{"id":67162,"date":"2011-02-28T04:00:56","date_gmt":"2011-02-28T11:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/getrichslowly.org\/blog\/?p=67162"},"modified":"2023-09-28T16:13:58","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T22:13:58","slug":"back-to-the-stone-age-low-tech-expense-tracking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getrichslowly.org\/back-to-the-stone-age-low-tech-expense-tracking\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to the stone age: Low-tech expense tracking"},"content":{"rendered":"

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As many of you know, before I was a GRS staff writer, I was a GRS reader and active commenter. I’d say the bulk of my early personal finance education came from this website, and it’s most definitely the resource I credit for spurring me to get serious about paying off debt and saving money.<\/p>\n

So last year when J.D. started talking about falling off the tracking-every-penny wagon<\/a>, I winced. I haven’t been tracking my spending, either.<\/strong> Ever since our income went up last year, I’ve been satisfied that we’re saving enough \u2014 more than 55% of our income. We have no debt, we have targeted accounts<\/a> for irregular expenses<\/a>, and we pay our credit card bill in full every month. We’re definitely doing well, but the more J.D. wrote about getting Tracking for peace of mind<\/strong>
\nLike J.D., I don’t like the “financial black box\u201d of not knowing where our money is going. Did we spend more on groceries than usual this month? Approximately how much are we spending on gas? I have no idea!<\/p>\n

I don’t need to account for every penny, but I’d like a general<\/i> idea of how we’re doing. It’s too easy to dismiss expenses because we’re doing relatively well with our savings, or because we forgo a lot of extras like cable TV and eating out regularly.<\/p>\n

Also, it’s less fun to spend<\/em> money when I don’t track it.<\/strong> I believe that money is a tool<\/a>, and that some of it should be saved for the future and some of it should be enjoyed now. But when I’m not exactly sure how much “fun money” we’ve been spending, it’s harder to enjoy spending it. Last week, for example, I made a couple of purchases and felt a little buyer’s remorse, but only because I worried that I was forgetting about other expenses. If I knew we’d allotted, say, $200 to freely spend, and I was within that limit, I wouldn’t have given the purchase a second thought. I could have just enjoyed it.<\/p>\n

Past Tracking Attempts<\/h2>\n

I’ve tried more than once to stay on the money-tracking bandwagon. I tried Quicken, but it did so much more than I needed it to do and categorizing each expense and reconciling accounts got tedious (maybe the newer versions are more user-friendly?).<\/p>\n

I tried Mint, but some accounts wouldn’t update, and there were major glitches that threw off my numbers in a big way. For example, my “personal items” category, which is under $50 each month, mysteriously showed more than $400, but when I tried to view the itemized expenses, the system would time out. When I added it up by hand, it was nowhere near $400. I contacted customer service, but after weeks of waiting, there was no fix and no help, so I quit using Mint. I tried again several months later, but one of my accounts updated so rarely that, again, it wasn’t worthwhile.<\/a><\/p>\n

I feel like I’ve spent far too much time downloading, uploading, troubleshooting, and e-mailing customer service reps. Tracking my money does not need to be this complicated (though I thought using technology would simplify<\/em> the process). No wonder I keep dropping the habit \u2014 it’s been tedious and time-consuming!<\/p>\n

Keeping It Simple<\/h2>\n

Starting February 1st, I decided I’d track my expenses again, but this time, I’m keeping it simple. No software, no web, no syncing \u2014 just a small notebook tucked in my bag. In it, I have a page dedicated to each spending category (groceries, gas, bills, etc.) and on each page I record the following information about each purchase:<\/p>\n