I have been tracking my daily expenses for 2yrs 📝📝

..and I have learn a lot from the data I have collected over the years 🧐🧐

I began tracking my expenses once I had my first pay in 2021. It started off as an exercise to identify which areas that I can spend less in my life, so that I can make necessary and effective interventions to pinpoint the exact things to cut off.

But as I went along, I became more self-aware on my spendings, and I have gained many insights from keeping track on my expenses

I learnt that:

1️⃣ I had spendings that I could easily be prevented

I noticed that I have spent quite a lot on grab rides (mainly due to lateness 😂), food delivery and …..erm bottled mineral water 🤣. Upon reflection, these expenses can be easily prevented or reduced. For instance, ensuring that I being early to the location and by remembering to carry a bottled water around can prevent unnecessary spendings

Sometimes a work-around can be done. I realise I had a tendency to order food delivery when I don’t feel like leaving house on days that I stay at home. Hence I swapped it with easy to make home cooked meals which allow me to save some on delivery fees (and even food in general).

2️⃣ I had under-utilised subscriptions

For instance, I realised that I had too many under-used subscriptions (such as Spotify, Amazon prime, Netflix, Disney plus etc), and subscriptions that made up a significant portion of my expenses.

This forced me to assess and evaluate whether . If not, cancel.

3️⃣ Creating habit of mindfulness spending

The side effect of being self aware of your budget from the act of tracking can create a habit of questioning yourself before a purchase - “I have already spent xxx amount this month, do I need to buy this?” This is because you are aware now how much you are really spending, and you would think twice from doing so.

4️⃣ I used it to determine my finance strategies

Data from my spending patterns is used to determine the correct strategy used

Knowing the trends of my spends, I can effectively determine:

🔺The amount that I require for my emergency savings to set aside

🔺My credit card strategy to chase miles

🔺the realistic allocation of my Monthly Salary

They are important to give you a realistic overview of what you spend, and set enable you to set pragmatic finance goals around it.

5️⃣ It made me learnt how to balance my emotions towards my personal finances

Anxiety about your finances does exist (go google financial anxiety) during your journey on personal finance.

For days where I see huge increases in expenses or slightly out of budget, it can create sense of guilt and disappointment to oneself

But being able to see the big picture, the spendings across the months, gives me the realistic picture of my spendings. I have learnt to accept that sometimes it’s ok if there are months that I spend a little because of certain necessary expenditures, as long as I have way more months that I underspend and save than months where I exceeded

For days when I do underspend, or expenses being lower than the previous month, I learnt to be thankful to myself for being able to stick to it, and these months gave me the security that I am on track and managing my finances well, which calms my financial anxiousness down.

—

Without consistent tracking of my expenses the past years, I would not be able to gain insights on my spending patterns and make the right financial decision for myself.

Maybe you should start tracking your own!

#Adulting101 #AdultingWoes #adultingthings #financesg #financialplanning #financetips #budgeting