DH says everybody keeps track of their finances by logging receipts

[shewhowines]

After another long night of DH huffing and puffing "doing the finances", we had the age old discussion of him saying he needs to, because that is the only way and most people do it like that (his mum does), and me saying 90% of people don't do it his way.

He makes me keep every receipt and he logs every single item we buy, on a complicated spreadsheet. He uses this to forecast our expenses so that he can transfer money if necessary. Can I just add, he is not controlling as to what I spend. It's just if I spend it, or get money out, I must keep the receipt. The system obviously works, but it is sooo time consuming. I wouldn't mind, but then I have to put up with him moaning.

I say that most people work retrospectively. They scan through their credit card bill to make sure there are no errors, and correlate this with their bank statement. Money can be transferred if necessary, at that point.

I am right aren't I? Nobody keeps their receipts and meticulously logs every bloody transaction.

Nope, receipts generally go into my handbag, and stay there until I have a clear out. I check my bank statement if I need to know what I've spent.

I have a pretty simple spreadsheet which only takes seconds to fill in so it's not a big deal or time consuming. I like to know that I have enough left to pay off credit card IN FULL as I hate giving any company extra money in the way of interest etc. I am a single parent and have no 'safety net' anymore as both my parents have died and my daughter's father lives in South Africa and gives me no money at all.

I AM a big fan of moneysavingexpert.com but I scrimp and save so that me and kids can have trips abroad when we can which has made some beautiful memories for the 3 of us. So sorry I have no apologies for my one little spreadsheet and receipt-keeping habits! LOL

I know lots of people who are budgeting and log everything (really everything, like a coffee here and a paper there) as they go so they can look back and see where the money went. I think they all use the same app. Saving receipts and going through a big pile of them at once is a faff, but I guess it's just the old fashioned way of doing that.

God I thought I was OTT. Now I feel positively normal!

We put everything possible on credit card (with cash back) and then pay in full each month. Transferring money around to do so if necessary. I track DD's and account balances on excel, so I know how much money we have and where, and what our DDs will cost each month.

Every so often I go through the CC statement and put it all in excel and use a few formulas so I can see how much we spend avg on e.g. Supermarket, Petrol, Baby etc But I only started doing that when I got made redundant /had baby and needed to be really clear on the budget and how long the pay out should last. When the money runs out, I have to get another job - great incentive not to spend and track it!

By putting all the stuff on CC its dead easy to see how much we spend each month in retrospect, and if its a biggy drill into why (oh yeh, car insurance that month, ahh there is the new outfit for that wedding etc). It also means if you are interested you can pick out all the supermarket shops and come up with an easy avg over the last 6/12/18 months whatever. It was when I got my notice I spent an evening trawling through the previous year statements to fish out how much we really spend in supermarkets.

Nope. I have a running budget in my head! I know roughly how much is in the bank account and how much to spend on food and what is disposable cash.

At the end/start of the month I log onto our accounts and check everything is in order. Anything extra gets transferred to the savings account.

However, when we were really short off cash we had various spreadsheets and systems to keep tight control on the little money we had.

This is bonkers. DH keeps track of our finances - by checking the online bank every couple of days and making sure there aren't any suspicious transactions.
I do not know anyone that logs receipts onto an excel spreadsheet. I will garner opinions when I get into work

God no, I have a spreadsheet that shows all our incomings and household bills, then a set amount goes into savings and a set amount is 'spends' - logging what the spends are would be pointless, but if we were spending too much we'd reduce that pot of cash, I think that keeps it simple

I keep a written list of what I spend then when the credit card bill comes in I tally it against it once I have listed the spend the receipt is binned unless its one i need to keep for proof of purchase / return. I like to know how much I have left each month and its not hard to keep receipts and every couple of days or so get them together and list in my notebook.

My Nan does this and then cross references it with her bank statement each month!

I haven't got the discipline. However this system did mean she noticed her 'carer' was stealing cheques and writing them out to herself.

A silly old lady my Nan is not!

I don't and I am also an accountant , I do have some spreadsheets for particular things , for example we are doing some work on the house at the moment and I have a spreadsheet for that and we have a holiday coming up which is very expensive and I have nod for that too.

What a dreadful waste of time and faff. Doesn't he trust technology?

