What level of tracking?

[Ladychips]

Pre-fire, I tracked my spending quite closely and continued for probably a year post-fire. But now, I don't track at all. In fact, I'm like a "regular" person. As long as I don't spend more than my "income" (pensions, ss, rental income), I'm content.

I still track my net worth monthly, both total net worth and invested money. I've only been retired 3.5 years so still need to watch SORR. It feels like I'll track this forever, but I thought I'd track my spending forever too.

I'm just curious what other post fire people do. What do you track and has that changed over time?

[stoaX]

Like you I track net worth and investment balances, but I also still track spending.  I've been retired almost 6 years.  Tracking spending is just such a decades long habit.  I could probably give it up and not fall into financial ruin.

I do like to see how spending compared to income and investment returns.

[Omy]

We've never tracked spending. There have been a handful of years when we looked at the credit card summaries and our year end bank balances to guess at what we spend annually.

We track net worth quarterly and will continue to do that indefinitely.

[Metalcat]

I've never tracked spending, never had a reason to.

A lot of folks here don't track spending at all. It's a very useful tool, but it's not a tool everyone benefits from using.

[Askel]

I generally only track maybe 10-15 categories across our budget.  Some are pretty broad if the spending is mostly an unavoidable living expense and I'm generally content with what we spend there (i.e. our walmart/other household category). Some things I'll get really specific on as they will suck up every last dime if I don't monitor them closely (i.e. my bicycles/skiing/motorcycle categories).   I don't hesitate to readjust the categories if I need to focus on something.   

[2sk22]

I have used Quicken to track our spending for the past twenty plus years (I retired 4 years ago) and don't plan to stop doing so. It only takes about 10 minutes a week to update quicken and properly categorize our expenses.

[Greystache]

I tracked spending very carefully for the first few years of retirement. We found that our spending vs. budget assumptions was tracking very well and we just got into a spending rhythm that did not require much of our attention. Now we just check our total spend at the end of the year to make sure we are still within our planned spending range. It takes less than an hour per year.

[ROF Expat]

I've never bothered tracking spending either pre or post FIRE. 

Early on, I was taught that the first thing I should do with a paycheck was separate out money to be saved or invested.  I modified that by also separating out money for upcoming expenses (planned and unplanned).  After that, I've always viewed everything else as disposable income and don't worry about how I spend it. 

I think we all have to find a system that fits our own personalities and interests. 

[FireLane]

I have a NW spreadsheet that I update monthly. I also track all my spending, even though I've been FIREd since 2021. I know it's not necessary from a financial standpoint. I could spend considerably more than I do now and be fine.

But it keeps me from fooling myself. If my spending goes up, I want it to be because I'm consciously choosing to spend more on things that improve my life, and not because I've slipped into bad habits.

Besides, it lets me indulge my own curiosity. I have almost ten years of spending data, and I wrote a program to analyze it. I can see, for example, how much my food spending has gone up from one year to the next, so I can measure my personal rate of inflation. There's no pressing reason I need to know this, but it's fun to be able to calculate it.

[Loren Ver]

Yes, kinda.  We track our usual monthly spending.  The things that drift around or can show a change of behavior.  DH likes to know how much money he has to spend on his things, stuff, and projects. 

We don't track our larger purchases, like when we resided the house.  That just needed to get done and there was enough in our investments to cover it so it got paid for.  We know big things like this are going to come up, and our stache is big enough to take them on by design, but we don't put line items in the budget for them any more because we have found they add so little value to us.  Regular spending 40k, siding the house 37k-- not particularly helpful.

 

[mspym]

I've been tracking our joint expenses since we FIREd mostly because we moved countries and had no idea what the COL was going to be, and if our bucket of pre-retirement funds would cover the years until we can access our retirement funds. I haven't tracked my personal spending at all because that's honestly a couple of hundred dollars a month - and I know this because of moving money from my savings to my chequing account.   

I can see myself giving it up in a couple of years once we're a bit more settled in our spending.

[NotJen]

I've been tracking my expenses forever, and I don't see stopping.

I was raised to balance my checkbook.  When I got a credit card, I reconciled each statement against my record of charges, just like my checkbook.  When I started doing my balancing with a computer program, I also assigned a category to each expense, which was a negligible added effort.

I love data.

(To be fair, there were a few years after my divorce when I stopped analyzing the tracking data, but I was still technically tracking all my spending and could have analyzed it if I wanted to.)

Oh, and I only started tracking NW when I decided to FIRE, and only update that once a year.

[spartana]

I don't track at all any more since FIREing. Have a MM saving acct that I keep $30k in as an EF and all my FIRE income gets put into that each month and I transfer whatever I need to pay bills from that to a checking acct. I don't bother to look at WHAT I'm spending on but just how much in total. Did I spend $2000 last month on snow tires or snow skiing or food or hookers and blow??? IDK. As long as things balance out at the end of the year I'm fine not knowing what I spent it on.

ETA: I also don't track NW but have a general idea of what it is. I don't budget either but have a general idea where my money goes.

[flyingaway]

If you don't track your spending, how do you know you don't spend more than your income?

[oldladystache]

I've been retired about 15 years and I've never tracked my spending. Every 6 months I do a quick check of my net worth, and as long as it isn't going down I don't worry.

[Metalcat]

If you don't track your spending, how do you know you don't spend more than your income?

By not running out of money???

Not tracking doesn't mean blindly spending and never checking account balances. You don't need to track to know how much you have spent. Tracking is more for analyzing *how* you are spending, which I've never felt the need to do.

