How I Use My Expense Tracker

Do you track your expenses? Do you know what you’re spending day to day?

I like to think of my expense tracker as a checkbook register in my budget planner. The purpose of tracking expenses is to keep an eye on your money and your spending.

As you know I’m not any certified financial, I just want to share what I’m using and how it’s helping me keep our money organized. I used to rely on just looking at the bank transactions online, but that doesn’t tell your whole money story right now. Usually, the balance that is reflected isn’t as accurate as it may seem…

What your bank statement isn’t showing you

What I mean by this, is that you may have bills that come out automatically, bills that you have scheduled to come out on a future date, what categories you’re spending in, and just looking at your bank account won’t tell you any of this information.

These are vital budgeting information.

This is why I like keeping track of our spending on an expense tracker. You can either do it digitally, like on an excel spreadsheet or in an app, or good old fashioned paper and pen.

When you should go digital

If you really don’t like writing, you should try a digital spreadsheet.

There are even some apps that link up to you bank and transfer your spending automatically. I even found a bank that does banking and budgeting in one app!

It is a lot more convenient when the apps are able to retrieve your spending transactions directly from the bank, but you lose the hands on experience.

When you should go the paper route

You should use pen and paper if you really like a more hands on approach. I feel like it sinks in more, when I write things down.

This method works for those who really want to be aware of where their money is going. And if you like writing things down, then this method is for you.

Writing things down really does help ingrain information into your brain.

ME!

How I use my expense tracker

One of the first sections asks which method of payment are you using? I didn’t want to use different pages for different payment methods that we use. Our major spending payment options are check, credit, or debit card spending. I wanted to be able to see it all on one page. When I do need to make a credit card payment, I don’t subtract it from the running balance, and I don’t count it at the bottom of the page.

This money has already been accounted for in the category spending. So the payment is a merely a note to myself that I transferred money to the credit card account.

When I do use cash envelopes, I keep track of that on the back of my envelopes.

Some other things that an expense tracker keeps track of is the date of the transaction, how much you’re withdrawing or depositing, and the running balance of your account.

Categorizing your spending.

We categorize a lot of different things in our lives; clothes, food, shoes, etc. Spending should be one of them. I know it feels like a lot of work but going through and highlighting your categories makes you doubly aware of how much you’re spending.

At the bottom of the sheet, there is an area for you tally up how much you’ve spent in a particular category.

I like to also add up all the withdrawals and deposits. If you have a category for everything you’ve spent your money on, your withdrawals total should equal your budget category totals number.

Finally, you need a way to see if the payment has come out of your checking account. The last column is an area where you can check off when the expense has cleared in your account.

How do you keep track of your expenses? Are you a pen and paper person or digital all the way?

Head to the shop if you would like a copy of this expense tracker. I honestly couldn’t budget without it!

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