It’s May, which means it’s month five of me tracking my spending. I have to be honest. Although I have been tracking my spending, I haven’t been on top of really managing my spending. I am still purchasing unnecessary things. Yes, I created a budget, but only for savings. I haven’t created a budget for clothes, travel, restaurant, or pets. These four categories are what I really spend a lot on.
Here, I’ll share how I track spending, which hopefully will inspire you to do the same.
At the start of these Journal Entries, I mention how I want to achieve financial freedom. My why is to live bicoastally and to be able to support my children in milestone events financially. My oldest got married this year, which was an eye-opener on how much more expensive things will get.
As mentioned, I haven’t been too on top of managing my money. What I mean is that I’m not as excited anymore to sit down and track my spending. Instead of doing it every week (like I should be doing, because it keeps me accountable), I’ve been doing it once a month instead.
I am doing a good job of tracking my spending and expenses. But where I am losing sight is learning how to create a budget.
These past few months, I have given myself credit for organizing my finances, finding lower APRs, and consolidating my loans. By doing so, I have more money at the end of the month to work with.
However, I admit I am getting a little lost and confused about how to budget.
I was paying for everything with my debit card, but then I started getting scared. I was getting scared because of past experiences and talking with my friends. In the event of fraud, my debit card is linked to my main checking account, and that’s where all my money hits first before it gets dispersed to bills, savings, and retirement accounts.
So in April, I had the brilliant idea to use a credit card to make all my purchases with, and I would pay it off. The thing is, I can see my old pattern start to surface. I keep telling myself when I want something, “Oh, just charge it. You’re going to pay it off anyway.” And this is where my old pattern repeats itself. Because before you know it, I have a super high balance. And I’m taking money to pay that off instead of paying off already existing debt.
When I used my debit card, I had to really think about making a purchase. I also noticed that when I didn’t have an emergency expense, like a vet bill, I’d tell myself I could “treat myself.” Instead of taking that extra money and putting it in a savings account or paying down debt.
I also thought that since I’ve been consistent with tracking my spending, even if it was sitting down and catching up once a month, I was doing a good job and was on track to financial freedom.
But I am so wrong. Just because I was doing one part right doesn’t mean I was doing everything that adds to success well. I took the easiest part of being financially responsible to become consistent, but not the actual habit or mentality I needed to change.
These Journal Entries haven’t been consistent either. I remember writing a blog post every week, if not more than once a week. Now, it’s becoming once a month, just like tracking my spending.
I really need to work on changing these habits I’ve learned and unlearning bad habits.
Currently, I’m organizing my finances and tracking my spending on Google Sheets. This is the easiest since I can easily pull up Google Sheets on my phone and track my spending when I’m out and about. In my next blog post, I’m hoping to write more about how I track spending on Google Sheets. I know I still owe a post about the financial influencers I like to listen to.
I hope to write that post eventually. For now, I need to stop complaining about what I’m not doing correctly and return to learning financial literacy.
I can’t say that tracking my spending has been in vain. In the past two months, I noticed I’ve been spending a lot on clothes, averaging $760!! After seeing that number, I thought how ridiculous that amount was.
In my defense, I did spend $250 on six pairs of pajamas. Some may think that’s a crazy amount of money to spend on pajamas, but hear me out. I am trying to build healthier sleep habits, which I have been doing really well over the past two months. I’m averaging 6-7 hours of sleep per night now, unlike how I used to average 3-4 hours per night.
To me, the $250 was an investment in my health. I get excited getting ready for bed now. It feels like such a privilege that I used to take for granted. I also never used to wear pajamas. I’d wear whatever raggedy old clothes I used to have or nothing at all.
After watching my kids get ready for bed and putting on their nice pajamas, did I get a clue for myself. It’s funny how we moms would not question investing in our children, but the very same thing we need goes over our heads to apply for ourselves.
I digress…however, spending $250 on pajamas meant I still spent $510 for one month, which I agree is a lot, especially if my goal is to achieve financial freedom. I just spent $700 and something a month before that (that was during my trip to New York).
How I track spending gives me insight into what I’m overspending on and how I can cut back. Duh, okay, I guess that’s the whole point, right? Well, it took me five months to figure that out.
This month, I made myself a goal of not purchasing more clothes, even if the sales seem too good to pass up. I’ve also really cut back on restaurants because this is another high expense I’ve noticed after I track spending.
I’ve been doing well with automatically putting money into savings and retirement. I added up all my savings, investments, and retirement accounts and have around $330,000. I think that’s pretty good? I’m sure I could’ve done better for someone my age, but I’m proud of myself for getting this far with the cards that have been dealt to me in the past. As always, I’m continuing to learn and grow. I’m committed to this journey of financial literacy.
However, my debt is another story. Like I said, it’s in the six figures, and I still don’t feel confident sharing that amount quite yet. I will say it’s less than $200k, though, so you can kind of figure it out from there.
There you have it. This is how and why I track spending!
As always, thanks for reading. I appreciate any tips on financial literacy. Be sure to leave a comment!
Love, Sutivi.
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