I've been keeping trakc of all my spending in a notebook recently. Somehow, I don't think it's giving me the complete picture of my financial life that I am looking for.
As of today, I'm using a bigger notebook. I'll be writing down what I spend each day, what activities me and the hubby and kids had, if and what I cooked for dinner, and any other notes on what we did or what we were spending on.
I'm sure some of you have tried this, and I'd like to hear if it helped you.
I just think that with more data, I'll be able to look back over everything and see what our spending triggers are. It might also motivate me to cook at home more to cut out the take-out!@
spending notebook on steroids
October 4th, 2010 at 04:26 pm
October 4th, 2010 at 05:32 pm 1286213523
I'm queen of the notebook (newly implemented at the start of the school year). Little calendars won't do for a family my size. I have 1/2 page a day of the week. I write down who goes where/also what we've spent. It has been a help, and a reminder to do things to save money (like heading to the library for DVDs for Saturday night versus Family Video). It is also going to help remind me when library books and video rentals are due (further eliminating a small money leak). I am using a simple spiral notebook, cheap, free and portable. Good luck implementing yours!
October 4th, 2010 at 05:35 pm 1286213758
I have also gone through the grocery receipts for a month, listing each item on the receipt in a category to try to find out how much we spent in each category and how we went wrong. I found it helpful.
October 4th, 2010 at 08:51 pm 1286225500