But how do you keep track of spending?

[DesertBlossom]

I'm pretty good at making a budget and paying all our bills first and putting money in savings. We are doing fairly well and we keep ourselves out of debt. I keep on top of things but it's a time-intensive process because I don't know how to easily track spending on a daily basis. So we sometimes get ourselves in a pickle when a bunch of smaller purchases add up to more than I think they do and throw our budget temporarily out of whack. Or when one spouse thinks the balance is available for x, when it's already been spent for y, but the check hasn't been cashed, or whatever.

So how do you keep track of spending?

DO NOT SAY CASH ENVELOPES. Ack.

We've tried a couple apps but I don't like the idea of linking my bank to my phone. So I was manually putting in balances with categories and that was a PITB and lasted a month or two. We don't have a "his money/her money" type budget and neither of us are inclined to frivolously spend money. But we don't always communicate about purchases. And $20 here and $50 there sometimes adds up to several hundred dollars over budget.

[xixstar]

I use YNAB which I use on my computer (they have a phone app, but I don't use it). I reconcile a couple times a month to keep track of where we are. I have categories for everything because we budget for everything. It did take a little time to get that set up. And it took me 2-3 months to really know what our categories should be (aka when I needed less or more categories).

It's pretty fast to do now because YNAB generally knows which category a purchase goes into and I just have to approve it. So after your first month, it should be much faster. 

[City Mouse]

We use Every Dollar because one account can be opened N multiple Devices. I keep the app on my phone and iPad and DH has it on his computer and his phone. That allows either of us to pull up the info instantly if we want.

[Carol in Cal.]

We decided to use a separate checking account for recurring but nonmonthly expenses.

These are things like property taxes, annual or semi-annual insurance bills, car repairs, and presents.  We estimated how much this would all add up to, and divided that by 12, and started to have that much automatically put into that separate account every month.  That way we did not fake ourselves out by having cash building up in the regular checking account that was needed for those 'oops' bills.  This was very helpful.

Some people have another checking account just for regular bills, like the mortgage or utilities, and then use a third one for 'extras'.  We never did that.

[Annie G]

Multiple methods here. We have different accounts and divvy up the money. One is household bills, and that is recurring things like utilities, insurance, cell phones, etc.  Another account is for mortgage, property taxes, and household repairs.  Then dh and I have our own accounts for discretionary purchases. 

‘We also use Mint so we can we where money is going, Nd it lows us to set budgets so even though we are each ‘in charge’ of different things, we can see what’s been spent. 

I also dedicate a two page spread in my bullet journal every month to track my spending. For me, writing it all down makes me think more.  When we travel I do a spread to track our expenses. 

‘It all sounds like a LOT of tracking and it is. Dh is retiring within the next 12 months and we’re trying to be sure we know how much we’re really spending. We’re also transitioning from an end of the month look back to a more defined budget approach. 

[bethben]

We use every dollar.  The caveat is that dh doesn't always look at it before he spends.  I'm usually reminding him that "yes, buying xyz would be nice, but have you seen the budget for that lately?"  I also would hate the envelope system.  When I'm out doing errands, I'm usually dropping large amounts of money since I don't get out much.  $400 at Costco is not an envelope friendly system kwim?

[SKL]

I used to budget everything using a spreadsheet, and then go back and put the actual amounts into the spreadsheet ASAP.

If something was going to be over budget, I'd wait or put off another expenditure.  Of course emergencies excepted.

[Ravin]

I use the manual transaction entry feature on my bank's app/website. All bills and predictable recurring expenses are put in as recurring transactions, and as I spend I keep my receipts and deduct from the relevant "residual" transaction for that category. I have it down to "weekly spending money" for what's left. The app lets me see projected transactions about 6 weeks out, so I can be sure that things stay balanced.

[goldberry]

3 hours ago, DesertBlossom said:

We've tried a couple apps but I don't like the idea of linking my bank to my phone. So I was manually putting in balances with categories and that was a PITB and lasted a month or two.

I've wondered about this also.  I've hesitated to use an app on my phone because of security.  Do those of you that use it worry about it at all?  

[DesertBlossom]

5 hours ago, xixstar said:

I use YNAB which I use on my computer (they have a phone app, but I don't use it). I reconcile a couple times a month to keep track of where we are. I have categories for everything because we budget for everything. It did take a little time to get that set up. And it took me 2-3 months to really know what our categories should be (aka when I needed less or more categories).

It's pretty fast to do now because YNAB generally knows which category a purchase goes into and I just have to approve it. So after your first month, it should be much faster. 

How do you reconcile it? Is it linked to your bank account or do you manually have to put the transactions in each category?

 

[scholastica]

7 hours ago, DesertBlossom said:

How do you reconcile it? Is it linked to your bank account or do you manually have to put the transactions in each category?

 

You do in the beginning but if you spend at the same places it recognizes them and automatically categorizes after a few times. You don’t have to have it on your phone. You can just do it on your home computer and import the transactions as often as you like. Each time you have an inflow of money you allocate it out to your spending categories. You can see activity in each category as well. I was surprised how much I like it. My dh absolutely loves it. He does use it on his phone and enters transactions right away. He was always losing receipts, making it hard for me to categorize and now it’s not a problem.

[HomeAgain]

It's a habit thing.  You just have to get into the habit of being mindful of spending.

