Stay on top of your expenses

Posted April 28, 2008

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Pfiou - what a mess ! We just spend an hour yesterday tracking our expenses for the current month. We enjoyed some EPF withdrawal which directly lowered our mortgage principal - it is great, but we did not anticipate the additional work we would have to track it! It kind of messed up all of our calculation. It took us 30mn to get a hand on things. We ended up revamping our excel file - the new one is way better! - and sipping a few beers to help our thinking.

What is important here is that we now are back on tarck. We know how much we spent last month, and can better prepare ourselves. Tracking ones expenses can be difficult; especially when you start doing it. What you need is a few easy tricks and some dedication. You’ll find hereunder a few I found useful:

  • Keep all your receipts
  • Take a piece of paper and write the figure down when you forget or lost the receipt
  • Update your tracking file every 2 days – it only take 5 minutes
  • Keep your excel file with you all the time - a USB key is the idea companion
  • Print your budget and stick it somewhere visible (fridge, mirror, TV…)
  • Do it with your spouse / fiancée / GF / BF – doing it together will help you stay on track

Got any other? Please share :-)