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.

I do this actually, it isn't all that time consuming once you have the basics of the system set up. What I would say is financial peace of mind is of huge worth. I've seen my mother who's an ostrich when it comes to money lose years of her life worrying constantly about cash flow, and running to the front door when the post comes to hide letters/the phone rings worrying it might be the bank. That is what is a waste of time imo, rather than having an understanding of personal finances.

Money is the biggest cause of misery I know.

i do this for our joint account and my personal account. DH is responsible for his own private account.

Our budget is very tight and by doing this I can keep on top of everything easily. DH puts any receipts on my computer keyboard and I enter them every couple of days, every day towards the end of the month. it has saved us a fortune and we no longer have to bail ourselves out from our saving each month.

I do it in excel so it all adds up for me so I know exactly where we stand. I find it easier than faffing with internet banking log on and having to check if things I spent have actually come out of the account yet.

and for those that say it is 'ocd' to log every coffee or mars bar - I think you would be amazed how much money you spend on theses sub £5 purchases every month.

I wouldn't be without my spreadsheet!

shew tell him the modern way is to use the data logged when you spend using your debit card, and to download the data from your bank satement. The only reason his mum used receipts is that all you used to see on your statement was the cheque number, so without a receipt or a note on the cheque stub, you had no idea what it was for.

I am a chartered accountant and IMHO he is going to miss something important doing it this way. All the finance professionals in the world have moved on from using receipts to log their own domestic spend...Use the technology to download the data instantly, and spend the time having a critical look at patterns of spend.

Dh has several spreadsheets. Also he folds each receipt carefully and stows it in the special 'carefully folded receipt' section in his wallet. Then spends whole evenings carefully logging each one on the relevant spreadsheet.

He also does that credit card thing where he transfers balance for an interest-free period and saves the equivalent in some kind of high-interest account.

I, on the other hand, carefully stow the receipts in my purse until it's too bulgy to close properly, then throw them away. Or leave them in the bag to amuse myself with when I'm waiting in the queue at the supermarket. ('Ooh. Look at that. I bought persimmons that week. I wonder why? And I've got 490000000 points, which means I have 49p to spend. Coo.')

Horses for courses, innit.

No. But I check my on-line bank account every day and have a MSE spreadsheet which records all my regular outgoings. I know what goes out and when off the top of my head.

I know I'm broke because I spend too much on food these days.

Will do beast

I'll tell him he must move with the times

He is a bit of a tech geek. He does tend to like messing around wasting time researching things. He's quite technologically competent. We have all the latest gadgets, apart from both our phones which still resemble more of the brick variety so there is a chance that he might take, moving with the times, on board.

I am wondering if the people who do track all their spending like this are better off than the rest of us

(a) because they do this

or

(b) because they are more thrifty by nature (and that's also why they track all their spending).

If I could convince myself the answer is (a) then I might be prepared to give it a go!

In DH case it is (b)

Why doesn't your DH put the time and effort that he is currently wasting with this exhausting faff into upskilling instead? (a degree perhaps, or if he already has one then maybe a masters?)

Then he could look at a promotion or perhaps switching to a better job with better pay as an alternative.

This would mean more disposable income, more family time and less faff.

Seems like a much more productive use of his time if you ask me.

Jacques I think you need to understand what you spend and where you money goes. But you could get the same result by this simple three step plan:

(a) have a look every six months
(b) decide what you ought to be spending
(c) stop spending more than that before you actually spend the money.

There is no direct relationship between writing stuff down and having more money. There is a relationship between spending less and having more money.

if writing stuff down helps you to spend less, good. But if you do it instead of saying "I dont need this this month, I am up gainst my budget already, I will not buy it" then it is just a displacement activity.

duck indeed. He could get a financial qualification and kill two birds with one stone

To be fair though, if you are faffing with receipts, you are not spending money.

I can't see that your DH actually has any time to be a spendthrift!

I think you're right that hardly anyone does this. Your bank statement and credit card statement should tell you all you need to know. If you've withdrawn and spend £20 in cash it doesn't matter if it has been spend on coffee or magazines or something else.

