway is that we paid way too much for flights and need to get better about accumulating points/miles cheaply).  In 2015, we moved, something we had also done in 2013.  The move was a similar distance and volume of stuff so it was nice to see what we had spent previously and be able to use that as a starting point for figuring out the likely cost of the move, though this time my husband got to run the show of packing the U-Haul and the result was that we actually did is somewhat more cheaply this time!

So, TL;DR, tracking can be quite useful for a variety of reasons.  If your method of tracking is fairly mindless/low-time investment (e.g. Mint or YNAB), I'd continue, just for the sake of having the data if you want it in the future.

kaetana

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #40 on: January 21, 2016, 09:53:53 PM »
Despite MMM's stance on tracking, my husband and I track EVERYTHING on YNAB. This is mainly because we are both naturally big spenders and really need limits. We both do better when we know without a doubt that spending $100 on some shiny new thing would mean we won't meet our goal of getting our mortgage down enough to refinance, for example. When we've gone without goals and budgets in the past, we have always made poor financial decisions.

I also like the awareness that comes from tracking everything. Before we had YNAB, I couldn't really see the big picture without my spreadsheets. Now I know exactly how much we need in our investment accounts and I enjoy seeing the net worth report show an increase. Getting that sort of thing from data motivates me to further curb expenses.

I think it's possible not to have a budget and still do well financially. MMM is proof of that. But I think you just have to know what kind of person you are and whether you get any value at all from budgeting. I strongly doubt I will ever get to the point where I don't need a budget, no matter how big my stash is. But YMMV!

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #41 on: January 22, 2016, 01:50:36 AM »
Just curious for folks that stopped: how do you track your savings without tracking expenses.

Savings = income - expense


Easy for us; with my income low for these boards and access to a 403(b), and 457, and a family HSA, it's pretty much all pretax. Every now and then we sweep some excess from the EF into a taxable account at Vanguard, and I consider it saved then, but not when it goes in the EF - I figure we'll spend that eventually on an E. :)

zephyr911

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Re: I've Been Keeping Track of Spending for 12 Months- Should I Continue?
« Reply #42 on: January 22, 2016, 08:20:36 AM »
Just curious for folks that stopped: how do you track your savings without tracking expenses.

Savings = income - expense
Easy for us; with my income low for these boards and access to a 403(b), and 457, and a family HSA, it's pretty much all pretax. Every now and then we sweep some excess from the EF into a taxable account at Vanguard, and I consider it saved then, but not when it goes in the EF - I figure we'll spend that eventually on an E. :)
I know how much I save because I use 100% of it for new investments or debt reduction. I count the $$ that I:

- contribute to TSP ($18K/yr via equal payroll deductions)
- contribute to IRA ($5500/yr, usually in one lump sum)
- invest in a new rental (down payment)
- pay toward a debt (easily tracked online)

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!