How do you keep track of personal spending?

[bumblebee48]

Hi- I realise I’m in a privileged position but for quite a while now I’ve had a good amount for personal discretionary spending. I mean things like clothes, haircuts, toiletries, meals and trips out. Nothing to do with household bills.
anyways I’ve never really kept track of it but I’m planning to do so next year as am expecting a change of circumstances and want to see where the money goes. So if anyone categorises their personal spending what are the categories?
Also - how would you record it? I put practically everything on a credit card which is billed on the 15th of the month and which I pay off in full when I’m paid on the 25th.
So would a month’s expenses run 15th-15th, 25th-25th if you were me? Or would you just set it out by calendar month.

I think you need to do it however feels most logical to you.

I put money in different pots/bank accounts as I get paid - esp savings. Then during the month I use a widget in my online banking to see the categories I'm spending in. I think most banks have them. They aren't terribly sophisticated but good enough.

I use pots and different accounts too, and allocate a budget for various things eg I have a food account with a budget, a transport account with a budget etc.

if you’re talking about line by line item by item spending, either use a notebook or one of the various apps that you enter the transactions into.

I think it’s very challenging to keep an eye on what you’re spending day to day the way you’re doing it - there’s no budget with a credit card so you’re just blindly spending and paying it off.

you could try something like Monzo - I love my Monzo account for the pots, there is an upgrade version that allows you to have a virtual card for each pot (I think it’s £3 a month) and that helps you keep an eye on your spending, on Monzo you can also categorise your transactions too and choose the categories yourself.

Probably stupid question- but how does the widget know what you’ve spent on as opposed to which shops you’ve spent in? So in a big department store it could be clothes/ household stuff or even a meal in their cafe/ restaurant.
as I said - I’m probably being thick!

I use a spreadsheet. The first column is my monthly budget, then annual budget. Then I have the budget for that month, and then the actual spend for that month.

The rows are where I categorise the spend. I have several different categories and each category has several rows. Household, eg gas/electric, virgin media, water bill etc. Health, eg dentist, optician, HRT, physio. Exercise, eg pilates, gym membership etc. Other subscriptions, eg newspaper, audible, spotify. Hair/beauty, eg hair colour, beauty products. Entertainment, lunches / coffees/dinner out, or taking my kids out. Then there's an 'other' section, train tickets, parking, other (amazon usually!), and birthday presents, and that sort of thing. Also car, eg insurance, tax, petrol etc.

I start by populating the essentials and then work out how much else I can spend on the non essentials.

I can also see easily if I'm ahead of budget, or for example, in September/October, I try to cut my spend on treats, because then I can spend more in November in Black Friday when things are reduced.

I work out the first/second column based on what I think I would spend over the year, so for example, my car insurance was £280, but this is only payable once, but I still divide by 12 so it goes into a monthly amount. But, it only goes in the 'actual spend' column the month I spend it.

I think this all sounds quite confusing, and I probably spend quite a lot of time on it, but I do find that tracking my spending this way helps me spend less and keep to my budget, because I see where it is going. Also, I can see all through the month if I'm sticking to budget, or am above or below.

I do it by calendar month, and tbh, I put things on my cc to maximise my 'points' but as soon as I enter it into my budget spreadsheet, I just make the payment rather than once a month, that way I feel it is more conscious spending. eg if I've spent £50 on books/bits & pieces, I actually pay it off when it shows up on the bill, because I'm not using the cc for the credit. the money is in my bank account so I just clear it.

Shuffle- I think you are right about it being challenging. I do just blindly spend then pay it off. I hesitate to say this because being reasonably well off is a privilege - but I found it easier to track spending when money was tight.

Thanks one step - that’s very helpful. At the moment I only need to track non essentials. So hair/ beauty , eating out , cinema/ theatre would be obvious ones. I also have some subscriptions/ memberships. These are a bit annoying to keep track of as they are annual. So I end up taking them out of savings and not replacing them.
Also I don’t know whether subscriptions/ memberships is a category by itself or whether the money for say a cinema membership would be categorised with entertainment

If you would like, I can try and copy and paste all my (non essential) categories and send in a DM?

Thanks very kind of you - but I don’t subscribe to mumsnet so I think that means I can’t send or receive DM?
Not 100 percent sure…

I use the Snoop app to categorise all bank current and credit card accounts. Really easy to use to track personal spending, gift spending, hair and beauty etc.

I use snoop app (the free version) You can link all your bank accounts/credit cards and categorise your spending. Think you can create 3 or 4 additional categories with the free version

I'm boring and use a spreadsheet that has all household bills and costs listed.
All sectioned out, all colourcoded and update it at the end of the month.
There is a personal spend section with a "hummus" column and a "hummus husband" column and I dont split it any further, on the side I have a running total that I put all costs in, so things like gym membership, union membership, and other spends. That then gets totalled up and put on the sheet.

I've been doing it since 2019 when we had dc1 and it works for me. Dh isn't fussed about tracking as long as there's enough money in the bank to cover all bills at any one time.

There is a difference between writing down what you spend and actually doing something about it.
I just spent a lot of my free time watching a lot of those money saving videos and they all (pretty much) gave the same sort of advice
it all boils down to using what you have and not spending on non-essentials and not wasting anything and if necessary, going to the library and making the best of other free activities

We use an old fashioned note book. We have 2 accounts, one for bills and a different bank for spending.

I use Microsoft Money. It’s very old software but still around and free to use. Many banks still support data exports straight into Microsoft Money then you categorise it eg travel, eating out, council tax etc. once every two months I’ll export my statement from my internet banking, import into MS money then just tag a category and it creates reports for you.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5605572/microsoft-money-sunset-edition-download

Thanks- I’ve never actually heard of the Snoop app

I have 2 accounts. A joint account for bills and then my fun money account. No overdraft on that account, when it’s gone it’s gone. I did put everything on my card for years and pay it off each month but my spending crept up and up as it’s so easy to do. Now it’s credit card for food and fuel, joint account for household bills and we don’t use it for spending only bills and my sole account for fun purchases.

I just use a notebook and every few days go through my credit card statement and put the spends into whatever category they need to go in so I can add extra categories as I need to. I work out my monthly spending bill payment to bill payment rather than calendar month or payday month.

I use a spreadsheet I created on google docs.
I track all my spending using the following categories
Food/Household/Pets/Transport/Holidays/Eating Out/Luxuries/Work related/Other

I have a sheet per month and then a master sheet which shows the totals for each category and another sheet detailing income.

It sounds tedious but I actually enjoy it and am so much more aware of my financial situation and able to manage my money.

I can also see if any category is particularly excessive - for example in the summer our grocery bill was suddenly huge and I realised my 'occasional' trips to the beautiful, but very pricy artisan bakery had become two or three times a week.

Oh actually I think it might be possible for me to receive a DM