Adulting 101: Track your Expenses

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2 years ago
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Last week, we have talked about setting financial goals and what things to consider when doing it. Today, I want to tackle about how tracking your expenses can help you achieve the goals you have set at the start of your adulting journey.

But first, I will say a disclaimer. I am not a licensed or professional financial advisor. I am merely sharing the things that I have learned from my own research. I advise that you take what I write with a grain of salt and do your own research as well.

With that friendly reminder out of the way, let us get started. This article will be divided into two parts.

  • How do you track your expenses?

  • Why is it important?

How do you track your expenses?

Most likely, you already have an idea about what I mean with what I wrote. Tracking your expenses involves being aware of where every cent goes. In achieving financial freedom, every cent matters so you have to consider where it goes.

Let us have a uniform definition of what I mean by expenses in this article. Expenses are the things where we put our money. It may either be for wants or needs, recurring or non-recurring, and fixed expenses. As long as the money is going out of your wallet, then consider that as an expense.

The first way to do this is by writing down where you spend your money. You can do this in a small or big notebook. First, write down the date of where the purchase took place. Then include the reason for why you spent this day. Most importantly, jot down the amount of money that you spent down to the centavo.

This is a time consuming way to track your expenses. Moreover, it will require more effort on your part to do. You would have to have your pen and notebooks ready as well as a calculator for when you need the total amount of your expenses.

If you are lazy like me, you will surely benefit with another way of expense tracking. Setting up your own spreadsheet will be tume consuming at first but it will save you time in the long term.

By setting up a mainly automated process woth the power of spreadsheet, all you would hsve to do next time is to input all the expenses that you have and the sheet will do the work for you.

Well, that is if you know how to maximize the potential of spreadsheet. It is intimidating at first, but trust me it is a fun process. I do not know everything there is to know about using spreadsheet but I know enough that I managed to do my own expense tracker.

I might do an article about it next week so if you are interested, be sure to look out for it.

Now that we have discussed the ways in how you can track your expenses, let us talk about its significance.

Why is it important?

Do you really have to track your expenses?

Actually, you don't have to...

If you do not care about money at all.

But if you do, then you must be vigilant where you put your money. This way, you can see how you can achieve your goals.

By tracking your expenses you will mot be able to pretend that your impulse buys just take up a tiny amount of your budget. You will be able to see where you put most of your money.

Not only that but you can also see if you are spending within your means or if you are stretching your money too thin that you end up having more debts than savings.

While it may sound silly, being able to see where every cent you have goes will put your mind at rest. You will no longer have moments where you ask yourself, "where did my money go?" because all you have to do is to check your expense tracker and you will see where you put your money.

This small change in your routine will make you more mindful of where you want to out your money so you will be able to resist unneccessary spending money.

Closing words

I really wanted to write this article as I used to hate tracking my expenses. I used to have the mindset that money is meant to be used so why would I bother where it goes. well, that was until I started handling more amount of money and soon I did not know where the P40,000 I had went. No matter how hard I tried to add up all the things that I can remember buying or spending for, it does not match the money that I should still have.

At that moment, I realized the importance of tracking where my money went because I can not just rely on my memory. I started tracking my large expenses first because I thought it would suffice. I had a small notebook where I list down where I use P100 and up. But as time passed by, I started to notice how the little change I have adds up so then I also strated tracking it. Right now, I am using a spreadsheet to track my expenses as it is more convenient than just writing them on a notebook.

I wrote this article in hopes that there will be younger people than me who might read this and really think about setting up their own expense tracker. This is because I believe that you will be able to appreciate the money you have right now when you have little financial obligations than when you are making more money but also handling more financial obligations. Trust me, I miss the times where the money I receive immediately goes into impulsively buying things. Now I have to bidget how much I should give to my parents as well as give my share for the bills we pay monthly.

Anyway, I wish that you enjoyed reading this article. This is all that I want to say today.


This is a part of the Adulting 101 series that I am writing. You can read the earlier articles of this series here:

  1. Adulting 101: Realizations

  2. Adulting 101: Children does not count as investment

  3. Adulting 101: Set Financial Goals



Thank you for reading this article!

If you want to read some more articles of mine, I have monthly summaries here:

February 2022 Article Summary

January 2022 Articles Summary

December 2021 Articles Summary

November 2021 Articles Summary

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May 2021 Articles Summary

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2 years ago

Comments

I think there are apps available that we can download to help in tracking expenses. I haven't tried though.

$ 0.00
2 years ago

I am tracking my expenses sometimes, but sometimes I forgot. That is why I end up getting short of money. Personally, I prefer doing it lalo na pag tight yung budget, it helped a lot to control our spending habits. And it is important to save as early as now.

$ 0.00
2 years ago

I don't track my expenses always but I do always keep the payment bills inside of my wallets when I go somewhere. So that when I will arrived home, I can calculate all the things that I bought or when I forgot where my money go, I will just see it to my wallet and find the bill paper.

$ 0.01
2 years ago

Ganyan din ako dati, may collection ng bills receipts HAHA

$ 0.00
2 years ago

Earn and save while you can. The future is scary so better yet as early as now we should track where our money is going. Nice write up.

$ 0.01
2 years ago

I don't really list it in a spreadsheet but I memorize all my expenses in a month. Maybe, I'll have to do that when I can enroll to school next school year.

$ 0.01
2 years ago

OMG, I don't really track my expenses. Bast pag nay pipau out ako sa wallet ko. May allowance ako na 500 pagkasyahin ko na yan Minsan naabot ng mahigit isang linggo minsan naman Hindi. Maalam din naman akong mag tipid peri pag sa foods ang hirap mag tipid ee haha

$ 0.01
2 years ago

Hirap talaga i-resist ng food cravings eh. Panira sa budget chz

$ 0.00
2 years ago

Good financial management actually has a fairly high benefit because you can see how much expenses you have made because if you can't do the bookkeeping then the money you are looking for and receiving cannot be found because the expenses may be greater than the income.

$ 0.01
2 years ago

You're alike me. Can't control myself for stunning stuffs and invest my savings.

$ 0.01
2 years ago

I've been doing this way back in high school because my mother would always asked me before where my money went and how did I spent it that's why this practice is never new to me, I'm just glad that there are people out there who are doing the same and is spreading this habit to everyone in order to handle their finances better.

$ 0.01
2 years ago

My sister was the one who taught me about tracking my finances and I believe that tracking your expenses is the first way out of financial poverty or crisis. I find it hassle at first because I used to write them on notebooks and then on notes from my phone. But later on, I felt guilty of the things that I spent money on so I stopped doing it. But I strongly believe on the power that it possess. Writing your expenses would make you feel guilty of your unnecessary expenses and then aware of your over all expenses. Then you will slowly be develop on being a more concious consumer and your spending habits will be developed for the better.

$ 0.03
2 years ago

I agree with you that writing down expenses really played a part in helping stop unneessary purchases.

$ 0.00
2 years ago

Well said dear. I will follow it.

$ 0.01
2 years ago

Yes sis it's really important that we track our expenses so that we will know what are the things we spent because till will come, our mind suddenly asked about it then we have a record then we easily to find it. I always track my expenses sis.

$ 0.01
2 years ago

Yup, it is easier than just trying to remember every single purchase we made.

$ 0.00
2 years ago

Yes sis that's true. We should track it always.

$ 0.00
2 years ago