Saving Money / Tracking Expenditure

[pseudonym]

Hi chaps,

I'm in my early 30's and quite frankly I am terrible with money and have very little in the way of savings. I am frivolous and spend what I have. The reality is I don't track what I spend and I think that where I need to start.

Can anyone recommend any decent (and free) expenditure or money-saving spending apps? I'm not too fussed about the ones which link all your spending and accounts, I think at this stage I just want a no-frills app where I input my income each month and then all of my expenditure (down to the penny). That way I can review my spending and slowly train myself into a lifestyle change.

Any advice welcome!

[pseudonym]

tankplanker said:

Cheapest option would be google sheets or Microsoft excel, and download your statement into either from your online banking. Once it is in the spreadsheet I then track through what I have actually spent against what I thought I was going to spend. I normally first sort the statement by highest to lowest, and then I group by vendor.

For the first time you do it, I would download the statement, then use that as a baseline for your ongoing expenses. If you are consistently overspending I would remove any frivolous spending such as coffee shops and tat from Amazon from your budget. If you are always binning food at the end of the week then cut your food spending budget. And so on. For the first few months you want to spend nothing more than the essentials of: food, rent/mortgage, car/petrol/insurance/tax, gas/electric/water, phone/broadband. Get rid of everything else you can.

Unless you have complicated finances or are completely useless at spreadsheets it doesn't take more than a few minutes to do.

This is what I was thinking, but excel is more of a sit down at the end of the day/weekend thing. I was hoping there was an app or something quick I can jot down any spending in real time. I.e grab a coffee and note the spend down, then I can spend time at the end of the day or weekend double checking everything.

I already have an excel spreadsheet for my fixed spending (utilities, DD's etc). But then I just spend what I like with my expendable income. At the end of the month, I have very little money left over and I don't really know what I've spent it on - other than day to day luxuries which I don't really need. I've already recognised silly spending such as a decent coffee some afternoons (£2.50) or buying lunch (£5) rather than making it at home. That's saved me a potential £100-£150 a month. And I know I can go further. At the time of spending, I think it's two quid here, five pounds there - I recognise at the end of the month that'll likely accumulate into a decent sum.

I'm hoping that if I note it all down, at the end of the month when I review; I will shock myself by seeing I'm spending significant money on stupid things that I don't need.

[pseudonym]

Thanks for the responses everyone. Far too many to quote.

I've taken a lot of comments on board.

I've updated my fixed outgoings on a Google Sheets document, it's mainly my irregular outgoings / weekly spending on food, petrol and lifestyle which I need to decide how to manage.

I've set myself some goals - predominantly reducing my fixed outgoings and managing my expendable outgoings.

I've downloaded a few app but as many of you have said, using an app which needs my bank account information makes me uncomfortable and is a no from me. So I'll try a simple spending app for next month.

The new Bank Accounts Monzo and Starling look great - this is something I need to look into, I'm currently with Barclays and have been for 20+ years and I have a joint account with NatWest - I'm underwhelmed with both banks so I don't mind switching. But I'm not sure how it'll affect my credit rating as this is something im trying to build too.