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I'm on the same page as you. I want to make sure my wife and I are not overspending (still happens on occasion), but I also don't want to waste time on it. So
by jermaustin1 6y ago
I'm on the same page as you. I want to make sure my wife and I are not overspending (still happens on occasion), but I also don't want to waste time on it.
So I have a simple metric: Is my money (cash + investments) increasing each week?
If it is, then once every ~6 months, I take a look at my family's spending and see if there is anything we would be happy getting rid of.
- 72deluxe 6y agoI allocate items by credit cards, eg. "meals out" on one credit card, "food" on another, "fuel" on another. That's only 3 lines on a spreadsheet showing the budget. If at the end of the month, the spend on each card is higher than those figures I've failed. With modern apps for card balances, seeing if you're near your budget helps. The alternative is to get money physically out of the bank and put it into separate envelopes and spend out of the envelopes. You'll be amazed at how your spending habits change when you have to physically hand over cash. If you are finding that looking down a list of 50 purchases at the end of the month "takes up too much time", I would wonder how much time you spend watching TV and compare the time values. One is surely more important than the other.