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!

[tankplanker]

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.

[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.

[craigjm]

There must be a My Fitness Pal type app for money surely?

Failing that in this age of contactless where I can’t remember the last time I used cash surely the answer is your bank statement

[langtounlad]

Tankplanker has it right. Excel spreadsheet works for me. We also spend hardly any cash and so all expenditure can be tracked by downloading the various credit card statements. Tesco credit card in particular tags each retailer with its SICMCC code and so you can easily filter the spend by category; fuel, grocery shopping, clothing retailers, coffee shops, garden centres etc. Feed these totals into the relevant rows in your Excel spreadsheet by month and you will be able to track monthly expenditure. Once you see the overall picture, set proper budgets for each spend category and you start to actively manage your expenditure rather than just monitor what you have actually spent.
Excel is the best for this approach as you can tailor it precisely to your personal circumstances, even if you are only a basic level user you can achieve a high level of control over your actual and forecast spend.

[tankplanker]

pseudonym said:

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.

The problem isn't the tracking, its that you are spending it at all at this point. The mentality that when I check the bank I have £50 (or whatever) left before my next pay packet so I can spend it is the wrong one to have when you think you are overspending.

If you are struggling to manage the amount you spend on frivolous stuff like expensive coffees and lunches, take out whatever you want to budget for that as cash at the start of the month, spend that till it runs out, then don't get anymore money out till the next month.

Going through the statement on a regular basis is the right way to track your average spending over a week or a month, just add up how much you spend on coffee, tat, cakes or whatever. Doesn't take long to do.

[covmutley]

I sometimes listen to the Dave ramsey podcasts. They do the Every Dollar app. I downloaded it, but haven't got any further!

it looks ok. Some of the categories are obviously US related, but yo can change them.

[NickCQ]

Cleo app through Facebook is pretty good. Scrapes data automatically from your cards and bank accounts, gives real time analysis by category.

[mattwade24]

I also use an excel spreadsheet, which has my income vs all my direct debits and savings. The money left is then divided into weekly allowance (fuel, shopping, living etc), which i withdraw in cash every friday - when using cash, you become alot more aware of how much your're spending, rather than just sticking everything on your card and realising you've spent alot of money on nothing.

If you divide your allowances for 5 week months, on the 4 weeks you'll also have some money left over. Anything left at the end of the week/month, you can either top up savings, or withdraw less the following week, then you start to build up a bit of cash in your account, which can be used to buy things you want (for me, car/bike bits).

This method works for me, but understand it may not be for everyone!

Edited by mattwade24 on Wednesday 24th January 08:35

[p1stonhead]

NickCQ said:

Cleo app through Facebook is pretty good. Scrapes data automatically from your cards and bank accounts, gives real time analysis by category.

You let Facebook (or anyone really!) have access to your accounts?

[condor]

Put your small change into a pot/piggy bank each day and raid it at end of year, or when you might need it.
I like to keep a 'taxi fare amount' at home, just in case.

[RichTT]

Have a look at the Yolt app. Ive used it for about six months now. It analyses your previous spending and categorises based on different spendings. It will also learn as you adjust different items from say general to bills, or food, or transport. Easily allows you to see how much you are spending each month. It will also give you an estimated 'left to spend' amount based on upcommming bills etc. I've found it really handy as you can set up savings targets and the like.

The only setup needed is to link with your bank and set a date when you get paid. It pulls everything else for you so no fiddling about with inputting data into a spreadsheet

[ianstoker]

condor said:

Put your small change into a pot/piggy bank each day and raid it at end of year, or when you might need it.
I like to keep a 'taxi fare amount' at home, just in case.

I do this every day. Get home, keys and phone on the table, any and all change into the jar next to the TV.

The last time I emptied it I had a little over £500.

[RizzoTheRat]

No quite what you're asking, but pretty much everywhere takes cards these days, so if you get in to the habit of always paying by card you can then download your statement to Excel every month (most online banking allows you to download the statement) and categorise everything. Then you only need to keep track of a pretty small number of cash transactions every month.

Edited by RizzoTheRat on Wednesday 24th January 11:53

[Foliage]

You can get excel on your phone, just use that. Also get £50 cash out a week and don't use your card. See how you get on, you just need to budget. You don't need to track everything, you need to stop spending,

[redandwhite]

Excel /CSV extracts from my bank all the way. No 3rd party is getting access to this data - its the holy grail for them - imagine the targeted advertising based on this combined with your FB profile / friends. Don't do it.

[IrateNinja]

I've gone through a couple of iterations in how i budget over the past few years.

My initial method was simply have a record of all my monthly commitments bills-wise, plus hard variable totals like groceries and commuting costs. I wouldn't track day to day spending at all, and instead do a monthly check up of my savings / debt totals, and track variations of these.

I then moved to an Excel spreadsheet where all spends were listed. No matter how small, they'd go on there, and be categorised. As a fan of data I liked being able to really see where my money was going, however the admin effort of this annoyed me.

I'm now using the Spend Log app on my iPhone to log everything as i was doing before, but with reduced admin cost as I can get it recorded via phone quicker than if it was done via spreadsheet. This is then supplemented by a monthly review where i log savings and debt levels. This works for me as it gives me a regular opportunity to see how my various savings are performing.

[langtounlad]

redandwhite said:

Excel /CSV extracts from my bank all the way. No 3rd party is getting access to this data - its the holy grail for them - imagine the targeted advertising based on this combined with your FB profile / friends. Don't do it.

I've just looked at the Yolt App based on the recommendation on this thread. It's not for me although I can see that it's a powerful app.
There is no way that I'd be happy with all my banking information accessed from my phone. That is just too vulnerable and high risk for me.
The onset of Open Banking is being heralded by that app also. Enabling (I assume) transactions to be sent to individuals via the app as account information will be able to be accessed just knowing the recipients name and some form of one time password.
The willingness of people to freely share their personal data / spending habits with financial institutions and software businesses is shocking to many of us of a 'certain age'. I'm fully engaged with online banking and can't remember when I last used a cheque but I do my utmost to guard my privacy and wouldn't dream of using something like Yolt.
I can see the 'brave new world' of a cashless society coming sooner than I had thought but also having a privacy price that I'm not sure that I want to pay.

[mikeiow]

How about lobbing the "spending money" into a modern account like Monzo?
That allows (& actually tries to default for you) tracking of different spending. Sounds like it could help you avoiding excess spending!
Automagically allows you to track those touchfree spends on coffee, Maccas, etc?
Also means when you spend it all, you know you are out of "loose change"

[DuraAce]

I tend to work the other way around. Very rarely use my cards. Cash for most day to day stuff. I was terrible for constantly swiping my debit card and not controlling what went in /out. Not anymore!
Eg. Food at, £250 per month in cash
Petrol at £250 per month in cash
Sundries etc £15 per week

Kept in different places/pots.
Works for me anyways, I anyways know how much its in the bank and how much I have left to spend.
End of month surplus cash goes into savings.

Bit old fashioned I know but it works for me as I find I think about handing over cash but a quick swipe of the debit card didn't feel like 'really' spending if you know what I mean.