Question regarding Journaling

[sonj]

What is reccomended?

for the first month should I spend like I always have? and get a REAL idea of what I have been doing. Or should I star being more conscience now? and just go from there?

[34saving]

Re: Question regarding Journaling

Start saving as much as you can now. Don't put it off

[obi_positive]

Re: Question regarding Journaling

If you spend normal for a month now, you still have to look back at the month when it's over. So start now by going through last month's bills and receipts to get a look at what you spend. If you pay some things quarterly or yearly, dig them up too. DaveRamsey.com has a free cash flow planning form you can download and write down your expenses. Divide yearly expenses by 12, quarterly by 3 to get a monthly breakdown.

To keep things from getting overwhelming, take small steps to pull all your information together. (I pulled 2 all-nighters to get all my stuff together and just about decided to quit and let the expenses win.)

[terry1156]

Re: Question regarding Journaling

Personally, I would just begin from today. If your past month's information is readily available, then compiling it makes sense, but if it isn't, the chore of trying to get it all together will likely be discouraging enough to make you want to quit. besides, I don't think the previous month's comparison is near as important and the same month from the previous year comparison. Even if you begin fresh today, you are only losing a month7s worth of data.

[sonj]

Re: Question regarding Journaling

Well, I don't really have receipts from past months, I dislike clutter so I get rid of anything I can. I have my checkbook that is it. So in turn I started my journal today put it in excel labled colums as bills, household, Frugle, Doctor, Ciggy's, food and gifts. I took my kids to get slurpees today, but I did avoid ordering pizza for dinner.


is it a good idea to keep receipts?

[PrincessPerky]

Re: Question regarding Journaling

That depends on your personality. I am an anti clutter person, I do save the Check card reciepts for safety, I could prolly toss them when the bill comes, but I don't like to have to go find them!

Anyway, start where you are comfortable starting .

[marla]

Re: Question regarding Journaling

I keep receipts until I write them down. Otherwise I forget and wonder where the money went.

[mom-from-missouri]

Re: Question regarding Journaling

I keep my ALL receipts-for 3 years. I have a system that is easy. I keep 4 envelopes. 1 is in my vehicle, 1 is in my purse. All receipts go into one of those. Then, in the house at my desk I have 2 large manila enveoples-one is labeled 2005 receipts and the other is labeled 2005 medical receipts. Once a week or so, I empty the envelope from the vehicle and from my purse and throw them into the proper manila enveople. If I get bored, I sometimes will take all the January receipts and staple together, then Feb...
This has saved me lots and lots of money. At the end of the year, they are ready for taxes. Then, the envelopes get moved to the filing cabinet.

Recently I found I was overcharged on medical receipts-I was refuned by $35 by our ambulance service and $165 by my surgeon.

I save my other receipts and have found rebates I qualified for, expenses I could write off for taxes, proof that I supported more support to my children than my ex, return a tool that broke after only 2 uses, return a pair of shoes that fell apart after about 2 hours of wearing them (at my desk job no less...) One year when we had a bunch of medical expenses we could even take off some of the taxes we had paid on purchases.

I often use my debit/credit/check card, and twice this year alone, I found where my receipt said one amount, and the bank had another. One was a dishonnest store employee who rerang me after I left the store, punched my card number back in and made it look like he gave me cash back. (He was terminted by the store-their video camera even had him in action on that one). The other was a bank error. But, because I had my receipts, It saved $30 out of my pocked.

[jmjj215]

Re: Question regarding Journaling

Wow, mfm - that's impressive. We keep our receipts long enough to write them down in our Excel system. Unless of course the receipt is something we need to keep around b/c it was a big purchase - or it's for car maintenance (saving those and proving to a potential buyer how well you took care of the car can be worth several hundred dollars in resale value).

[mom-from-missouri]

Re: Question regarding Journaling

a couple 8X10 manila enveoples don't take much room at all-like I said, its paid for itself over and over numerous times. (and I use recycle enveoples from old mail)....