Welcome to today’s assignment! This week is all about building habits to track expenses by either recording them when they happen, or by confirming and categorizing them as soon as they’re automatically imported into your budget. Diligently tracking your expenses is a crucial part of budgeting. And not only that, but diligent tracking helps instill in us the habit of thinking and planning before we even go out and spend. Then, thinking about our purchases ahead of time gives us the opportunity to check with our budgets to see if we can actually afford to spend or not.
Today’s Assignment
- Add or confirm all of your transactions today. Your assignment is to add every purchase you make. If you’re subscribed to Goodbudget Premium, confirm and categorize everything that gets automatically imported for you. If you’re manually adding transactions, try your best to do so at the exact moment they happen — like right at the checkout line before you walk out of the store. If you forget, don’t worry! Hanging on to your receipts can help you catch up at the end of the day. Remember to add things you bought online, as well as anything on auto-pay.
- Let us know how your first full day of tracking expenses went in the comments below! What did you spend on? What helped you remember to record your expenses? Share your tips for getting caught up if you missed a few expenses.
Happy budgeting,
-The Goodbudget Team
23 thoughts on “What to Do *Before* You Leave the Store”
Now that so many of those credit card checkout machines have those “Do you want a paper receipt, emailed receipt, or no receipt”, I found that a good reminder to save paper and use Goodbudget!
Same here!
I love to log on what I’ve spent because it helps me feel really accomplished, strange as that might sound. I always get the receipt if I need to leave quickly and at the first moment I get to record it, I do because then I feel prepared for the next thing.
Entering receipts is a chance to re-evaluate my purchase on a needs vs wants basis.
It also feels similar to shopping the store again which helps me reconnect to the positive & negatives of the shopping experience.
I save my receipts, place them in a box, and enter them once a week into Goodbudget: a scheduled day & time.
I liked logging my expenses. It made me feel like I was taking control.
It was a frustrating start for me (learning to export files, uploading them to GB, etc.), but felt like a victory when I completed my 1st round.
So I agree with Jennifer, it ultimately resulted in a feeling of regaining control!
Thanks for sharing, Sasha! I’m glad to hear you’re feeling like you’re taking back control!
Logging my expenses gives me the chance to see what I am spending and I find that I don’t want to see my balance decrease so I spend less.
I like to review what I bought. Then no my shopping list, I have items marked as ‘DO NOT BUY’. Avoid the impulse purchase.
I’m still spending to much on impulse buys but I’m hoping tomorrow will be better
I’m bad about that I hate clutter soo I never get paper receipts I need to start and track that way and not just recording purchases
Login my expenses shows me what I need not to buy
i need to be more control`
When I start to record my expenses and see money that is left in the envelope, I realized that how much money I actually have for that category of expenses.
I do not spend much daily so this was pretty easy so far. It is just the weekly gas fill up and groceries. What will make me work is next month, when I have 3 birthdays to survive and probably purchasing last minute items…..it will hopefully help me make sure I do not overspend on unnecessary items.
This routine makes me so much more aware. I used to always say no to getting a receipt because I figured I would just look at my bank account online later, but I realize that is so reactive rather than proactive. When spending gets to the point of being reactive, there’s nothing I can do about it. This is so helpful!
As for me, I find that what I have been doing all along which is recording all the expenses I have made at the end of each day is working.
Ever since I started to track my spendings (on a regular basis) I realised that there are days I don’t even spend a cent. For so long, I’ve felt guilty whenever I spent my money because I believed it was not necessary and just wasting. Now that I allocate my budget for different things, as with the enveloppe system, I find it a lot easier and feel more at peace.
Sometimes, I track my spendings right away in the App or I collect receipts and log everything into an excel sheet at the end of a week. Kind of a ritual to review the week. This also helped me to become clearer in what I really want from spending my money, like saving up for bigger projects.
I find that I’m really not spending money every day. I buy food for lunches on the weekend and carry my lunch and snacks to work then just drink water so no breakfasts on the run, no lunch impulse, and no vending machine expenses.
I eat out whne in office when not wfh and need to bring my lunch etc
eating out is a big one!
I don’t spend money that often – I spent money Sunday to buy groceries but haven’t spent any money since and won’t before Friday.
A new routine. I like it !!!!
With the envelopes system I spend when the money is there, so if I have to buy something non in line with the availability I postpone whenever possible. Otherwise I move the money before spending so I never go red in my envelopes. This makes me feel much more in control.