Monitoring Household Expenses

[TabascoSauce]

I track my personal expenses on a regular basis. But I don't see the need to break things down into such granular level.

I jus have a few major categories.
Taxes
Bills
Insurance
Transport
Parents
Dining and entertainment
Misc
Remarks on misc

Need to keep it simple enough so that it is easy to keep updating the spreadsheet

Been tracking my weekly expenses for the past 3.5 years

 

[verilyverily]

drink the water, ponder its source

Are you suggesting, you want to track how much you spend on your children? Geez!

But of course... there are many doting parents spending $thousands monthly on each child, whether on necessities or otherwise (enrichment, Disneyland vacations etc) and some may want a running ledger in black-and-white (hopefully not red) to prove to their children when they turn grown up ingrates. Even better, factor in the power of compounding with the years, so they will better appreciate how much just the financial sacrifice alone. The backlash, however, is that you may not get grandkids

 

[revhappy]

Yes of course I do what is wrong with that? I set up recurring bill reminders for quarterly payments I need to make for my kids preschool, after which my software puts them out monthly so I know my monthly run rate to achieve that FIRE you love talking about so much.

My kids preschool alone cost me 3 grand a month, those checks don't write themselves mate!

Ok, it makes sense now. I don't know why in the 1st instance I felt its absurd. You mentioned the word returns in your post, maybe that is how I misunderstood it.

 

[existential_reality]

Ah okay sorry my bad yes I can see how it can come across , actually its abit unrelated to tracking expenses but what I meant was we place deposits on many things i.e childcare (being one of them), SP Services etc which I track (goes into a "holding account") and when I can expect the deposits to be returned.

Its amazing how many corporations sometimes conveniently "forget" to return deposits, especially MCST who require renovation deposits etc.

Ok, it makes sense now. I don't know why in the 1st instance I felt its absurd. You mentioned the word returns in your post, maybe that is how I misunderstood it.