Beast

I know one person who does this. They were rung up by a scam who said that their bank account had been hacked. He was able to say promptly that they were a scam as he knew to within £10 exactly how much money he had in the account,and the amount that the bank was showing was spot on!

Never met anyone who does this

Yes, but displacement activities can be very helpful! I imagine that constantly confronting what you're spending might very well reduce your desire to go shopping and blow the budget. Perhaps something similar to the people who weigh themselves every day - I believe it's been shown that they put on less weight than those who don't want to gain weight but who don't weigh every day.

On the other hand, the savings for me would have to be really pretty huge for me to want to sit down every week with all my receipts! I can't imagine much that's more tedious.

I do this - and I huff and puff about 'doing the finances' too. My DH does not.

But DH seems able to live in his budget without any help. I meanwhile will just spend unless I know EXACTLY what I've got left. So I need to know all the time.

I read with interest about people downloading bank account info and looking at patterns of their spending - but i 'd just run up debt doing that.

Let him do his thing, but remind him the moaning is irritating and sad. (Reminds self to take own advice!)

jacques dont do that. Just download the data from your online statement. Once a month would do the job. Split it up into categories and have a think about whether that's where you want your money to go.

If you spend mostly on your card and not too much with cash, you'll get almost all the benefit. Most of the time, we pay for the big stuff by DD anyway, and reviewing those contracts can make a big difference.

duck Unfortunately, he'd still faff at whatever income he has. It is INGRAINED in him that he MUST "do the finances". The best I could hope for is that he updates his methods and forgets the receipts.
He has a masters and earns a good income, I could go back to work and bring in more, but he would still DO THE FINANCES. He wouldn't be able to sleep without "knowing where we stand". He also spends hours finding the right places for the saving we do have. just don't moan so much

Actually I should be appreciating the fact that because he does it, I don't have to

OP - I'm really confused, if he's not logging what yo'uve bought with cash, only with cards, isn't he just re-copying your on-line bank statement? If you aren't checking what you bought with cash, isn't this a pointless exercise? he could look at your bank account in real time, it's exactly the same information!

Every month or so we'll look at it and check there's enough in the joint account, if we know we've got enough in, but surely he doesn't need to do this if you pay with cards and you have a budget? If you know you spend about say £100 on food a week, then you know you have a budget of £100 per week, you either do it in a big shop or you keep an eye on the little ones, unless you both shop daily, you will know if you've gone over or not?

How about an experiment, you get the joint account statement up from last month, in your own spreadsheet, type out "gas, water, electricity, food, insurances,phones/internet, cash withdrawn" (and any other regular bills) across the top, add in the next column the actual amounts listed on your statement, then total it at the bottom, ask him if it's the same as his recipt amounts - I bet it'll take you less than an hour to do it for the whole month. If the numbers don't tally, perhaps you need to look at if he's double counting cash withdrawls and cash payments, or if you have a varity of ways to pay for household costs (a lot on cash, different cards, different bank accounts), which is making it more complex than it needs to be.

IMO unless you are going to pay with cash for everything, then why bother doing what your bank will do for you?

My point exactly don't mind - the whole exercise is pointless!!

She I'm going to whisper this nobody has to do it - it doesn't need doing at all

It it pedantry for pedantry's sake

My sister is like this, she doesn't, and never will realise that she has plenty of money, always will have and is wasting her life with her spreadsheets, receipts, angst etc...

The sad thing with my DSis, is that what was once definitely 'prudence' is starting to veer into 'miserliness'. I really hope your DH doesn't head down this path, as there is a natural progression from one into the other IME.

Every 6 months or so I log my spending for 30 days into an app. I then transfer it to a spreadsheet. I try to do a similar thing with DP but a lot of that is guess work as he's never kept a receipt in his life. When it's done I can compare who has more income/expenses and if its fairly divided. It also helps me get on top of any unnecessary spending. I don't see the point in checking anymore than every 6 months though.