Originally posted by: Turin39789
This sounds like what I will probably be trying to do. Hardest part will just be tracking all the small purchases that I probably need to be cutting out anyway.
Any chance you could describe how your spreadsheet is laid out? Are you tracking expenses with a description like a glorified ledger and then using the totals to monitor where the money is going and then setting limits?
I'm starting to worry that I'm making too many changes right now. All of them making me more boring. I'm trying to save money, lose weight/exercise, im going back to school, trying to quit smoking, trying to cut back on drinking.
my concern is that this is going to be a lot of data after a few months, and I want to make sure I keep it in an organized/usable manner
My spreadsheet has morphed significantly over the years. It morphed to meet my needs and my odd fascination with numbers. Thus, it is difficult to describe what it is now and why it is in that state. But I started off by listing what I think are important categories. I did things like: rent, insurance, utilities, food, restaurant food, entertainment, travel, vehicles, school, gifts, clothing, taxes, and miscellaneous. Over time, I subdivided some of those categories to get more detailed information. Your particular categories may be different.
Then I put at the top of columns each of the headings. Under that heading, I just typed in the cost of each purchase I made. It takes about 30 seconds/day to do it. The only time it took me more was when I went to the grocery store and bought food / gifts / miscellaneous all in one purchase and had to separate the costs. Otherwise, I just took the receipts out of my pocket and typed away. Then at the top of each column, I had it all added up for each column. I also converted that amount into a monthly spending amount, so I knew on average what I spent each month in each category.
Track that for a year and you'll know very well what your real costs are (because your utility bills take a year to factor in all seasons, your gift bills take a year to factor in all holidays, etc). However, even after just a month, you should be quite close to your current spending.
I took each monthly category and found out what the percentage of my total income was. That way I knew I spent way too much on restaurant food, yet way too little on entertainment and gifts. By cutting back a tiny bit on restaurants, I could double my entertainment spending and double my gift spending and still be spending less in total.
After that it morphed into a massive spreadsheet because I'm fascinated with numbers. I have my checking account balance (to the day) predicted for many years out, including inflation of utilites (damn the cable bill inflation rate is insane), etc. I'm actually excited to get a bill so I can type it in and see how the trends change. I definately wouldn't recommend anything that fancy to others though.
To keep your information organized, just keep the number of categories small. Don't track information for too long either. Once a month, total up your spending that month, and write down October's spending in each category. Then you can delete all the individual spending amounts for the month of October. That keeps your total data down to ~1 page.
You don't have to be as fancy as I am with my budget. But I don't know how anyone can realistically make a budget if they don't know how they spend to begin with. A spreadsheet lets you (a) develop a budget that is just an attempt to slightly tweak your acutal spending for the better and (b) know if you are sticking to that budget.
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