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Thursday, May 17, 2012

Thrifty Thursday - track your spending

It's a sad fact of life that if you want to save money, you have to stop spending money.  Not all money, of course.  It takes a certain amount of money to live and raise a family.  But, how much of the money you have available to you each month goes to impulse and/or frivolous items?  Have you ever tracked your money for a month to see where the money actually goes?  That is a real eye opener!  I suggest you try it sometime...but don't cheat!  Write down everything.  Compare it with the money that you have each month.  With that information, you will have an idea where your problem areas are and can begin addressing them.

Usual problem areas are food, clothes, household costs, and the ever famous miscellaneous category.  Luckily, there are things you can do in each of those areas that will save you money.  For now, just start being aware of what kind of choices you make when making purchases in those categories.

Hopefully, you don't have to make drastic changes all at once.  You want to be developing new habits and that is easier if you take little steps.  By the way, that's true in just about any area you want to improve.


2 comments:

  1. Meghan and I recently talked about creating a monthly Money Spent calendar. We'll both add to the same calendar, but one thing we'll do so that we won't "cheat", is avoid critiquing each other's purchases. That way we're comfortable putting up every little penny spent and will have an accurate calendar.

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  2. You make a good point. Most cheating probably happens because we're not comfortable disclosing our purchases to our spouse. Agreeing not to criticize each other is a great idea. Thanks!

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