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.

Thank you bunny and Spaulding!

I found receipt checker but its not free.

My friend's husband gets the weekly Asda recept and puts it into the website to see if they've saved anything. He logs every expenditure. And is quite open that he sits down to have a wee. Odd.

good idea to do 3 times to see average spending, then adjust if nec. But everything? All the time?
madness and folly

i do this. i have a spreadsheet that shows predicted spend over the next few months and i input the actual spend when the time comes. i don't always keep receipts or expect dp to but i'll check the online statement every so often and add the recent spending to the spreadsheet. so i can see what impact our spending now has on our finances several months down the line

i don't whinge about it (it takes me a maximum of 5 mins a week to do) and i wouldn't expect anyone else to do it necessarily, but it works for me

Someone I know who is an accountant has a sort of reconciliation system.

They put their receipts in certain plastic wallets and then when they get their statements through they tick everything off. I believe they buy most things on their credit card and pay them all off at the end of the month, so they do this to make sure they aren't paying for something they didn't buy. If they don't have a receipt they do it from memory.

From that they then adjust their budget, so they tot up on the spending on food, clothes, bills etc.

Its quite a detailed system.

DH manages our finances, mainly online and through an app called PageOnce (?) he's always transferring bits about. I look them over every now and again and keep a loose budget in my head.

shewhowines - nobody I know records this level of detail on their spending. It should be sufficient for you to pay for most things by credit card, so you statement gives you a log of what you've spent and where. Then keep the ATM receipt when you get cash out of the machine so that he can put "petty cash for DW" on his spreadsheet. He doesn't need to know that you spent 63p on a Mars bar and £2 on tampons.

Transfers are much quicker nowadays - perhaps he is trapped in a way of thinking from when transfers were hard to arrange and took days/weeks to arrive in your bank account.

I do this. I have a spreadsheet with columns of type of spending, groceries, petrol, insurance etc. And enter amounts from receipts in the evening every few days.

I do this after taking responsibility from DH as he could not take off the "accounted for" money for direct debit and expected bills. For me I don't have to have it so detailed but it has to be specific to prevent arguments over where money is being spent.

MSE was my starting point

I would just run my eye over my credit card bill and bank statement, and subtract the total of that from our income. You either have an excess to transfer or you need to transfer money in, to cover the shortfall. If you've had an expensive month then cut down a bit next month. I put everything I can on credit card for convenience (and tesco points), then we pay it off every month. So IMO quite easy to keep a rough track of.

He sort of does it in advance somehow. It doesn't actually affect what I spend the next month, so I can't really see the point of why he needs to write everything down.

Still each to their own

To be fair, he doesn't break down cash withdrawals. He doesn't know that I spent the £5o I got out on Tuesday on 60 mars bars. He's not quite that bad. That is just logged as cash.

I don't need to keep the receipts for cash purchases.

I cannot WAIT until receipts are eradicated once and for all. Everything is just recorded digitally in some personal finance tracker, proof of purchases can be accessed with a tap on your device.

OP tell your DH that this is where technology is headed. With a bit of luck he'll get excited by it and become an early adopter.

We do because we run five businesses and loads of things can be claimed back on our tax return so we need to be clear on every purchase. The irregular income also necessitates knowing exactly where we are.

But I think I'd keep track even if we had more conventional lives - all of the rich people I know do this!

I have a book and box file which I get out one day per month. It lists all the debts I.e. council tax, mortgage, credit cards etc and other stuff that comes around once per year like insurance and tax disc, etc
Another column is for what I have to allow for monthly expenses for everything. Everything I buy goes on credit card so I keep track of what I spend. Once I have allowed for minimum payments to everything anything left over goes on paying off the credit card i use and if there is anything left over then I will target a debt and start to pay that off.

Did once meet a woman who did write down all her receipts nightly and described in detail how she transferred it all on to spreadsheets. It sounded completely exhausting.
Whilst doing your financies daily can save you money it can also take over your life with dire consequences.

I have a notebook that I write my spending in and dh keeps lots of receipts, but doesn't seem to do anything with them.

Logging every single receipt is not common practice imo.

I don't do this and I am horrible with money. I may start! (it sounds kind of fun?)

I have an 18 month cash flow forecast. It's sensible to plan ahead. I can't imagine coping with the stress of not keeping track of my finances. I have all my regular expenses in there, and the ad hoc things. It's broken down by month and within that by week. Each week has 2 columns - estimated and actual. So I plan the expenditure and track how it matches up in reality. Everything has a budget.

I know how things are likely to be. I check the bank accounts daily. I check the difference between estimated and actual expenditure. I can jiggery pokery when something unexpected comes up.

DH and I have a spreadsheet on which all expenditure is logged from the joint accounts/credit cards (although I do keep my own account which has my own money for things - stuff I save up for mainly expensive clothes he doesn't see the receipts for that).

We also have budget meetings

I find it really useful to have 20 minutes to sit and discuss finances once a month - it just ensures we stick to our budgets and make best use of our money.

Yep, DH and I have apps that we log every penny into. Fuck having a complicated spreadsheet every transaction gets entered into though. Our end of month s/sheet has broad categories (fixed costs, household, clothes, leisure) etc and we just transfer figures across.

I do this. I stopped overspending on stupid things almost. I keep within the budget. Few months ago I did an experiment and not logged anything. I overspent by hundreds.

I have done it in the past when I really was surviving hand to mouth. Thankfully I don't need to any more.

Expenditure on iphone. Really easy, a few quid to buy, really easy to set up. Made me really aware of how much I was frittering away on coffees etc. A few quid here and there adds up over the course of a month. Takes a few seconds after each purchase to enter the cost and the category in. Saves a lot of 'where they heck did all my money go?' woes.

ElleMcFearsome is the app integrated with any online purchases? (hopeful)

My DH does this.
I hand over all receipts (Debit, Credit, ATM) & cheque book & he shuts himself in the office with the occasional "You forgot to write down 59p on Amazon on 22nd July, please confirm".
He's not mean, but likes to know the exact state of our financial affairs.
I couldn't be bothered to do it though.

I think there are two elements to this:

Making sure transactions are correct
Budgeting/forecasting

I think that logging every receipt is a bit OTT for making sure transactions are correct - we tend to just look back at transactions every so often and check that they match what I have spent. Having said that, I recently had a situation where a cafe had charged me £45 for a lunch costing £4.50, so it is worth doing! (all sorted out btw, but the point is that we were able to pick this up with an informal check, rather than a meticulous system)

Budgeting/forecasting - if he isn't doing anything with all this information then what is the point? Again, I think it is a bit OTT to do on a long term basis, unless of course money is really tight in which case it is extremely sensible. Or, do on a short term basis if you need to set a new budget.

Haha! I'm sure most people don't , but some do. We are just trying to set up a spreadsheet at the moment to monitor our spending, as things are a bit tight at the moment and its best way to keep track.