For the past 4 or 5 years, I’ve been consistently keeping a spend tracker of every dollar that comes in or out. This is reconciled weekly as the amount of transactions do start adding up and become overwhelming if I leave it for too long.

Not only does this help me keep an eye on where I’m spending my money, but it’s also been helpful for:

• Consolidating financial info for tax time
• Catch fraudulent transactions (it’s happened before!)
• Identifying missing recurring payments or bills (Avoid those fines!)
• Recognise spending trends (Are bills going up? Can I negotiate lower rates?)

While it sounds like more work and I know some people are already recoiling at the thought of going through their finances each week, it actually takes barely an hour once the habit is established.

I originally created my own simple tracker, but later found a more functional template on Reddit, which also has a Balance Sheet, Cashflow, Personal Loan tab (among other useful sections) that was built right into Google Sheets. I ended up converting it to Excel and mashed it with components of my own tracker to tweak it to my specifications.

Looking back at our main spending categories, over 90% are necessary expenses like mortgage, rent, bills, fuel, and food. We barely go shopping (even online shopping) as we try to avoid risking Covid19. While we’ve tried to minimise our mortgage and utility rates as much as possible, the biggest challenge has always been to reduce food and grocery spending.

Both Hubby and I love our food. Couple that with busy work schedules and we end up with a higher portion of takeout just from the exhaustion of a long day at work and not feeling like cooking and cleaning afterwards.

This year, with the baby coming and me at home on maternity leave, I’m aiming to cook dinner more frequently, with enough left for Hubby’s lunch the next day. This should reduce our current food and grocery spending of over $1k per month (scary!) to squeeze out more savings.