I have a cash flow and I reconcile it with online banking which a few minutes once a week. My spreadsheet also has actual and budget columns so I can see how much we will have/ how much we can spend.

Is he reconciling receipts to bank statements? On paper? What does he do with it then? Because its old news by then isn't it, unless you like historical housekeeping data:)

We log all credit card receipts and transactions through the bank (well, I say we, I'm a little less efficient about it than my husband) and reconcile the statements at the end of the month. We don't log cash purchases though!

Oh and obviously we check online banking statements in case anything looks wrong, but if we only spend from what we've allocated ourselves that's pretty simple

We did it once for 4weeks because we had a major family change so we had to cut back.
It is good ime because you can see how much is spent on little things like a coffee on the go, a sandwitch, newspaper etc and then you cut back.
But i would find it too boring to do it all the time.

i have a spending tracker on my ipad. I used it for about 3 weeks. It was very good though. Showed you where you are tipping money down your throat in coffee shops your spending in pie chart, colour coded form :)

No this is not what most people do. That isn't really the point though is it OP? If you were happy to do it, as some of the other posters on here are, then it would all be fine and dandy.

The problem is that "he makes me keep every receipt...." What would happen if you stopped? Is he this controlling about everything?

If you don't want to do it then just don't.

I have a sneaking suspicion that I am overcharged by till errors more than I think. I need to do more mental arithmetic practice...

which apps does anyone use, please? I am wanting to do this now, but not to spend ages on it

If its a headache then I wouldn't do it. However, we have the one account where I can set up catogories for spending, food, gifts, fuel ect. Then asign each transaction to the category. I usually do this once a week and takes minutes if that then I look monthly to see where our money has gone. It has made me cut back on food shopping.

and no, we don't track receipts in excel spreadsheets. We have lives

If I were you I'd tell DH he's welcome to log every penny spent if it excites him but make it very clear that I expected the whinging to stop. Immediately. And every time he started whinging I'd simply say "you are CHOOSING to do this so stop whining"

My mum does this twice a week. She sweeps off upstairs, having announced she is off to do 'the finances'. My poor dad has to hand in every single receipt, including when he's taken cash from the ATM, despite the fact that he works full time and she has stopped work entirely.
She is also an obsessive cleaner and I always it was part of the same thing..... Needless to say, all four of their children are not remotely interested (actively uninterested) in cleaning or domestic financial arrangements. We were all put off by her devotion to not having fun.
OP, tell your DH he might be at risk of making his children over react in the opposite direction - that might do the trick! You have my sympathy.

everything goes on the credit card (paid in full monthly, cash back) then you get a printed list (statement) every month of everything you have spent and where you spent it...

I like having an interest free loan every month that you get paid cash back for having...

I log all my receipts using Expense Manager (free app for Android). You can export all the information as spreadsheet files if you wanted to link it to an existing system. Much quicker than gathering receipts and logging them all afterwards, as I always have my phone with me and just enter the data at the end of a shopping trip (usually on the bus). It definitely makes me more aware of my spending so I think it's a sensible way of dealing with finances.

I don't know anyone else who does this, but then I know an awful lot of people who fritter money away or aren't really aware of where their money goes. I'd rather be seen as a bit anal than be in lots of debt.

I did a spreadsheet when I was pregnant and on maternity leave each time as I was worried about how we'd manage on 1 salary plus SMP.

That was really useful in seeing where we could cut back (DH magazine subscription and CDs mainly!) but I didn't log every purchase, just used bank and credit card statements to get rough idea.

I think it's a great idea if you're short of money.

My DM does this and has done for as long as I remember. I have recently started using an app on my phone to log my spending. I don't think it's a bad thing to log receipts but maybe your DH could look into a different way of doing it if it's taking him so long. The app I have is great for logging income and expenses and putting it all in to catergories and showing you a report. It's called iSpending in case anyone is interested.

I do ours. It's not that much of a faff - every receipt that comes in goes into the spreadsheet (they pile up and then when the computer is on I spend a couple of minutes typing them in).

Then when a statement comes in I tally up the entries and make sure the amount I have in the spreadsheet matches the amount in the statement. This takes about 10 minutes and usually they match. At this point I throw the receipts away, unless I might need them for returns.

Money is fairly tight and we get fined £20 if the joint account goes 1p overdrawn so I always need to be on top of it. We have various accounts but really just one "money" which is transferred about as necessary.