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Tuesday, July 1, 2008
How do you track household expenses?
Are you a cash in the envelope kind of family, do you keep a notebook or enter everything into Quicken at night?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
We’re trying to stick more closely to a budget (we haven’t been spending beyond our means, but just spending too freely) and trying to figure out the best ways to monitor and control our spending.
We created a budget in an Excel file. We had Quicken software one time before and never used it so Michael won’t pop for it again. I’ve been writing down what I’ve been spending every day and then filling them into the Excel file later.
We disagree on whether to use credit cards or cash. I hate carrying around cash but if you’ve got the grocery money in an envelope and so on and so on, you can’t overspend. I’m not sure how practical it is to have 25 envelopes of cash lying around though. He thinks the credit cards let you keep a better record of what you’re spending your money on. But it just makes shopping at Target too easy!
Do you have a budget? Have you felt the need the need to develop one as prices have started to rise on groceries and gas? How do you track what you’re spending each day, week, month? Are you a fan of the envelope system or do you track your spending on credit cards? Where were you able to make the biggest cuts in your budget to save money?
Read more about taking a bite of the grocery bill.
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