DH and I each have separate accounts as well as our joint accounts.  His hobbies are expensive drops in the bucket, so we each set a personal "allowance" in our weekly budget and use it however we want.  That money doesn't roll back into the family budget, but if there's extra we'll put it in our own accounts for bigger hobby expenses.  It allows us to keep control over how much we spend at a personal level.
We use Everydollar, and our bank has a feature where we can set budget categories for each transaction, so it gets to know which is the grocery store or the gas station or whatnot.  We can go through the Everydollar app each day for regular expenses, and reconcile it against the bank account.  We can see a pattern of spending over a month or year on our bank to see if we need to adjust categories to be more in tune with what we really spend, so we can be more real with ourselves (instead of creating a "wishful thinking" budget).

But it comes down to just making the habit of taking a few minutes and thinking about money.

[Carrie12345]

I do have my bank app on my phone, but I mostly use a credit card, which is also linked to my phone.  Since so many bills and other transfers come out of my bank account, using the credit card puts almost all of my non-billing spending in one place, usually in real time.  It gets paid every two weeks, when I sit down to do the rest of the regular billing.  It makes it pretty impossible to not pay attention to how much I'm spending, when I know I'm going to *actually pay it in one lump sum!

I use a separate bank account for written checks.  If I write a check, I just do an immediate bank transfer to cover it and otherwise ignore that account.  I can't stand waiting for things to clear.  It makes the numbers start to get mushy in my head, or else requires more frequent reconciling.

[Scarlett]

I really need to start doing some serious tracking.  Does anyone use a method where it is not connected to your bank account?

[Clear Creek]

1 hour ago, Scarlett said:

I really need to start doing some serious tracking.  Does anyone use a method where it is not connected to your bank account?

The YNAB app on your phone does not have to be linked to your bank account (I am not even sure that it can be). The app on the phone is basically a fancy spreadsheet shared through dropbox. I allocate money to different lines in the budget on the desktop computer each time we make a deposit in our bank account. Whenever my husband or I spends money, we enter that transaction in the app under the proper category (grocery, restaurants, clothing, etc.) and when the other person opens the app to enter a transaction, the amount available in that category will reflect what the other person has spent. Several times a week I log into my bank account and reconcile the transactions we have made with the transactions listed on our account. It literally takes a few seconds for me to do that.

[KrissiK]

I use a spreadsheet on Excel and keep every receipt. Writing checks or using the credit card (which gets paid off every month) helps a lot. I have very detailed categories.... groceries, toiletries, home/yard expenses, clothing categories, homeschool, utilities, gas, etc. It doesn’t take that long to do it, really. The worst is the Walmart receipt because I have to figure out how much was spent on groceries, toiletries, etc. I never had much luck with premade budget things, I start from scratch and then work it till it meets my needs. I’ve been doing this since we’ve been married and overall, it works well for me.

[scholastica]

YNAB doesn't force you to connect it to your bank account. You can set up the accounts without doing that step, you just skip it. You do then have to manually enter every transaction. The connectivity is simply for your convenience. It takes way less time to have it import the transactions from the bank. It is also encrypted. Here's their security info page. https://www.youneedabudget.com/security/. I've been downloading from banks since Quicken added that feature. I have never had a problem with theft or hacking or anything like that. 

[scholastica]

45 minutes ago, Danae said:

We use the old YNAB which does not link to your bank account. We do have the phone app, so we can enter purchases as we make them.  At some point I expect it to stop working, since it's no longer supported, and then we'll have to decide what to use instead. We're not moving to new YNAB.

Can I ask why?

[katilac]

18 hours ago, DesertBlossom said:

 So I was manually putting in balances with categories and that was a PITB and lasted a month or two. We don't have a "his money/her money" type budget and neither of us are inclined to frivolously spend money. But we don't always communicate about purchases. And $20 here and $50 there sometimes adds up to several hundred dollars over budget.

1

 

Keeping track of spending, including smaller purchases, is always going to be a PITB to some extent. You just have to grit your teeth and do it. 

I personally think that a small notepad (or index card) and pen is easier than entering info on my phone. Yes, there is the extra step of entering it into a master ledger (paper or computer), but do that together and it is an excellent time for discussing and planning money matters. 

We used to just enter information from our receipts daily into Quicken. If I did a big Walmart-style trip, I would put all the like items together on the belt: groceries, clothes, cleaning supplies. Then make a quick underline under each category when I got in the car. Because let's face it, "$172 @ Walmart" is not informative if you're trying to see where the money goes in addition to how much money is spent. 

It's important to do the receipt method daily, because you will never remember what some of the cryptic abbreviations stand for in three days. 

[scholastica]

2 minutes ago, Danae said:

 

I don't like the changes to how credit cards are handled, no longer allowing categories to carryover negative balances complicates tracking reimbursements, I prefer buying software to a monthly fee, and I think eliminating the buffer as a functional tool in favor of the "Age of Money" as an aspirational goal was stupid.

I figured out work arounds to most of that, but the fact that it's now an online app instead of purchased software means the next stupid changes they make will roll out automatically and I won't have the option to not update if I don't like them. Since I don't agree with where the company has headed with their philosophy I don't expect to like future changes either.

I was a power-user and an active member on the YNAB forums before the change-over. The company even sent me a T-shirt as a thank you for helping so many users.  After the roll-out of new YNAB I left the forums because I didn't want to be a negative Nelly there, so I don't actually know what's happened with updates in the last few years. But I love my YNAB classic, and will be very sad when it dies.

That all makes sense. That's too bad that it doesn't work for you in the newer iterations. 

[Scarlett]

Ok, I just put the Every dollar app on my phone....I was already signed up for it.  The free version is not linked to my bank account which I prefer I think. I think as long as every dime we spend gets added into some category it will work.  I think dh can download the app too and log in the account I set up so he can add his own spending as he goes.