How do you track expenses?

[Anonymous]

We've never tracked out money that closely. We have a rough idea of what our monthly bills were and can list big expenses off the top of our heads. But I'd like to get a better handle on where our money is going, so that we make sure we are really spending our money wisely. I had sit down and do a few calcuations to get the amount of money we spent on eating out. Although the number wasn't huge, it really made me pause.

So my question to all of you, is how to do you track your expenses? Do you log every penny or just big expenses?

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

With a notebook and a pencil.Food, gas, school, repairs, bills, eating out,cash spent and so on.I add it all up at the end of the month and add up all months at the end of the year.Also all sorts of income.
I try not to make same spending mistakes again from month to month and year to year.For example, no DC parking tickets this year! Yesss!
Ofcourse you can always try software, but paper and pencil are a good start!

[Anonymous]

We have 1 credit card. We put absoultely all purchases on this card, then pay it completely off each month. That way, we can look at our statement and see what we are spending money on. It's an Amazon.com visa, so we rack up insane points on it, which we get as cash back.

[Anonymous]

Second the one credit card -- ours is a Southwest Visa because we fly Southwest almost every month.

The rest goes on paper. Every dime. My partner scours the expenses and has uncovered and gotten credit for several duplicate and unauthorized charges - including one monthly charge for $12 that some asshole at Bestbuy put on our card, when we haven't been to a Bestbuy in years.

[Anonymous]

we dont

[Anonymous]

Quicken. DH logs every expense down to the penny. I do not. So, I have an "account" in Quicken called Larla's Cash. I don't spend much cash anymore as I charge everything and pay the card off every month. It is way easier to download the bill into Quicken once a month than to log everything in by hand.

[Anonymous]

Excel spreadsheet. It's really fun (I realize I sound geeky) looking at what your expenses used to be n years ago and see the trends.

[Anonymous]

YNAB.

youneedabudget.com

It's installed on both of our computers and phones. They all cloud sync. It's a bit fussy to setup but once you're in the groove it is just stellar.

[Anonymous]

Mint.com

[Anonymous]

I use quicken and you need a budget (ynab), but ynab is way better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mint.com

+1

[Anonymous]

Quicken

[Anonymous]

Another YNAB convert. It is awesome. DH and I were forever getting to the bottom of the barrel at the end of the month just because we weren't tracking, not because we didn't have enough cash flow (though more would be lovely). YNAB fixed that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mint.com

+1

+2!!! awesome

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Second the one credit card -- ours is a Southwest Visa because we fly Southwest almost every month.

The rest goes on paper. Every dime. My partner scours the expenses and has uncovered and gotten credit for several duplicate and unauthorized charges - including one monthly charge for $12 that some asshole at Bestbuy put on our card, when we haven't been to a Bestbuy in years.

This is what we do too, but you sound more rigorous about looking at your bill pp. I am inspired! I also write in our notebook my speculations about future expenses (what in our house is going to break next lol), plus things I am saving for/want to buy (car, vacation more $ for kids' college etc). Over the months I can see how quickly we're getting close to those goals and how much we have saved up.