Thursday, March 4, 2010

Tracking every penny spend


One of my best friends recently asked me why I am so obsessed about tracking. Yes I can actually tell how much I spent on tea when I was in my college and so on.

I do this because seeing my tracking equips me with the knowledge of my exact financial status. This in turn leads to good money habits and power to take informed financial decisions in my life. After I got married I took the responsibility of managing our joint finances. My disciplined money habits helped us in surviving a pay cut of my DH, critical illness of my MIL, setting up a new home, buying new car, all in two years of our marriage.

We would never have survived financially if I had debt or not had savings to survive in these testing times. I used my good money habits to take care of my family during tough economy.

My suggestion to all of my blogging friends, "start tracking!". It will be a record book of all your wise money decisions and not-so-good money decisions. It will teach you a lot about your spending habits, and will also serve as motivator and teacher in future.

2 comments:

  1. I guess this is the second time I am saying this, but I really find it too difficult and impractical to track every thing even when I use credit card for everything. I just have a sense of the big ticket things and that certainly helps.

    ReplyDelete
  2. oh i track.. just that it isn't consistent.
    my tracking pad usually is the reverse side of train ticket or a small 'to do" paper i carry in wallet.
    as i once said in a reply of urs, i have found the benefit of it when during the first time i realised i spent more on magazines than the train ticket. since then have started taking the unread books tat am at home always in bag.
    Just that i haven't started yet on permenant basis. one has to do with my employment status until now, but this year onwards i too become a proud citizen who is entitled to pay taxes:) So gotta do tat tracking seriously.
    ..hmm will do tat IT..
    And kudos to your habit,you managed those unfortune events sucessfully.
    Its a wonderful achievement ,keep it up.

    ReplyDelete