“Tracking expenses made me change habits”

“Tracking expenses made me change habits”

“You got a deposit released today,” the bank teller said over the phone, “what do you want to do with the money?”

I was in the middle of lunch at work and there was a lot of noise around me, and in a few minutes the next meeting was already starting. “Then give me what was released for another month,” I said. Here’s a beauty, I’ve solved the problem and I’m also saving and investing for a more comfortable future.

“No problem, cover the minus?”

What?! I stopped chewing for a moment… What’s a minus?!

After a few minutes of questions and answers and an inevitable delay to the next meeting, I realized that in recent months I have been spending more than I bring in, and a small minus has been created in the bank, and although I have savings to cover it, the bank may be calm, but I am not.

After all, I started tracking my expenses and exactly from a minus I try to avoid so but am I still in a minus?

The idea is that when I see exactly how much I’ve spent and for what, I can calculate the economic balance against my income. Do I make on average more throughout the year than I spend or, as is the case with many (perhaps many), bring in less than I spend? I decided to tighten and be strict in the whole issue of recording expenses.

Cash purchases were recorded in a small ledger every day and I kept the receipts, checks were recorded in an appendix with accurate details. For the next few weeks, at the end of each week (a week! not a month!) I jealously wrote down in Excel that I had built up the various expenses, and after a period of several months I could calculate an average and it was really high.

I also looked for why my expenses were so much higher… And I found out!

Those who eat out a lot, go out and date in places on a level and always pay, shop without an account and more. Will really spend a lot of money.

Following the registration, I slowly began to change my behavior. Date? Great we’ll go have a cup of coffee and talk. Dinner? Not always eating out is really cheaper as I sold myself, eating at home. Shopping? We’ll make a list and buy what we need and listen to a neighbor who explained to me that the neighborhood store is terribly expensive and it’s better to drive 5 minutes by car and buy much cheaper.

I also began to question the prices of the various providers whose bills I always paid without batting an eyelid. There were some unpleasant phone calls to my cable TV provider but I managed to lower the price. I also switched phone providers and lowered the price.

The minus I must tell you first of all increased a little, then diminished and finally completely disappeared.

Today, I have been recording expenses for many years and do it in an elaborate and efficient manner with almost no investment of time. My wife and I open the various envelopes that arrive and arrange once a week in a binder according to topics (bank, credit cards, insurance companies…), and once a week they also record the expenses in a record of paamonim.

I smile when I think about how much time I’ve invested in my “fancy” Excel. During the month I see how the various expenses are progressing, and at the end of the month I have a full picture of how much I spent according to clear items.

An accurate record of expenses is a cornerstone of budget management. If we don’t know how much we’re spending and what we’ll never be able to manage our money for, and it’s likely to run out between our fingers, we’ll spend a lot more than we should, and trouble won’t be long in coming.

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