Comments on: 7 Reasons Why We Need to Start Budget Tracking Now

By: avanti

avanti — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 22:05:51 +0000

Tracking you money is good and with our bank they have a pie chart that you can use to track your spending. Trouble is that we have one for normal household use and one that is for the CC. I use a spread sheet to balance the checking account so it kind of helps in noticing unusal spending which is why I still like using checks. I’ve found that it is a whole lot easier to use the CC to impulse buy even though I am in a position where I can still pay it off each month easily.

By: Micro Money Man

Micro Money Man — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 19:48:03 +0000

Greetings,
First of all, I just discovered your blog site today and have been reading a bunch of articles in it and found also that I enjoy reading the comments section from people following the articles. I will be reading this site on a weekly if not daily basis now.

I have used Microsoft Money program since 2007 or so and found it to be a great way to track and organize your finances and expenses. I used to use the old check book register balance method but now have scratched that and just stub all my receipts in Microsoft Money every evening (or every other). I am the kind of guy that has to know how much money I currently have in my checking accounts to the dollar at least so know when can spend how much where without overdrafting. I do “NOT” set up Microsoft Money to automatically synch with my checking accounts online as I find this to tedious and would rather just track manually. I do download from my credit card accounts on a monthly basis as they all have a Micro Money section in which auto downloads all transactions on stated date range. I found this to be a great tool come tax time or what not when you want to look at a whole year’s expenses and see what money went to which categories. It also has a section in which you can set to budget certain expenses like “dining out” or “auto fuel costs” and it will go to red status when you go over set amount each month. It will also show your net worth vs debt based on all accounts you have entered into it. I still need to get my 401K added to this program as I have not done that yet. I recommend Micro Money as a good daily expenses tracker as well as overall financial portfolio overview and budgeting tool. Funny thing is the only reason I started using this was it was already installed on my computer and free to use (and I didn’t want to put my finances up in an online cloud like Mint). I can see that I need to get my credit card debt paid off and get my emergency fund back up from $3000 to $5000 as goals for 2012. I will keep reading this site, thanks!

By: Witty Artist

Witty Artist — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 09:04:50 +0000

Tracking a budget is one of the wisest thing one can do for their financial part. It’s not so time consuming if you do it on a regular basis and don’t let things clutter. It helps you see all your budget compartments. And instead of
charging your mind with too many details and spend energy to keep them active, jotting all that down is way easier and efficiently.

By: Consumer Proposal Ontario

Consumer Proposal Ontario — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 22:08:23 +0000

Great article. Budgeting is a great tool, the problem is it requires time, effort and consistency. For many, it’s very hard to do, but I guess once you push yourself and develop a habit, it works wonders on your financial life!

By: james

james — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 10:46:56 +0000

I’m in need of a tracking system/ “dashboard” so that i can get a better grip on where my money is escaping to. I’ve hears good things about Mint.com and American Express now offers one of their own. Any other suggestions? Also, how do you feel about the security of these and other sites? Seems like a lot of info to put out in a cloud. Thanks for all the great input..

By: J D Miller

J D Miller — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 22:02:21 +0000

There are some things that I know, as a CFP, that should be carefully budgeted for. The program that I use allows categorization of items as mandatory, discredionary, and income. The reasons that this can be very helpful would include death, disability or job loss. Also, when people get ready to plan for retirement it is very useful to have a history of expenses compared to budgets.

By: Pumpkinshell

Pumpkinshell — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 23:17:23 +0000

In the 2 months since starting budget tracking with Mint.com, I have gone from “where did all the money go?” to “Wow, where did all this money come from?”

I don’t have to balance my checkbook–it gets done for me to the penny every day. I know what my net worth is. Instead of being afraid of checking my bills, now I am excited at how each one will show up in the proper little budget file and give me a red, green, or yellow flag to show me how I’m doing. It’s keeping me completely honest about where the money “really” goes.

It’s critical to find a budget-tracking system that works. I was trying to do it with the cash-and-envelope method. It used to work. I’m beyond that now, it seems. Mint.com is robust enough yet simple enough to make sense for me.

So I have to agree that absolutely honest budgeting and record-keeping is essential to living the frugal life and discovering that the money really is there–you were just putting it in the wrong place.

By: Syndic de Faillite Montreal - Andre Gabbay

Syndic de Faillite Montreal - Andre Gabbay — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 16:02:51 +0000

Fantastic advice on keeping your finances under control, especially the part about budgeting yourself regularly. I’m sure a lot of people would save themselves financial hassle if they had planned out their finances right from the start. I also appreciate the point you made on discussing finances with family. It’s important that people in a family work together towards saving.

By: heaps!

heaps! — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 22:45:19 +0000

I do agree with Avatar to some extent, that some people may not have the need to budget as much as others if they have a lot of control over their expenses. But it may be important to track where your money is going once in a while just to keep a trend. You hit that point quite well.

And Leslie did a great job in pointing out the difference between budgeting and tracking your expenses. Even if someone budgets all their money, they might find out in the end of the month that not everything went out as planned. Budgeting needs to be accompanied by tracking expenses.

I’ll stop rambling but you did well, Moneyning, by saying budgeting is also about lowering stress, discipline and the like. Most people don’t see budgeting as having that attribute. It is good to emphasize the psychological affects of budgeting as opposed to only the practical purposes.

By: Mary Hall

Mary Hall — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:34:22 +0000

The excel file is a good idea, but yeah, budget tracking can be a little tedious. I normally just track credit purchases rather than all expenses made during the day as it helps me see the bigger picture.