Endless Gibberish

Step 1, tracking your expenses

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Recently I decided I’m going to track all my expenses. I believe the first step of managing your money is . It lets you see where your money goes and allows you to cut costs easier. Here’s how I plan to do it.

1. Use a small notepad (the size of two credit cards) and a small pen which I bring with me everywhere (the pen comes in handy too, I’ve never realized there is so much in the world to jot down). It’s a lot easier in the winter since my winter coat has a nifty inside pocket which I’ll use. I jot down EVERY expense right after it happens. I even jot down quarters I use to pay parking meters. So far, so good, I’ve managed to track every one of my expenses in the last 3 days.

2. I eventually input all this information into a spreadsheet in Excel. You can get a nifty one free from Microsoft here. To make sure my little notepad is sync with my spreadsheet, I jot a big plus sign (+) on the days which I’ve inputted all my expenses onto the spreadsheet.

It’s that simple! It only takes seconds to jot down the expense and a couple of minutes to update your spreadsheet a couple times a week.

I have to warn you though:

• For people that are coffee addicts, you’ll be surprised how much those daily lattes can add up. However, this may be something you’ll have to live with, getting off caffeine isn’t easy.
• For people that buy insanely useless stuff, be prepared for feelings of regret (Unless there is a return policy involved, your condition may be remedied.)
• For people that buy insanely overpriced stuff… see above.
• For people that just don’t know where their money goes, enlightment.

Now that you know where your money is going you can stop blaming your kids, significant other, roommate, etc. for your wallet feeling lighter each day (unless it really is them). Enjoy!