Rant: I tracked every dollar for 2 months and found out I was blowing $260 on stuff I forgot I bought | Budgeting Wins - Freelance Forum - The Community for Independent Professionals
Rant: I tracked every dollar for 2 months and found out I was blowing $260 on stuff I forgot I bought
I used to think my budget was fine because I always paid rent and bills on time, but when I actually wrote down every single purchase for 60 days I found $260 a month going to apps and snacks I didn't even remember buying. My wife says tracking is too much work and you should just set a spending limit per category, but I think seeing each $4 charge is the only thing that stuck. Which side are you on, strict tracking or just setting limits?
My buddy Dave did the category limit thing for like a year and swore by it. Then his kid needed a new laptop and he went to check his "fun money" and realized he'd been double counting his coffee runs into both his food budget and his fun budget the whole time. So his limits looked fine on paper but he was actually about 90 bucks over every month and never noticed. He switched to tracking every single charge after that and found a bunch of little stuff, mostly app subs and vending machine runs at work. Idk man, limits are nice in theory but they let you lie to yourself. Seeing the actual charges is what makes it real.