How To Track Your Monthly Expenses To Help Your Budget
We’ve all looked at our bank balance and wondered where it’s all gone. If you track your monthly expenses you’ll know where your money is being used, so you’re less likely to get a shock.
Tracking your spending on a regular basis will give you an accurate picture of what’s going on. Then by using a budget you can better plan where you’d like your money to be going.
Here are some ways to track your monthly expenses.
Track your monthly expenses by checking statements
Firstly you’ll want to look through your monthly account statements and take an inventory of everything you spend. Start with your current account but also check any credit cards or additional accounts that you use. Looking at everything in a list will help you to identify spending patterns.
Some of your expenses will be fixed expenses that don’t change from month to month. These will include living costs such as mortgage or rent, utilities, insurance policies etc. Other fixed costs may include debt payments, subscription services and savings. Then you’ll have variable expenses such as food, travel and clothing.
Categorise your expenses
Once you have a list of everything you’ve spent split it into different categories. This will help give you a better overview on where your money is going.
Some digital banks such as Monzo have the ability to categorise payments via the app so you can see it at a glance through your account. And if you have the plus account you can add your own categories, for example I have one purely for book spending.
There are no rules as to which categories you have as everyone’s spending will be different. But the main ones you’re likely to have are:
- Living expenses – rent/ mortgage, utilities
- Insurance policies- home/ life/ vehicle/ business insurance
- Debt payments – loans, buy now pay later schemes, credit card payments etc
- Groceries
- Eating out/ takeaways
- Transport- fuel, train/ bus fares
- Savings
Splitting things out to a pretty granular level will help you identify any themes. Once you break down your payments you should categorise them into wants, needs and savings/ debt.
Build your budget
Now you know where you’re spending your money, the next step to consider is your budget. A lot of people recommend the 50/30/20 rule with 50% of your income going on needs, 30% on wants, and 20% for savings. But with rising costs it can be hard to stick to that.
Having your expenses split into needs, wants and debt/ savings will help you prioritise your spending. Needs have to be accounted for first as they’re the things you can’t live without, although for some areas such as groceries and transport you may be able to reduce spending.
Then next up set aside your debt as this is something you have to pay, and savings. Finally what you’re left with is your wants category so anything non-essential lives in here. For us things like our Sky TV and entertainment subscriptions (YouTube/ Audible) etc sit here alongside spending on eating out, clothes and books.
Set up a tracking spreadsheet or use a budgeting app
I use a good old Google Sheet to track our household spending as it works best for me and the way our finances are set up. If you do all of your spending from a singular bank account you may be able to track and budget within your banking app. Or you may have a budgeting app that you prefer.
Whatever you choose to use make sure you keep track of your budget to make sure you stay on track. Keeping an eye on how you spend over the month will identify if you need to make adjustments as you go.
And reviewing every month will help you work out if you need to adjust the month aheads budget. For example if you’ve just booked a holiday you may need to up your monthly savings to pay for it. Our if you know you’ve got a busy social month ahead you may want to have more money in your eating out fund.
How do you track your monthly expenses and budget?
21 responses to “How To Track Your Monthly Expenses To Help Your Budget”
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Rhian Westbury
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I find having everything written down with the date it goes out does help a lot. meaning it is easier to keep track of our outgoings
These are all great tips. Tracking your expenses is an integral part of managing your overall finances.
I love all your tips. Tracking your expenses can be difficult if you don’t have a system in place. That’s how things surprise you at the end of the month!
Years ago I was so good about keeping track of my expenses and focusing on my budget – but in recent years I’ve let that go! Thanks for the tips and the encouragement to get back on track.
The fact that you’ve done it before should make it a lot easier x
This is all such sound advice – I’m terrible at managing money. I just can’t do it!
This is such a useful post. I do track my spending and at the moment I feel like a lot goes on the grocery shopping!
This is very helpful to me. I always struggled with how to track my expenses and it was very exhausting.
Love this idea! Such a great way to help you visually see how much you are spending in certain areas so you can see where you might be able to cut back & save more.
Yes visualisation can make a big difference to really see where you spend your money x
Absolutely, keeping tabs on our spending is crucial for financial awareness and control. Your advice on tracking expenses through monthly account statements is spot on. It’s amazing how reviewing these statements can unveil spending patterns, helping us distinguish between fixed and variable expenses.
Creating personalized categories, such as your dedicated one for book spending, is a fantastic way to tailor the analysis to individual preferences and priorities. The breakdown of main categories like living expenses, insurance, debt payments, and more provides a solid starting point for anyone looking to assess their financial landscape.
Everyone’s spending, habits and priorities are so different. For example I don’t drink coffee or tea so wouldn’t have a category for this, but if you love getting a coffee then you may x
Writing everything down and have a concise list is a great idea and very helpful. Love your informative articles on saving and budgeting. Thanks for sharing!
Building a spreadsheet is such a good idea, but I always find starting so daunting! Thank you for these tips.
Yeah, starting is the hardest step x
I’m guilty for being a bit slack on this although I do tend just to concentrate on buying essentials. I should create a spreadsheet and also look into using a budgeting app to help guide me.
Your insights on categorizing spending into needs, wants, and savings/debt make it so much clearer and easier to manage.
This post was definitely for me. I am not keeping an eye on my expenses at all and end of the month I wonder where did I spend the money.
It’s easy enough to not look into it and be surprised when it’s gone x
Loving these tips and so useful for me for the New Year. Thank you for sharing and I am looking for new creative ways to save money so this is super helpful.