Instant Budget Tracking
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The key to budget tracking, however, extends beyond the standard monthly expenses such as rent or mortgage, utilities, food and other regular expenses.
Find out where you need to put your money each month, and then budget in money for other spending as well. Developing a budget can help you to see where you money is going each month and can also help you find some ideas of where you can cut back in your spending as well.
Efficient budgeting means tracking where ALL of your money goes each month from the $1.29 for a soda to the $500 vehicle repair bill. Often it is the incidental expenses that can wreck a budget.
You know that every month you have to pay $400 for rent, or roughly $150 for utilities, but the random spending that is not preplanned can send your budget into a downward spiral.
When you first set out to devise a budget tracking system, determine the amount of money that you spend each month and who you pay it to so that you have a clear picture of the regular payments that you make each month.
Once you have set your budget, you need to track your expenses and spending for at least three months. This will give you a good idea of your spending habits. Often, we spend with little thought or regard to the amount of money being spent because it is done is such small increments.
This practice is referred to "nickel and diming." In other words, you make very small purchases, $2.00 here and $5.00 there until one day you open your wallet and you are flat broke.
Tracking your expenses, involves recording every expense that you have. An expense is anything on which you spend your money. This could be a fixed expense such as rent money as well as non-essential expenses like the soda and brownie that you purchase at the local convenience store.
Variable expenses should also be included. These expenses vary each month like fuel for your vehicle, food and electricity. In order to adequately track your expenses, you should write everything down.
Keep your receipts and write everything down in a small notebook or, better yet, a budget tracking worksheet. This includes purchases made by check, credit card and cash.
A budget tracking worksheet is rather simple. It has five basic columns where you record information. In the first column, record the date; the second, the item, the third, is for income; fourth is for expenses (you may want to divide this section for fixed expense, variable expense and non essential expense); the last column is for the balance.
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Your budget tracking sheet can be filled out daily or weekly or even monthly, but you should do it for at least three months in order to get a good view of your spending habits. Once you can see where you may be doing some frivolous spending, you can make adjustments and get your money management under better control.
