We did this in January, but have slacked off since. I want to start again next month tracking every single expense even down to the little things.
Do you do this? Do you use any apps, programs, etc? (I have tried but don't really like Mint)
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I did.... tbh though I'm about a year behind in our QB file! Once P was born it was just too hard for me to keep up with. We did get YNAB, which I think does this, but I still haven't found the time to set it up..... =/
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I have in the past. I used YNAB (you need a budget) because it works on my computer and there are iphone apps that I installed on both my phone and DH's phone. It was helpful to track our expense but I couldn't get my account to reconcile correctly in the program. I need to give it a try again.
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We used to track everything thru excel, but we always started slacking towards the end of each month. Now we track everything through ynab (they have a phone app too but it's not helpful unless you purchase the desktop app)... And it has been such a game changer for us!
Edit: they recently made the phone app free
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hahahaha... no ^_^
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I use to. I've definitely slacked off in the last couple years since getting married and joining finances. It was a lot easier to do for myself than it is to do for 2 people. Thankfully my husband has kind of started doing this for us and he literally takes account for every penny.
ETA: he uses a little notebook (OLDSCHOOL).
I use a spreadsheet in excel, but have not kept up with it and it takes a lot of work to update... ugh.
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Yes, I managed to keep up with it for about a year. Then I started to slack of and try to catch up every few months. I'm about 5 months behind right now. I just used my own excel sheet, and then opened a mint account. I still don't really like mint, so I just use it to search on a month, and then enter everything back in to my sheet. I do like that mint shows me everything in one place since we regularly use 3 credit cards and it was a pain to look up each one individually.
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I try to, luckily my online banking site makes it really easy for me, I can break each expenditure up into a variety of categories and it will chart everything out for me. I can even do split categories for some things, like if I bought groceries and household items from the same store, I can split the purchase up accordingly. Sometimes I will miss a little something here or there if I used cash, but for the most part, I can track everything. The comparisons for each month are really helpful!
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DH does. I kind of prefer my blissfull ignorance, though I do check our account balances often. We're less strict now that we have/make more money. If things tighten up, he turns into a stickler for every penny.
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@Mrs. High Heels: yes i knew there was a post on it! thank you! i am going to check out that app now!
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DH went through a phase of using Microsoft Money. We don't do it at all now really apart from looking through our cc's each month to see why it's so high.
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Yep, we use an Excel spreadsheet and do cash-only in envelopes. It used to be a huge pain but I'm used to it now and its like clockwork for us.
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@Mrs. Bee: If you try it, I recommend starting at the 1st of the month... And go to their site, there are a ton of valuable resources there and podcasts too. There's also a forum thats pretty helpful if you get confused about anything. I actually subscribe to his blog and follow them on Facebook, and it's helped me so much!
Like Bluestriped Bee mentioned, at first I couldn't get my accounts to reconcile correctly (but I also tried starting in the middle of the month and that was confusing), but once I started over at the 1st of the month and figured out exactly how I wanted to handle my budget I was good to go. Ynab has already paid for itself a hundred times over in just a few short months!
Ok I'll stop being a walking advertisement now.
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@prettylizy: blissful ignorance, that's me! Lol. Just recently I have tracked what we have been spending since we are saving up for the down payment on our house but wow, it's stressful to see how much comes out of our account!
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I bought YNAB a couple months ago and really need to use it! I use my planner to write down bills, and groceries. I have no idea what my dh spends, and that's what is making YNAB hard for me.
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We don't spend too much so it's easy to track!
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We each have our own "fun money" accounts where we get $100/week. We dont budget that but our joint account is budgeted to the dollar and i project it out 3 months with bills, savings, and debits like food shopping.
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Not to the dollar/penny, because I don't see the real value add for us. We do a budget and we enter in what we spent in the high level categories.
We pay for things almost exclusively with credit cards to get the amazon points, so we have those records.
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@Mrs. High Heels: Oh, you can follow YNAB on facebook? Cool! It will remind me to track my expenses.
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Nope we are really bad about that.
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I should mention we try to use our cc whenever possible so we can track it. Anything we pay in cash we don't track, but we rarely use cash and its usually in small amounts so we're ok not tracking those.
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Nope, but I'm sure it would be interesting if we did.
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We've used mint for years and we love it!
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Just started using YNAB in Feb and loving it so far! So yep, we are tracking every expense.
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Ha, no way. I'm sure the responsible thing to do would be to track...but not sure we ever will.
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@bluestriped bee: yea, i like reading people's comments too! it's helpful to hear how others do things or what they struggle with.
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No, I don't track it. I keep track of our fixed expenses to make sure we have plenty of money in checking. Everything else gets paid by credit card and that's generally around the same amount every month.
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Not really. I monitor our checking accounts daily and review our credit card statements, but I don't keep track of each expense as they're incurred. Plus, I have no idea when the hubby uses his credit cards until the statements come. I don't bother to check his transactions on a daily basis.
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DH does through Quicken. We also have a excel spreadsheet of our yearly income and expected expenses to help budget for the year.
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yep - the hubs itemizes and checks all our accounts (using mint) every night.
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Yep, I don't have a choice! Every dollar counts in our budget, to the point where we check in with each other before getting a 5$ lunch at McDs! It's a pain in the neck to have to track EVERYTHING, but it's what works best for us, and has kept us in the black so far!
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Yes. My husband made our budget using excel and we make sure it's always matching the bank statement.
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Most stuff. In qb. The only ones I don't are the lil things bought w cash. I record all the cash withdrawn, but don't apply them to an expense unless I know for sure, like paying for cleaning or gambling or something.
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Nope. We don't track.
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No, but we don't really go out and buy little things between grocery trips.
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