Tracking your spending Part 1

Hello Swarm Single Moms

If you are following the finance focus for this grassroots organization, Swarm, you may already know how important I feel it is to track your spending.  You must take time to find out where your money goes so you can reign in the spending that is detrimental to your financial health and future and begin to find ways to make your money grow for your future.  Tracking your spending is a finance focus!!

There are many ways to track your spending. For instance, I spent 2012 paying for almost everything with a personal check.  I kept receipts and monitored the spending so that I could fully understand where the money went.  I was not very pleased to find that much of the money I was making was going toward food and way too much of that was either going to food that was not getting eaten or to food that was not healthy.  I could have had a snapshot of my spending, by monitoring it for much less than a year, but I found it convenient to pay by check... I had direct deposit and was paying my bills by check, so why not everything else.  There was an additional cost to paying by check, and that included the cost of the checks, ($22.00 every 6-8 weeks) and another $1.00 anytime I needed to withdraw cash for cash only situations (there aren't that many of those!!!)

During that year it became evident that using a spreadsheet to monitor where the money was going could be very helpful.  As I began to categorize the checks, comparing them with my bank statements, I discovered just how much was getting thrown out and how much junk food was bought (and eaten, such a waste!!!)  Junk food is called junk for a reason!!! Plus, junk food can be expensive.  $6.00 bucks for chips and salsa?  really!!!

Now, I know I have covered the cost of using coupons in another post, but it is important to note that I got very serious about food spending during this year and began the rule of buying less junk food and absolutely no junk food purchases without a coupon and it must be on sale to get the double whammy of savings.

The spread sheet also revealed the cost of heating/cooling and our basic electrical usage.  Since we use electricity for our heating/cooling, cooking,  etc., our electrical bills were high.  But, something I did learn that year, that we still to this day do, and that is to unplug everything that drains electricity when we are not at home.  Everything, that is, except the fridge and stove.  The refrigerator must maintain the same temperature to save energy and the clock on the stove uses very little electricity. One note about the fridge, however...if you use the compartments in the fridge for items like dairy, veggies, etc, your food will stay fresher, longer and if this helps keep the fridge uncluttered there will be savings there as well. A cluttered fridge uses more electricity (wattages) than an uncluttered fridge.  Also, for more savings, fill up pop (soda) bottles with water and freeze.  Once they are frozen, place in your fridge to help maintain a more constant temperature.  If your children, or you, like to open the fridge door and stand there looking...just looking...for something to eat, stop this now...

I took a year to track my spending (aka follow my money trail) and it took me to many money savings ideas along the way.  Most of the changes I implemented that year are habits now, that I do without thinking.  I fill up pop bottles and place in the freezer, not too many though, maybe one at a time.  I freeze one bottle, then when frozen, place it in the fridge until thawed.  When thawed I replace it with a frozen bottle of water until that thaws. It takes no time at all and if I wasn't so busy,  I would find a way to monitor the savings on the wattage usage for the fridge.  But I have other things to do, so if any of my readers want to monitor this for us and share the results, it would be interesting information to have.

Swarm Moms I hope you find these posts helpful.