The month of January is almost over O_O! If you've made it your goal to spend less in 2015, now is the time to take a look at how you did. January is a great month to look at because there usually aren't any extraneous purchases. If you take a look at December, you might have a lot of spending due to gifts and that will skew your entire budget. January is when most people want to start fresh so it's a good month to set up a baseline.
What I've been doing is spending some of time with my good friend Excel. I made a little spreadsheet to track my spending. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. The less fancy the better since you don't really want to spend all your time on aesthetics but if it'll make you more likely to stick to it, then by all means, knock yourself out.
Here's what my Excel sheet looks like.
When trying to figure out what expenses are dragging you down, it's important to make categories. These categories will vary depending on your lifestyle. For instance, I have two sets of bills, one for my parents and one for the bills at our apartment because I want to determine whether it's something I can actually control. Obviously I won't be telling my parents to use less electricity, etc. Also, I've split up food into two separate categories because I eat out quite a bit so I was trying to determine how much I was spending by eating out. Starbucks is also it's own category because it's my own little daily reward. It's something I'm definitely not willing to give up when it comes to cutting costs. For me stuff, that's just clothes and other stuff that I'm just purchasing for myself. That's where my "fun" money fund goes toward. As a said in my Budgeting post, I'm trying to put 50% of my income towards debt repayment (loans & credit cards), 25% towards savings, and 25% towards fun. My fun money will be a combination of my eating out and my "me stuff".
If you have a lot of transactions, it's best to go through them on a weekly basis so you are not super overwhelmed at the end of the month. I've been going through my transactions every Saturday morning while I sip on my coffee. It's also a good benchmark for you before you start your weekend because if you know you've already spent a lot for the month, you probably shouldn't do any spending that weekend (or at least try not to spend any money on extraneous purchases).
Only one more week until January is officially done! Can't believe this first month will almost be over but I hope everyone is still financially on track! Remember that January and February are your guinea pig months. Don't get too down over whether you're meeting your financial goals. It's still early in the year so cut yourself some slack. If you are at least tracking your finances, you're on your way to determining your Achilles heel.
Hope everyone had a great weekend and have an awesome week!
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