But I've never needed to track to know how much I'm spending, or if my spending is higher than normal. I'm the one doing the spending, it's not a secret to me. Lol.

[spartana]

If you don't track your spending, how do you know you don't spend more than your income?

I check my balance of my acct occasionally so I know where it's at but I don't really know (or care) what Im spending it on. I have approx $2500/month deposited to my MM EF/slush fund acct and what's left at the end of the month is how much I've spent. Sometimes I spend it all. Sometimes I only spend a small amount. So, for me, checking my balance isn't the same as tracking my spending.

[flyingaway]

I record my credit card spending numbers and cash spending at the end of each month, no category differences. I add the numbers up at the end of the year to know how much I spend each year. I don't budget or plan, but it is nice to know how much I spend in the previous year.

[Must_ache]

I don't track expenses but I do track my net worth all the time.

[Retire-Canada]

I didn't track spending before retirement and I am not tracking it now. As long as it looks/feels reasonable from a 50,000' perspective I don't care too much where the money is going. I've continued to optimize costs and my retirement budget had enough flexibility I have to work at it to blow a noticeable chunk of money. I'm also far enough into the SORR phase to know my portfolio is in runaway mode under any "normal" future so money isn't of particular concern to me. I still subscribe to the MMM "spending money doesn't equal more happy" philosophy so I'm not planning to ramp up my spending excessively.

[iris lily]

I've never tracked spending, never had a reason to.

A lot of folks here don't track spending at all. It's a very useful tool, but it's not a tool everyone benefits from using.

Agreed, I never track spending. And I really didn’t know how much we spent until AFTER we retired. I know that’s pretty crazy, but I knew we had plenty of money, although our income was quite small for a few years there.

After I retired, I went through a checkbook to figure out that we spent $65,000 that year,. Our income was around $30,000. So we dipped into our savings for several years until all of the Social Security income started coming in.

I realize most people can’t do it this way, but it worked for us.

We always track net worth, but only once a year.

[tooqk4u22]

We track, or more accurately put in a spreadsheet, our spending but don't actual budget or limit our spending other than for planning big purchases or trips. 

My spreadsheet is like my baby that has grown into this big beautiful thing and if it wasn't fed after the end of each month it could die........I don't think that I could handle that, it's just a part of me and really doesn't take that long. 

It also helps me understand the impact of irregular items or when things like medical care becomes more permanent part of spending due to conditions and what not.  It also helps identify how much fluff that could be cut or reallocated to something else if needed.   

But practically, if our account starts with $1000 and ends with $1000 whatever happens in between doesn't really matter.

[Metalcat]

I've never tracked spending, never had a reason to.

A lot of folks here don't track spending at all. It's a very useful tool, but it's not a tool everyone benefits from using.

Agreed, I never track spending. And I really didn’t know how much we spent until AFTER we retired. I know that’s pretty crazy, but I knew we had plenty of money, although our income was quite small for a few years there.

After I retired, I went through a checkbook to figure out that we spent $65,000 that year, I was at 85,000. I don’t remember. Our income was around $30,000. So we dipped into our savings for several years until all of the Social Security income started coming in.

I realize most people can’t do it this way, but it worked for us.


We always track net worth, but only once a year.

I don't track our spending in that I don't input items into a spreadsheet and track things purposefully, but I always know what we spend each month because I see our balances. And I generally just pay attention and know. Just based on our behaviour and bills I can usually just ballpark how much we've spent in a month.

That's why I've never felt the need to track. If I felt we were spending too much and couldn't figure out where the money was going, then I would track, but I guess I've just always had a good sense of how we spend.

It's perhaps the same way that I know where just about every item in my house is at just about all times. I just tend to mentally track things.

[Car Jack]

I never tracked spending while working and now retired a year and a half or so, still don't track it.  I update my spreadsheet maybe weekly.  It has a net worth box but I never look at it.  I'm sort of too busy tax gain harvesting in my taxable account and getting rid of dividend payors in favor of BRK/b.  This is going to be a zero federal tax year. 

[Ladychips]

Thanks for your replies everyone.  I love knowing how other people do things. 

@tooqk4u22 - your response cracked me up.  I think my spending spreadsheet grew up and moved out of the house, so it's not my responsibility to feed it anymore!

[Ron Scott]

Never tracked spending, never had a working budget, won’t do it in retirement.

I update my NW when the market is up for the week. Otherwise what’s the point?

[PhilB]

I not only track my spending, I have twice the level of granularity now, post FIRE, to what I had pre FIRE. 

In other words, I now have a separate category for holidays:)

[Ladychips]

I not only track my spending, I have twice the level of granularity now, post FIRE, to what I had pre FIRE. 

In other words, I now have a separate category for holidays:)

Is that really you, or is it Eeyore?

[dividendman]

I track spending because it's fun to try to get more efficient. I also like to curse at the items that have gone up YoY or MoM. It also motivates me to get off my ass and actually look for better deals on things that have gone up (like insurance, internet providers, cell providers, etc.).

I've also caught a couple hundred dollars of charges that shouldn't have been made and got them refunded... all of this is insignificant to my overall NW or survivability of retirement so it's of questionable actual value vs time spent.

[PhilB]

I not only track my spending, I have twice the level of granularity now, post FIRE, to what I had pre FIRE. 

In other words, I now have a separate category for holidays:)

Is that really you, or is it Eeyore?

We've reached an arrangement where he tracks the ordinary spend, and I get to use what's left for holidays.  It seems to be working.